Part V.

They Sang.

I.

Sudden, in golden arms he came: I stood begirt with maiden bands: Sudden he came, all bright like flame; Upon my head he laid his hands.

“This day past victories I disown: This day I seek the battle‐field A stranger chief, a knight unknown, Without a blazon on my shield.”

“Not man, but He the worlds who made, My hope shall frustrate or approve”— I only bent my knee, and said, “Victor or vanquished, thee I love.”

II.

They set me on a milk‐white horse; Our household tribe around me trod; Like rivers down a rocky course, On rushed the warriors vowed to God.

I rode, the victor’s destined prize, Last stake when hope was all but gone: The flashes from a virgin’s eyes Like music swept the warriors on!

’Twas theirs their maid elect to guard, The direful battle’s gentle guest: ’Twas mine to watch, inspire, reward; To honor all—to crown the best.

But who that stranger chief from far That like some brave ship tempest‐tossed Bore on o’er all the waves of war; Redeemed a battle all but lost?

I knew. The victor’s crown I dropp’d Upon thy brows, my future lord: That night thou satt’st—O boon unhoped— The first time by my father’s board!

III.

The victory ours, the feasting o’er, The nameless victor gazed around; “Emir! I claim the prize of war, Thy daughter’s hand.” My father frowned.

“Uplift her in thine arms,” he said; “Then scale yon hillside smooth and dry: This done, my daughter thou shalt wed: To halt—forget not—is to die.”

I stood: my beating heart cried out, “Thou canst not fail!” That cry he heard: He raised me ’mid the warriors’ shout; Forward he rushed without a word.

His breath came quick: his brows grew dark: “My brother, lover, friend,” I cried: He reeled: his eyes were stiff and stark: I wept, “This day thou winn’st thy bride!”

He fell—but on the summit won, Amid the vast and wide acclaim: He lay, a dead man, in the sun: I kissed his lips, and felt no shame.

Round him the warriors stood amazed; His love—’twas that brought back his life: Down on him long my father gazed, Then spake, “My son, behold thy wife!”

IV.

On carpets heaped my mother sate: I sate, I nestled on her knee; We heard a murmur round the gate: My mantle, purple as the sea,

I drew about my little feet, And nearer sought my mother’s breast: He came; she spake, not slow to greet With courteous words the victor‐guest.

Slowly my veil my mother’s hands Lifted, to boast the battle’s prize;— “Prince! thou would’st give thy life and lands, If I but raised it to her eyes!”

V.

I knew thee well when first we met; I knew thee well when seldom seen; When we had parted, plainlier yet I read thy nature—nay, thy mien.

Thine earliest glance my tremors stayed; Then softly, and by slow degrees, With thee my confidence I made, And, pleased, discovered I could please.

But now that we are drawn so near, I lose thee in thine own fair light; Vanish the outlines once so clear:— I know thee more by faith than sight.

VI.

Upon my shoulder, lightly as a bird, Her white hand lit: then back she fled, afraid; Beside my seat once more she stood, nor stirred, But loosed her hair, and round me dropped its shade.

Down to my feet it fell—a sudden night: She spake, “Thy darkness and eclipse am I; But thou my sunrise art, and all my light; Still to weak things love grants the victory.”

More dulcet than the viol rang her laugh; Low laughed her mother; laughed her nurse full loud: “Not _thee_ I fear,” she cried, indignant half, And kissed, methought, the head o’er which she bowed.

VII.

My Lyre reproved my childish mirth: My Lute, remembering sad, old years, Complained, “Thy feet are yet on earth; Thou caroll’st in the vale of tears.”

I hung my head: ashamed I moved; I answered soft with whispering voice, “O Love! ’tis thou that stand’st reproved; The fault is thine, if I rejoice;

“Not less this covenant have I made: I will not fold my hands in sleep Till aid to those who cry for aid I stretch—have wept with them that weep.”

VIII.

He sang, “I dreamed. Of thee, all night, one thought Shone like a white flower on a darkling mere Or like one star that flashes, rapture‐fraught, Through one blue gulf of heaven serene, and clear.”

She sang, “I dreamed not: happiest sleep is deep: I woke as wakes the young bird in the woods;— Thy spirit must have hung above my sleep, A bower balm‐breathing from a thousand buds.”

We strove in song; we sang, my love and I, Where laughed the streams, and where the rock’s broad breast Echoed the untaught, ecstatic harmony: We warred in happy songs; but hers was best.

IX.

Thou art not mine as I am thine: As great, or greater, is thy love; But loftier thoughts above thee shine, And lordlier aims before thee move.

The hand now clasping mine—that hand Let drop this hand to grasp the sword; It hurled in ruin from our land The impostor Prophet’s sons abhorred.

Manhood fell on thee with my tears At parting. With a woman’s joy I loved the warrior ’mid his peers— ’Twas girlish fancy loved the boy!

X.

Mother of him I loved and love, My mother too, ere long, to be! With loving words his choice approve, And take thy daughter to thy knee:

So shall mine eyes, up‐gazing still, Thine eyes in filial reverence watch; My hand be subject to thy will; My heart from thine its greatness catch.

The young can learn, and I am young And labor to be good and true— Tell her, O thou that know’st! I long To give her age its honors due.

XI.

He sang, “Upon the myrtle’s silver stem Thy name I carved. Henceforth that tree is mine!” Low‐laughing ’neath her vine‐wrought anadem She sang, “Thy name I graved upon the pine!

“The slenderer hand the stronger bark subdued— Say, is it lordlier, bound and tamed to lead The forest‐monarch from his sunburnt wood, Or snare some little bird that took no heed?”

We sang in valleys where the spring flowers sprang To passionate life: the eagle o’er us sailed: Down plunged the torrents, and the gray cliffs rang: We clashed our songs in war; but hers prevailed.

XII.

Methought to thine my angel spake:— Near us he seemed, and yet above— “Two children these! their sport they take; They teach each other how to love.”

Thine angel answered thus to mine: “When Virtue, perfected by pain, Has changed earth‐love to love divine, Then, stooping, we will lift these twain

“From this dull cave of mortal life Low‐roofed, and dimly lit with spars, To realms with love’s whole glories rife, And over‐vaulted by the stars,

“Where souls that love their God are one; Where He who made them is their joy: Play on—too young for love—play on! Your sports are sport of girl and boy!”

XIII.

Two hands—they meet; they part—’tis better so; Parted, they meet to shape one coronal: Two feet—they meet; they part, now swift, now slow They pace to music through one palace hall.

Two eyes—they move in concord: wanderers long, At last they rest on one unmoving star: Two mouths, in kisses met, dispart in song— Sweet are our meetings; sweet our partings are.

XIV.

I come, I go; yet neither shall repine: Sad is the parting; the return is sweet: Once more the battle with a voice divine Decrees our severance. Soon once more we meet.

We part not, save in seeming. We are one, In spirit one; in spirit we rejoice; Two voices are we, blent in unison, Two echoes of one mountain‐thrilling voice.

Nearer we are than words, than thought, can reach; Nearer we shall be; nearest, met on high; Nearest as not belonging each to each, But both to Him—that Love Who cannot die.

The Veil Withdrawn.

Translated, By Permission, From The French Of Madame Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story,” “Fleurange,” Etc.

XIII.

That evening we went to the opera, the next night to the theatre; then came invitations without number to a series of dinners, _matinées_, and _soirées_ that succeeded each other without intermission. I refrain from enumerating them, for I am writing the history of my soul rather than my exterior life. I will merely say, therefore, that after continuing this course several weeks, I found myself in a most singular and unhappy frame of mind. My thoughts, imagination, and whole mind became too much absorbed in the amusements and pleasures the young are often carried away with through curiosity and a superabundance of life and activity, which might be satisfied more completely, however, and in a less dangerous way, than by a career of pleasure, the almost inevitable effect of which is to produce a kind of intoxication. This intoxication overpowered me to a certain degree, but it left me, however, the faculty of realizing the change that had come over me, and I felt a painful desire to be what I once was. I had no peace of mind. I could not reflect or pray, even in my short intervals of leisure, and, in order to avoid the irksomeness of solitude, I gladly returned to the round of pleasure into which my husband liked to draw me. I had, it is true, the double safeguard of his love for me and my indifference to any other admiration but his. A vague uneasiness sometimes crossed my mind like an ominous cloud, but I did not dream there could possibly be any danger for either of us in the enervating atmosphere of flattery and frivolity which we breathed more and more constantly.

Lorenzo continued to hover around me in public, or, if he remained at a distance, to watch me with an attention that was disagreeable because it seemed inexplicable. Nothing could have pleased me more than to have his eyes always meeting mine, and to find him everywhere near enough to speak to; but this was quite a different thing, for, even when I was not looking towards him, I could feel his persistent eyes fastened on me, and as soon as I raised my head he would turn away as if to avoid encountering my glance. Was it with love or pride that his eyes thus followed me? Was it not rather as if he expected to take me by surprise, or was mistrustful of me? When this doubt occurred to my mind, I felt the blood rush to my face, and love and pride revolt in my heart.

One day we were invited to a large dinner‐party in one of those magnificent houses in Paris which have the now rare advantage of a fine garden. It was past the season for full dress, and I merely wore a white muslin trimmed with lace, and a wreath of flowers whose colors harmonized with that perfect taste shown in everything at Paris. When I made my appearance, the whole company united in exclaiming that my fresh toilet was wonderfully becoming. Perhaps they were right. I was of an age that flowers suited better than jewels, and my complexion could bear the light of day without any danger. The days were now at their longest, so, in spite of the interminable length of a grand dinner, the delicious twilight hour was not quite gone when we rose from the table, and all issued forth through the windows into the garden. If ever the sight of the green grass, the leaves on the trees, the perfume and brilliancy of the flowers, and the varied hues of the sky as day declines, are more attractive and grateful at one time than another, it is certainly when contrasted with the stifling atmosphere, the air impregnated with the odor of dishes, and the brilliant artificial light, at a grand dinner in mid‐summer. Therefore it was with inexpressible relief and an almost child‐like joy I flew down the steps into the garden as soon as the master of the house left my movements free, and strolled along the broad alley that divided the lawn, inhaling with delight the freshness of the balmy air.... My life of pleasure had never quenched the ardent love of solitude that sometimes came over me, and I now longed to be alone. I desired this the more because I felt uneasy about a new change in Lorenzo’s manner, and wished to reflect undisturbed on the inference I should draw from it.

For the first time since our arrival at Paris he had not, to my knowledge, watched one of my movements, though I had received more flattery that day, perhaps, than ever before.... During the dinner he appeared devoted to his neighbors—on one side, a lady who was still beautiful, though no longer in the bloom of youth; and on the other, a young gentleman with a thoughtful, striking face, who grew animated whenever Lorenzo addressed him, and seemed to reply with much interest. I was told that the former was Mme. de B——, the other the young Count Gilbert de Kergy, “a great traveller also,” added the master of the house, beside whom I was seated. “And it was solely the hope of meeting the Duca di Valenzano that induced him to accept my invitation to dine with us to‐day. He does not care for the _grand monde_; and when he returns from one of his extensive journeys, he shuts himself up at home, or plunges into the charitable world, which is another _grand monde_ little suspected by strangers who only come to Paris for a time.”

All this might perhaps have interested me at some other time, but my mind was now occupied in trying to ascertain the reality of the change I had remarked. It was now my turn to give sly glances towards the other side of the table, but I did not once detect Lorenzo looking towards me. And yet it was not owing to the interest he took in the conversation. How many times I had seen him apparently absorbed in conversation, while a rapid glance of the eye convinced me he had been constantly attentive to every movement I made. There was nothing of this kind to‐day. I knew him too well not to perceive the difference, but I did not know what to think of it, or if I had any reason to rejoice at it.

These thoughts beset me during the trifling conversation that varies the _ennui_ of a large dinner, and even prevented me from perceiving that our host was a gentleman of superior intelligence, and profiting by it. Before leaving the table, I stealthily turned my eyes once more in the direction they had so often taken within an hour. It was evident that Lorenzo did not trouble himself any more about me to‐day than any other husband about his wife in public. But this time I perceived his young neighbor looking at me rather attentively, though with a look of seriousness almost amounting to austerity, very different from the glances so often encountered in the world which always made me lower my eyes. His inspired me with a kind of sympathy, and did not give me the slightest embarrassment.

I had, however, no opportunity for reflection during my walk, for I was almost immediately surrounded by friends, and I soon turned back to hunt for Lorenzo. Daylight was almost gone, which made it difficult to recognize any one; but at last I discovered him on the steps by means of his lofty stature and noble features, which were distinctly defined against the light of the _salon_ within. Near him sat his next neighbor at dinner, holding a fan in her hand, and talking in an animated manner. Lorenzo appeared to be listening without making any attempt to reply. Once or twice he turned his head towards the garden. He was looking for me, perhaps....

It had now grown entirely too dark to distinguish any one around me. I was standing motionless near a bench on which sat two or three gentlemen talking together.

“Mme. de B—— looks almost as handsome as ever this evening,” said one of them. “One would really think she was trying to regain her ascendency!...”

“It would be very difficult, however, to supplant that lovely, golden‐ haired Sicilian.”

“Impossible, certainly, in the eyes of any other man; but in those of her husband, who knows?”

This was one of those speeches that are always flying at random, and striking the ear on every side in the world—speeches which one hears without listening to, but which weaken the moral sense, as physical diseases are produced by breathing dangerous miasmata too frequently. Since I had lived in this atmosphere many things of a similar nature had been said in my presence. Alas! it was sufficient to hear Lorenzo and Lando’s conversation to learn how far light words of this kind can go. I therefore tried to attach no importance to the gossip I had thus accidentally overheard. Even if Lorenzo did formerly pay homage to this now somewhat faded beauty, why should I care? That did not trouble me for the moment. My only anxiety was to ascertain if his happening to meet her was the cause of the change I had observed, or if I must seek some other. In a word, ought I to be anxious or to rejoice?

Having escaped, in the almost utter darkness, from those who tried to detain me, I was slowly advancing towards the steps when I suddenly met Lorenzo.... He was in search of me, for he had on his arm my thin mantle of white cashmere, which he wrapped around my shoulders. I joyfully seized hold of his arm, and said in a low tone: “Pray do not go in yet, Lorenzo. Let us walk awhile in this beautiful covered alley.”

He began to laugh. “That would be very sentimental,” said he, “for people who are no longer in their honey‐moon; but no matter, I consent. _Honi soit qui mal y pense._ Besides, I see yonder an illuminated tent, where, I am told, they are preparing a musical surprise for us. Let us go in that direction.”

We walked a short distance without speaking. There was nothing absolutely calculated to wound me in what he said, but his light, indifferent tone was not what I longed to hear. Amid all the excitement of fashionable society, I felt that his love constituted the only happiness of my life; and if I had supposed that to be the only cause of his vigilance and anxiety concerning me, I should never have sought to escape from it. But I had been doubtful about this, and felt so still. And I was too open, too confiding, and perhaps too petulant, to remain in doubt any longer.

“Let us stop here, Lorenzo,” I said when we arrived at the end of the covered walk. “I see people coming this way. We can follow them into the tent, and it will be supposed we came with the crowd.”

In fact, a brilliant _soirée_ succeeded the dinner. The _salons_ and garden were filled with company. The light from the tent extended to the place where we were standing, though we were out of sight. I sat down on a bench against a tree, and Lorenzo took a seat beside me.

“I have a question to ask you,” said I suddenly. “Promise to give me a sincere reply.”

He seemed surprised. He raised his eyebrows slightly, and his smiling face became clouded.

“I do not much like to be questioned, Ginevra, I forewarn you.”

“But you always seem to like to have me answer your questions.”

“Yes, but without depending on it; for I know how to question and obtain an answer without giving you the trouble to reply.”

“And is that why you look at me instead of speaking, and your eyes are always following me so attentively?”

He smiled, and made no reply for a while.

“Perhaps that has been the cause of my doing so till to‐day.”

“Till to‐day?”

“Yes; since you ask me, I confess it without any hesitation. Love does not always, among its privileges, possess the faculty of seeing clearly. Therefore I have been mistrustful of mine, and have not allowed it to influence me in the least in studying you.”

I made a slight gesture of surprise.

“Listen, Ginevra. One never knows what a young soldier is till his first battle. Neither can one tell what a young woman of your age is till she appears on the terrible battle‐field of the fashionable world. But if I have any faculty, it is, I believe, that of not being deceived in a study of this kind. Be assured, Ginevra, that from this time I shall watch you no more.”

“Then, Lorenzo,” said I, somewhat hurt, “you really watched me through suspicion, and all this time was necessary to convince you I am to be trusted?”

“I wished to see you under fire,” said he, resuming his jesting tone. “Do not complain of this, ma belle Ginevra. You have come out of the trial victorious—victorious to such a degree that, though I thought you more charming to‐day than ever, I have not once thought of watching you. And yet,” continued he in a tone he tried to render playful, but which was bitter in spite of himself, “those flowers that are so becoming to you are not all calculated to reassure me.” And plucking a red carnation from my wreath, he held it up before me with a smile that seemed cruel, and was about to put it in his button‐hole when, pale as death, I snatched it from his hand, and threw it as far as I could.

“Lorenzo!” I said in a trembling voice, “you are ungenerous!... and you are very unjust!...”

I should have done better to say, as well as think, that he did not know what he was doing. No; he little knew what had taken place in my soul since the day he thus recalled, which was so sanguinary, so fatal in its results. No; he could not conceive the intolerable pain he gave me by thus suddenly reviving my regret, my sorrow, and my shame!...

He could read my heart to a certain extent, but how far he was—alas! how incapable he was—of penetrating to the bottom of my soul, and fully comprehending, or even suspecting, the radical change which that one day had wrought in my nature.

He saw with surprise and alarm my agitation and the sudden paleness of my face, and endeavored to calm me; but I noticed he was at once anxious and annoyed about the emotion he had excited.

I made a violent effort to regain my self‐control, and soon succeeded in allaying the throbbing of my heart. But I felt as if an icy wind had crossed my path, chilling too soon the opening flowers of my dawning happiness, and causing them to droop their heads.

XIV.

From that day Lorenzo, as he promised, ceased to manifest any interest in what I did in society. But this apparent confidence afforded me no pleasure. I remained painfully wounded at what had passed between us. I considered his suspicions even more humiliating than those of my father, and began to feel that the fault I had so greatly deplored had not merited so long and cruel a chastisement.

Moreover, I was only relieved from the anxiety caused by his vigilance to experience another which was soon to increase and reveal to me at last my true destiny. It did not, in fact, require a long time to discover that Lorenzo’s new attitude was sometimes less like confidence than indifference. It frequently happened that I searched a long time for him in the different _salons_ where we were accustomed to spend all our evenings, without being able to find him. One day I perceived him talking in a very animated manner with Mme. de B——, and, when I approached, I fancied there was a slight expression of displeasure in his face, which, though promptly concealed, was sufficient to cause me a painful sensation of embarrassment.

When we were alone, however, I found him unchanged. His manner towards me had lost nothing of its charm; he seemed as affectionate as ever, and yet an invisible barrier had risen between us, which was constantly increasing, and I began to experience a feeling of solitude that was especially painful in society, but from which I was nowhere completely exempt.

But the success of my first appearance in the world had now given way to that of fashion. The arrival of some foreign prince, whose name I no longer remember, prolonged the gay season at Paris this year, and one reunion succeeded another as if it were carnival time. There was not one to which I was not invited, and, though an undeniable need of rest began to overpower the feverish activity that for some time had come over me, I was unable to stop, for I began to perceive that a quiet, tranquil life was insupportable to Lorenzo unless in his studio. Out of that, he wished to be incessantly in motion, and, as he could not now seriously resume his artist life, he gave himself up entirely to that of the world, and was not yet indifferent to the pleasure of having me accompany him.

It was therefore impossible for me to extricate myself from the giddy round of which I had grown so weary, and I sometimes envied those who were satisfied with the mere pleasure of attracting attention. I felt astonished then, and I still am, at the wonderful part played by vanity in these gayeties, which are so different to those who participate in them from what they seem to the crowd who are excluded. The music, the dancing, the splendid apartments, the gayety of youth requisite to enjoy all this, and, to crown the whole, the pleasure of meeting those who are dear, are the chief attractions and keenest enjoyments which cause those who have the power of exhausting them to be envied by all who are deprived of them. If this were really all, such a life would be ennobled to a certain degree in my eyes, for its dangers and its pleasures would at least be commensurate with the love and the disapprobation of which they are the object. But the seductions of the world consist chiefly in the satisfaction of eclipsing others, and the intoxication it causes is almost always produced, not by the pleasure it gives, but by the vanity of those who mingle in it. This seems strange when we reflect upon it, and we can see, without rising very high, that not only happiness, but pleasure, and even amusement, can find a better source; and consequently those who really possess these envied blessings are the people who are supposed to be the most debarred from them.

As for me, I was no longer light‐hearted, but I tried to appear so in society; for the sad expression I could not always disguise had excited some observations that wounded my pride.

“What! the fair Ginevra really melancholy?” said Lando Landi, sitting down beside me one evening at a concert, and speaking in the familiar tone authorized by his relationship, but which was none the less displeasing. “I have always denied it, because you are so invariably cheerful when I see you out of this everlasting din, as I do every day. I only supposed you a little weary of so gay a life—a thing conceivable, even in your case, for one gets tired of everything, even of turning people’s heads; but this evening you really have the air of a tragic muse.”

“I am a little fatigued, that is all.”

“Listen to me, cousin, and do not treat me so badly. I see you do not like me, which proves I am not self‐conceited; and I am not angry with you, which proves I am not malicious. Moreover, I greatly admire and love you, and yet (give me some credit for this) I do not pay court to you.”

“Come, Lando, no more of such jests, but come to the point.”

“I was about to beg you to show some confidence in me. You are sad, and I will tell you why: you have heard some nonsensical gossip about Lorenzo. Now, cousin, let me tell you....”

“What gossip?” I asked, turning red with an air of displeasure.

“You understand me perfectly well. I am certain I tell you nothing new. It may seem presuming to speak of this, but I must justify Lorenzo. Believe what I say, and do not attach any importance to a passing politeness in memory of former times, which means nothing, and really does not, on my word of honor, merit such a flash from your beautiful eyes.”

He had indeed found the means of making them flame up.

“Really, Lando,” said I haughtily, “it would serve you right if I never spoke to you again.”

But he was evidently so seriously astonished that I saw I was wrong. He had been presuming without knowing it or intending it. I therefore continued in a milder tone:

“I assure you, you are absolutely mistaken. I am neither sad nor anxious, ... only a little _ennuyée_, that is all. And to‐night I am sleepy, and wish to return home as soon as possible. Give me your arm, and let us go in search of Lorenzo.”

“It is not much after midnight,” he said; “you must really remain a while longer to hear the last two pieces.”

“No, I tell you I have had enough of it. But if you wish to remain here, you need not feel obliged to escort me. The first person I meet will render me that service.”

“_Ma cher!_” said he, rising and shaking his head, as he concluded to give me his arm.

We began our voyage of discovery through the long row of _salons_, but could not find Lorenzo anywhere. Lando said nothing, but I noticed he cast a quick, mistrustful glance around every room we entered, and it occurred to me he had not told the truth, but merely wished to reassure me when he knew Lorenzo was having a _tête‐à‐tête_ it was as humiliating for me to be ignorant of as to discover. Lando had touched a sorer spot than I was willing he should see. For in spite of an apparently very frank explanation on this point from Lorenzo himself a few days before, suspicion had entered my heart, and I was in constant need of being reassured. Was not this acknowledging I already had reason to tremble?

At length we arrived at the last _salon_. Lorenzo was not there. There was only a small room beyond, not as well lighted as the rest.

“That is the library,” explained Lando in his way; “or, at least, a cabinet full of books, where no one ever goes.”

An almost imperceptible movement of his arm made me feel he wished to prevent me from entering. This was enough to induce me to go straight to the door, where I stopped short, at once reassured and amazed. Four men were there by themselves, sitting around a card‐table with a green covering. Two of them were playing, and Lorenzo was one of them; the others followed the game with the most intense interest. I remained leaning against the door, motionless, and my eyes fastened on him. Was that really Lorenzo?... What a change in his countenance!... What a strange expression in his mobile face! He did not perceive me, and I felt that my voice would have sounded in his ear in vain. He neither saw nor heard anything around him. His looks, his attention, his mind, and his whole being seemed absorbed in the cards he held in his hand. He was calm, but his slightly‐compressed eyebrows showed that luck was against him.

In a few minutes he drew a roll of gold pieces from his pocket, and threw them on the table. His opponent rose, but Lorenzo remained in his seat, and began a new game with one of those who had been watching the old one.

“Take a seat here,” said Lando, leading me towards one of the sofas in the room where we were. “I am going to tell Lorenzo you are waiting for him. Do not go in yourself.”

I made a sign of assent, and for the first time gave Lando credit for some tact. His usually smiling face had, moreover, an air of anxious solicitude that not only surprised me, but redoubled the strange, unexpected shock I had just experienced. He went into the next room, and, after waiting a long time, I at last saw him come out; but he was alone.

“It is impossible to speak to him till the end of the game,” he said in a tone of vexation. Then, after a moment’s silence, he added with a forced laugh: “My dear cousin, you would have done much better to follow my advice and wait for Lorenzo in the concert‐room instead of coming here after him. But since you persisted in doing so, allow me to give you one bit of advice, now you have caught him falling into his old bad habit again.”

“Again?” I said with an air of surprise.

“Well, yes.... For a year he did not touch a card, he told me, for he well knew that for him the mere touch was like a spark that kindles a fire. He vowed—not to play moderately, for he is incapable of moderation in anything—but never to touch a card again, and he expressed great satisfaction some days since that he had kept his promise so faithfully. But to‐day he has broken it. Who knows what will happen to‐morrow? Make use, therefore, of the influence you still have over him; use all the persuasive powers you possess to induce him to resolve once more on a wise course. It is a thing, you may be sure, that threatens your happiness, as well as his, a thousand times more than all the fair ones in the past, present, or future who should attempt to rival you!”

In spite of all that was displeasing in Lando’s manner, language, and sentiments, and even in the expressions he made use of in giving me this advice, I felt it was dictated by sincere interest, and it touched me. I felt weighed down by this new trouble. This was a fear I had never experienced before. It was absolutely foreign to everything that had crossed my mind. Was this to live, love, and be happy? Everything around me looked dark, and the night seemed to penetrate to my very soul.

The time I had to wait seemed interminable. The concert was over, the rooms were growing empty, and we were to be the last. I rose with an impatience I could no longer control, and went again to the cabinet. Lorenzo was rising from the table just as I entered. I saw him slip another roll of money into his opponent’s hands. Then he came towards me with his usual expression. It was evident he had no suspicion of my having been so near him for more than an hour.

“Excuse me, Ginevra,” said he. “What! is the concert over? And you had to search for me?... It is unpardonable; but I had no idea they would get to the end of that interminable programme so early.”

“But it is nearly two o’clock,” said I.

He glanced towards the clock, and looked surprised. Lando, meanwhile, had hurried away to get my cloak; but he soon returned with it, saying the carriage was waiting for us. I entered it with Lorenzo, after giving my hand more cordially to his cousin than I had ever done before.

On the way home Lorenzo, after a long silence, thought proper to explain that he had got tired of the concert, and for amusement had had recourse to a game of _écarté_. Lando’s words were still in my ears. My heart, too, was filled with inexpressible anxiety and profound affection for this dear partner of my life who was so charming in manner, and whom it would have been so sweet to love in peace! I leaned my head against his shoulder, and, passing my arm through his, said:

“Lorenzo, if I take the liberty of giving you one word of advice, will you follow it? If I beg you to make me one promise—a promise that will render me happy—will you not grant it?”

He made so abrupt a movement that I was almost frightened. But he immediately resumed his self‐control, and, softly kissing my hand and forehead, said in a tone that was not rude, but which seemed to forbid all reply:

“Ginevra, I think I told you the other day that I do not like to be questioned, and I now tell you that I like advice still less, and, above all, I cannot bear to make promises. So let this warning suffice. Avoid these three shoals, if you wish to remain in my eyes what I now consider you—the most charming of women.”

XV.

The following day was Sunday. Notwithstanding so fatiguing an evening, the lateness of the hour when I retired, and the restless night that followed, I was ready for Mass at the usual hour. But for the first time since my marriage Lorenzo sent me word not to wait for him. Of course I had never been under any great illusion as to his religious sentiments. I supposed that habit, rather than piety, induced him to accompany me to church; but I was far from suspecting that he had hitherto made it a point to do so because he thought it necessary to keep an eye on me there as well as elsewhere. Above all, I little expected the habit to be laid aside as soon as he was reassured or became interested in something else. I consoled myself on this occasion by thinking he would go to a later Mass; and for the first time I went out alone and on foot, the distance being so short between our hotel in the Rue de Rivoli and the Church of S. Roch.

The life I had led for two months was not precisely adapted to dispose my soul for prayer. Besides, accustomed as I had been to the churches of Italy, those at Paris seemed destitute of all beauty, and I found it difficult to get used to so different an aspect. But other impressions soon modified this. The goodness and piety that so thoroughly impregnated the atmosphere which surrounded my childhood were rather the spirit of our family than of the land that had providentially given me birth. And yet there is, in Sicily, as well as all Southern Italy, a great deal of faith, though it cannot be denied that, at this time, great moral relaxation and religious indifference were too prevalent, especially among those who belonged to the upper classes. There, more than anywhere else even, holy souls led hidden lives, and edification was rather to be found in the obscurity of certain firesides than in the world at large, or even in the usages of public worship. All the religious exercises of our family were performed in the chapel of the old palace we occupied. This chapel was spacious, richly ornamented, and architecturally beautiful. We not only heard Mass there on Sundays, but every day, and two or three times a week Don Placido gave us an instructive, edifying discourse. My father, mother, Livia, Ottavia, Mario (who, in spite of his faults, retained his respect for holy things), and several faithful old servants constituted the attentive, devout congregation. My childhood was not wanting in any of those influences that have so powerful an effect on after‐life. Ottavia often took Livia and myself to the evening Benediction in one of the neighboring churches, and my heart still throbs at the remembrance of the pious transport with which I knelt before the illuminated tabernacle on which stood the monstrance. The church used to be filled solely by people of the humbler classes, even on festivals. It was a rare thing to find a single person belonging to the upper classes. What struck me, therefore, above all, at Paris, was the complete difference of the churches in this respect. I was at first even more surprised than edified. For if I had often remarked the absence of the wealthy in Sicily, here I was struck with the absence of the poor. I looked around for the people clothed in rags, whose fervor had so often redoubled mine, and did not like to feel that I was separated from them. This separation is much more marked where the custom of private chapels has been established. Christian equality calls the rich and great to the foot of the altar, no less than the poor and lowly; and if they do not all meet there, whether in France or Italy, we cannot blame those whose attendance at church is an example to the absent, whatever rank they may belong to.

But to return to this Sunday morning. I knelt down and heard Mass with much less distraction than usual. I was, it is true, rather sad than devout at the time, but I prayed more fervently than I had done for a long time, and, when I slowly and reluctantly left the church, the inner soul, that resounds like a lyre under the divine hand, had received a slight touch, and for the first time for a long while I felt the movement of one of those hidden chords that cannot be sounded without causing all the others to vibrate.

As I approached the door of the church, I noticed a young girl kneeling on a chair, whose face did not seem wholly unknown to me. She held a purse in her hand, and was soliciting contributions for orphans. I deposited my offering, and received her smiling thanks in return. As I passed on, I heard her whisper my name to a lady of noble and distinguished appearance beside her (whom I supposed to be her mother), who, with her eyes fastened on her book, had not observed me. As I went on, I recollected having met this pretty girl two or three times in company, but did not know her name. I felt surprised that she should know mine, though this often happens to strangers who are pointed out as objects of curiosity, while they only know a few of those around them.

I had no time, however, to dwell on this accidental meeting, or quietly enjoy the impressions left by the services at church; for Lorenzo’s first words immediately revived all the recollections of the morning.

“You are late, Ginevra,” said he. “It is half‐past eleven. Breakfast is waiting, and I am in a hurry.”

We took seats at the table in silence, but he soon resumed:

“You have scarcely time to dress. Have you forgotten that we are going to the races? Lando Landi is to come for us before one o’clock.”

Yes, I had completely forgotten it. I felt an earnest desire to withdraw from the engagement. I wanted one day of peace and quiet repose. I felt the need of drinking in more deeply the breath of pure air I had just tasted. Could I not have a few hours to myself? Must I at once go where I should inhale a different atmosphere? And what an atmosphere!...

Seeing that I remained silent and had a pensive air, he said in an impatient tone:

“Well, Ginevra, what is it? What have you to tell me or ask me?...”

I replied without any circumlocution: “I have nothing to say, except that I am tired to death of those races, and beg you to excuse me from accompanying you to‐day.”

His face immediately cleared up. “Is that all?” said he. “As to that, you are at perfect liberty to do as you please. You may be sure,” continued he, laughing, “that I shall only contradict you on great occasions.... But what will you do with yourself this afternoon, if you do not go to the races?”

“I shall do like everybody else in France—go to Vespers.”

He gave a derisive laugh that was horrible.

“Everybody else, do you say? It would be very difficult to tell how many in Paris even go to Mass!”

I looked at him, as he said this. He understood my meaning, and appeared displeased.

“Come, Ginevra,” said he in an ill‐humored manner, “are you going to insist that I must always agree with you?”

“By no means, Lorenzo, you know very well.”

“But you did not like it because you had to go to church without me this morning.”

I hesitated an instant, but at last replied with some emotion:

“Of course I love to have you with me wherever I go, and more especially there; but it would be better, however, for you to go to church always without me than ever to go _solely_ for me.”

This reply increased his displeasure, and he said in a tone he had never used before:

“Unfortunately, the truth is, my dear child, if I should consult my own inclinations, I might perhaps never go at all.”

Tears came into my eyes, and my heart ached with the strongest feeling of grief I had ever experienced!...

O my God!... I must have had some love for thee, even at that time, since the very thought of any one’s not loving thee caused me so much pain!...

Lorenzo’s tone, look, and whole manner not only showed his utter indifference, but the complete incredulity he felt. I had never suspected it before, because it was something foreign to my experience. I knew it was possible to violate the law of God, but did not know it could be denied. I understood lukewarmness and negligence, for I had seen both in others as well as in him; but I had never before encountered lack of repentance and ignorance of duty. This cold denial of any love for God and of all belief in him Lorenzo, of course, had not expressly declared, but it had been betrayed by his manner doubtless even more than he would have wished. With all the inconsistencies of my character and the faults of my age, he must have seen that I had too lively and profound a faith not to be displeased at anything that jarred on it, and heretofore he had been circumspect without being hypocritical.

He saw the effect he had produced, and, as he had not become indifferent to me, he regretted it; but he knew he could not at once repair his mistake, and contented himself for the moment by trying to divert my mind from it by a change of subject. And I likewise felt it would be better to talk of something else. This prudence was by no means natural to my disposition, but I began to understand his. Besides, his injunctions of the evening before were still too recent to be forgotten.

The conversation did not last long, for Lando, punctual to his engagement, arrived at half‐past twelve with a beaming face, a flower in his button‐ hole, and in his hand an enormous bunch of violets destined for me.

“What!” he exclaimed when he learned my intentions for the afternoon.... “But that is impossible! Not go to the races? Why, you must. Remain at home when the weather is the finest in the world? I never heard of such a thing.... Deprive me of the pleasure of taking you in my _calèche_, and making everybody envy me?... That is the most cruel caprice that ever entered a woman’s head!...”

Here Lorenzo left the room an instant to look for his hat, and Lando suddenly began in another tone: “I am in earnest, cousin. You would do much better to go.”

What did he mean? I remained doubtful and troubled, but Lorenzo immediately returned, and I had no time for reflection. As they were leaving the room, my husband approached, and, taking me by the hand, looked at me with an expression his eyes now and then assumed, and which always dispersed, as by some enchantment, the clouds that rose too often between us. He slightly caressed my cheek with the glove in his hand, and whispered with a smile:

“Come, Ginevra mia, do not be angry. Let me see you smile again.”

Then turning towards Lando, “It is not yet one o’clock,” he said. “Let us start, and, before going to the Bois de Boulogne, we will stop at the Madeleine.”

His looks, as well as his words, allayed my anxiety; but a thousand different ideas crossed my mind, and after they were gone I remained thoughtfully leaning on the balustrade of my balcony, where I followed them with my eyes to the end of the street, wondering what Lando meant, and if I had really done wrong not to accompany them.

The weather at that time was fine. The clearness of the sky, as well as the verdure of the trees, attracted my attention more than the aspect of the street, and of the garden already filled with the crowd of animated, happy, and gayly‐dressed people, that give every pleasant summer day at Paris the appearance of a festival. But I was absorbed in my own thoughts, and looked at it all without noticing anything. I had a vague feeling that, among the dangers that seemed to encompass me in the new life into which I had been thrown, there were two I had special reason to dread. The first—the greatest—would have broken my heart, and on that I could not dwell for an instant.... The second threatened the loss of our property, and would diminish our income, if not absolutely ruin us. This, too was alarming, but much less so than the other in my eyes, though just the contrary in Lando’s estimation, if I read him aright. After considerable reflection, I concluded that he merely referred to something of the same nature he had alluded to the evening before, and I put it aside to ask myself with far deeper anxiety if I had really had a glimpse of Lorenzo’s heart, as he looked at me on leaving the room, or whether he was playing a part, and deliberately deceiving me. The heavenly expression that sometimes beamed from his eyes always inspired me with a confidence in him that was equal to my affection. I had just experienced its effect. The look, however, was so transient that it rather resembled the reflection of a distant light than any actual, real feeling. Whereas his mocking laugh and the tone that to‐day for the first time accompanied it were—alas! I could not doubt it—the expression of his real sentiments, and this contradiction terrified me.... He seemed to possess two natures, and my head grew weary in trying to decide which of the two was his real one—a question I frequently had occasion to ask afterwards, and to wait a long time for the reply—as doubtful to him then as it was to myself....

I left the window, and, buried in an arm‐chair, I allowed the time to pass away in reflections of this kind without opening the book I held in my hand, or noticing the gradual obscurity of the sky, that a short time before had been so clear. It was not threatening enough, however, to hinder me from going on foot to Vespers, which it was nearly time for, the hour not being as late at S. Roch’s as elsewhere. I started without any delay, giving orders for my carriage to be at the church door at the end of the service.

The salutary impressions of the morning and the excessive anxiety and sadness that I afterwards experienced had somewhat counteracted the more or less unhealthy influences that result from a continued life of pleasure. I was now in that frame of mind when it is easy to collect one’s thoughts; when the soul, so to speak, flies to the first place of refuge in which it is sure of repose.... Who has not experienced the strange, mysterious, refreshing influence of prayer, even when mute and inarticulate?... Who has not, in this way, laid down for an instant all his sorrows, all his fears, all his sufferings, and afterwards taken up the load again with a renewed strength that seemed to have lightened the burden?...

I had suffered but little at that time in comparison with what life still had in reserve for me. But after a while we learn to suffer, and in this science, as in all others, it is the beginning one always finds the most difficult. A fearful storm, it is true, had assailed the first flower of my spring‐time, and spread darkness and gloom over the heavens of my sixteenth year; but spring‐time and the sun returned, and at an age when others only begin life I was commencing mine the second time. But this new life of happiness was, I now felt, threatened in a thousand ways. Apprehension, a worse torture than sadness; a vague, undefined fear, more difficult to endure than the woes it anticipates; the uncertainty, doubt, and suspicion, so much more intolerable to one of my nature than any positive suffering, rendered my heart heavy and depressed, and I felt it would be a relief to weep as well as to pray.

I knelt on the only vacant chair in the church, and remained a long time motionless, my face buried in my hands, unable to give utterance to my wants, but knowing God could read my heart, as, when we meet a friend after a long separation, we are often silent merely because we have so much to communicate, and know not where to begin. In this attitude I heard Vespers sung for the first time in my life, this office of the church being, as is well known, much less frequently used in the south of Italy than in other places. I have already mentioned the public religious observances of my childhood. I had, therefore, never heard Vespers chanted in this way. The voices of the choristers were harmonious, and the responses were no less so. A large number of the congregation joined in the chant. There was something monotonous rather than musical in it, but it was more musical than reading, and it produced a strangely soothing influence on me. I laid aside all thought of myself, and attentively followed the admirable lines of the Psalmist; and when the Magnificat was intoned, I rose with the whole congregation to chant this divine hymn with a sensation of joy and hope that, for the moment, made me forget the painful impressions I felt when I entered beneath these arches now resounding with its words....

Benediction followed, recalling the earliest, dearest remembrances of my childhood, and increasing the emotion I already felt. When the monstrance containing the divine Host was placed above the altar, I lost all thought of where I was. I forgot whether it was Paris, Rome, or Messina, and whether the arches above me were those of some magnificent church, or some humble chapel, or a mere oratory like that in which I had prayed from my childhood. What difference did it make? The sun shines everywhere alike, and diffuses equal light in all places. How much more truly shines throughout the whole Catholic world the living, uncreated Light, present on all our altars! Time and place were forgotten. I was once more with my beloved mother, once more with Livia, my sweet, saintly sister, and the faithful Ottavia; and when, at the end of one of those hymns that are usually sung before the Blessed Sacrament, a young voice, pure and clear, uttered the word _Patria_,(164) it seemed at that moment to have a double meaning, and designate, not only my earthly, but my heavenly country.

To Be Continued.

Pius VI.

Those were terrible days. Even the faithful quailed, and asked each other timidly whether it was possible that God’s enemies had at last prevailed, and that the Rock had been shaken and the Word passed away. Voltaire had come and done his work, and gone, leaving a new generation behind him to fight the devil’s cause, to flaunt his standard over Christendom, to revile “the Galilean,” and wage war against his church—the subtle, deadly, persevering war of envious hatred, conquered impotence, malignant fury. There was a shout of hellish triumph throughout the ranks of Voltaire’s disciples; it seemed as if their victory was now secure; the old man of the Vatican, who for generations had remained unconquerable as fate, was in the power of the soldier who had conquered fate, who held Europe in the hollow of his hand, who raised up kings with a nod, and overthrew dynasties with a word. He had overcome the world, why should he not overcome the pope? He had demolished a score of thrones, why should he not annihilate this fisherman’s chair that for seventeen centuries had defied the combined forces of the world? Poor fools! Why not!

Jean Angelo Braschi was born at Cesena on the 27th of December, 1717, of a noble but poor family. His parents left him all the patrimony they had, a faith of the royal antique sort, and an education worthy of the name he bore. He was little more than a boy when Clement XIV. saw of what stuff the young cleric was made, and appointed him his secretary. This was Braschi’s first step on the ladder which was to lead him to the perilous heights of the purple—“the dye of empire and of martyrdom.”

When Clement XIV., pursued by the entreaties and threats of European potentates, yielded a weak concession to their cabals, and spoke of “reform” to the general of the Jesuits (who answered, Loyola‐like, in royal scorn of the implied calumny: _Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_), Braschi, then cardinal, took his stand by their side, resented every outrage offered to the sons of Ignatius, those courtiers of martyrdom in all ages, and thus vindicated his future claim to a place in the palm‐ bearers’ ranks. He opened his house to the persecuted Jesuits; he braved everything in his unswerving, uncompromising fidelity to their order. What else could befall him but the crown of the confessor or the martyr?

Europe hailed his accession with delight. The pulses of the rising monster, Revolution, were beginning to beat, and the nations were growing afraid, they knew not yet of what; but all eyes were turned to Rome, as to the rock where the safety of the world was anchored. The advent of a man like Pius VI., firm as adamant, who could brave death, not merely for the faith, but for every tittle of principle which the uttermost integrity of the faith included—a man whom his enemies likened to Moses for his meekness, and to Solomon for his strong wisdom; who lived like an anchorite and officiated with the splendor of the prophet king, who loved the beauty of God’s house and the place where his glory dwelt—the advent of a priest like this to the papal throne gave joy all over Christendom.

Pius VI. was elected on the 15th of February, 1775. Seldom has the weight of that unearthly crown fallen more heavily on its wearer’s brow than it fell on that of the new pontiff. In the temporal order he saw before him a mountain to be uplifted; in the spiritual order no far‐seeing eye could fail to detect the ominous signs of the coming storm. Pius lost not a moment in designing and carrying out vast schemes of material improvement in his dominions. In those days the Pontine marshes were swamps of poison that had hitherto defied all petty attempts at reclaiming them.

“How do you live in this dreadful place?” inquired a traveller of one of the inhabitants of the dismal soil.

“Signor, we do not live; we die!” was the answer.

Pius VI. declared that henceforth they should live. Colossal works were set on foot, and, if the pestilential marshes were not radically purified, they were so much improved as to justify the people in proclaiming the energetic pontiff as the worker of that miracle. During his pontificate the draining was so successful that Pius himself declared this alone was ample reward for all his sufferings. The port of Ancona was repaired, and its entrance adorned with a light‐house; works of art were sought for, revealed, and cherished. Spiritual works were founded and fostered with royal munificence and paternal care. The Christian Brothers were called to Rome and a noble school built for them, on the front of which was inscribed the title so glorious and so dear to the Vicar of Christ: “Pius VI., the Father of the Poor.”

But not even the wisdom and prestige of this ideal pontiff could suffice to shelter him from the tempest that was slowly but steadily travelling towards the Holy City. The infidel philosophers of France and Germany had done their work; they had sown, and now the time had come for reaping. Austria first showed symptoms of disaffection. Joseph II., who was too cowardly to rescue his own sister(165) from the hands of the torturers, had become the tool of his minister, Kaunitz, whose delight it was to worry the pope with the small artillery of a cunning and treacherous diplomacy. These weapons, however, were not the ones that could move Pius VI. They glided off from the shield of his unalterable patience, humility, and truth like arrows from a marble surface. Nor could the weak monarch withstand the charm of the saintly pope when he came within its influence. He rallied to his side when he visited Rome in 1783, and promised to be faithful to him. But it was a broken reed, the friendship of the vacillating Joseph.

Spain, Tuscany, and Venice next came to sadden the Holy Father’s heart and strengthen his growing fears. His gentleness held them captive for a time; but they too were of the tribe of broken reeds. When friends prove false, then is the time for the treason of foes to flourish. Catherine of Russia, the woman with the wily head of the snake joined to the cruel heart of the tiger, came with honeyed words of reverence to tender offers of service, nay, even of allegiance, to Pius. A far‐sighted woman, this tiger queen who was stealing into Poland, and sucking the nation’s blood, as she crawled into its heart. Then there was Frederick of Prussia, more honest than many a self‐styled son of the church in those days; he was grateful to the prince who first assigned him his title of king. Gustavus III. came to do homage to the man who had drained the Pontine marshes, and made a noble road through that region, so long the tomb of all who dwelt within its poisonous area. Pius received these marks of courtesy with his accustomed gentle grace; he knew what they were worth, and was grateful without being beguiled. They were, in truth, the last rays of the sun that was soon to set in darkness over his reign, and to close it in sufferings unparalleled for fourteen centuries in the annals of the church.

France was to give the signal, and she was now ready. France, that had so often raised the standard of the church, and defended it with the blood of her fairest chivalry—France was to sound the war‐cry hounding on the fanatics to the destruction of her own purest glory. The Reign of Terror was inaugurated. The Constituent Assembly had decreed the civil constitution of the clergy. Bishops were no longer to be what they had hitherto been; they were henceforth to be the nominees of an unbelieving mob; the beautiful structure of the spiritual hierarchy was to be destroyed. To legalize the crime, an oath was exacted from the priesthood; those who refused to take it—and their name was legion—were deprived of the pittance allotted them by the state, and turned away to starve. Sixty thousand preferred starvation to the bread thus bought at the price of perjury. Of one hundred and thirty‐eight bishops, four only took the oath. Monasteries were dissolved; scandals arose on all sides. The papal nuncio, Cardinal de Bernis, was insulted and compelled to fly from Paris. The pope was burned in effigy. Thus did France sound the tocsin that was to herald in the earthquake—“a great horror of darkness and shakings of the world, and a cup of trembling which all the nations shall drink.” Faith is being driven out, and “philosophy” is riding in like a conqueror on her ruins. Peace and the brave pageant of virtue and all goodly things are banished, and in their place enter decay and chaos and unbelief; and then the Revolution is ready. The world is wheeling round, humanity is going mad, nothing is stable on the earth—nothing but the rock of Peter, against which the storm beats in foolish and impotent rage. Pius raises his voice above the whirlwind, and those who hearken hear it: “God is unchangeable. Truth is immutable. The church can make no compromise. Let us stand faithfully by the cross. God will save his own and redeem his word.” Avignon exhibited a hecatomb of murdered priests. On the 24th of October, 1791, over two hundred were butchered in the _Glacière_ of that city. In September of the following year three bishops and three hundred priests were on one day massacred in Paris. Numbers fled to Rome for protection. The fragments of the altar and the throne met in the Eternal City—Mesdames de France and the King and Queen of Sardinia, proscribed prelates and priests; and Pius opened his fatherly arms to all. This shelter was, however, soon to be torn from them.

On the 15th of February, 1793, the commandant of the French fleet at Naples walked into the Roman consulate, and ordered the consul to hoist the red flag and the cap of liberty over the building. The consul refused; a row ensued; blood was shed. The French government declared itself insulted, and threatened the pope in violent language. Meantime, the Directory succeeded to the Convention, and people drew a long breath, and hoped a change had come for the better. But, as Carnot said: “If now there was less blood shed, there were more tears.” The guillotine was still erect, and its work only slackened because the arms of the executioners were weary. The republican armies were progressing in their triumphal marches. Italy still remained to be conquered. Bonaparte was entrusted with the expedition. A series of victories brought him quickly to the gates of Rome. He proposed the most humiliating conditions to the Sovereign Pontiff. Pius was summoned to cancel every bull, brief, and pastoral that the Holy See had issued from the beginning of the Revolution to the present time. The pope firmly refused to comply. Bonaparte was at first full of insolent fury, and threatened to annihilate Rome and the Vatican. He relented, however, not out of deference to Pius, but to show his defiance of the home government, and drew up a treaty of his own invention, which, ruinous as it was, the Holy Father meekly signed, in order to save his people and prevent bloodshed. This treaty of Tolentino, as it was called, secured to Bonaparte the sum of thirty‐one millions of francs, sixteen hundred cavalry horses, and a portion of the Romagna. The Roman treasury was drained by this monstrous ransom; the people were starving, the misery was terrible. Pius was broken‐hearted, but his courage, fed by a faith that was anchored in God, never faltered. His conduct all through these dreadful days was that of a saint. He found his only solace in prayer and in fortifying the faith of his suffering flock. But he had as yet only tasted the first drops of his chalice. The Directory had resolved to get possession of Rome. A pretext must be created, since Pius would not furnish even the semblance of one, for breaking the iniquitous treaty, which had thus far secured to him the integrity of the Holy City. General Duphot was fired on by the Roman troops acting in discharge of their duty. Berthier was at once ordered to leave Ancona, where he was stationed with the French army, and to march on Rome and encamp under its walls. His first step was to issue a proclamation exciting the citizens to revolt, insulting and calumniating the pope and his government, and announcing himself as the liberator of an oppressed people. He entered the city next day, and took possession by placing seals on the museums and galleries, which were “henceforth the property of the _grande nation_ that had come to set free the Roman people.” A tree of liberty was planted on the capitol; tricolor flags floated on the public monuments, and tricolor ribbons decked the ears of Marcus Aurelius’ horse. The Holy Father was outraged in his own house; his furniture was taken from him, and his jewels; he was despoiled even of his pontifical robes; his private library, a valuable collection of 40,000 volumes, was seized and sold to a dealer for 12,000 crowns. The deliverers of Rome crowned these proceedings by inviting their victim to wear the tricolor cockade by way of a badge of authority from France. Pius VI. replied with majestic meekness: “I can wear no livery but that with which the church has clothed me.” This answer was distorted into an insulting challenge to the French government, and Haller immediately received orders to convey the pope by force out of Rome. Pius gently pleaded his age and many infirmities, and entreated the poor grace of being allowed to die in the midst of his people. “Oh! for that matter, you can die wherever you are,” was the brutal retort, and measures were commenced for carrying him away by force, in case he made any resistance. This was not likely; but the old pontiff’s heart was breaking. “God’s will be done!” he murmured. “Let us bow to whatever he sees good to ordain!”

Forty‐eight hours were all that was allowed him to prepare for this sudden departure. He devoted the short time entirely to the affairs of the church and to the performance of his religious duties. The night of the 20th of February was fixed for the departure. It was late when Haller brusquely entered the Holy Father’s room, and found him prostrate before the crucifix, bathed in tears. “It is time to go,” he said, and the French escort entered and rudely hurried the old man down the Vatican stairs and into the carriage that was waiting for him. In it were seated his physician and his groom of the chambers, and two other officers of his household. The people followed the carriage, loudly lamenting, and invoking all blessings on their beloved pastor. At Viterbo many French priests flocked round him with the Italian crowds, and fell on their knees for a last benediction. The first halt of the travellers was in Tuscany. The Directory would fain have sent their august prisoner to Sardinia, but they were deterred in this by fear of the English government, and so proceeded to Sienna, where for three months the Augustinian convent had the privilege of harboring the persecuted Vicar of Christ. Whilst here the finger of Providence showed visibly its protecting care of him. The Holy Father had just left his room one morning when the ceiling fell in, and crushed everything beneath it; the house was violently shaken by an earthquake, and suffered much damage. This event forced Pius to seek hospitality at the Monastery of Chartreuse, in Florence, where he arrived on the 2d of June. Here some tender consolations awaited him. The Grand Duke of Tuscany came frequently to the feet of his venerated pastor, to assure him of his loyal attachment. The King and Queen of Sardinia also gathered round him, driven from Rome, where they had been so lovingly welcomed on being robbed of the throne which the saintly sister of Louis XVI. had adorned so nobly. Her husband had ever been a devoted son of the Holy Father, and now declared that the sight of his serenity in the midst of trials so overwhelming was enough to make him forget his own sorrows.

“I cannot regret my throne, for I find more than it gave me at the feet of your Holiness!” he once exclaimed.

“Alas! beloved prince,” replied Pius, “all is vanity here below. What examples of this are we both! Let us look up to heaven; there await us those thrones that can never perish.” They entreated him to go with them to Sardinia the moment it was possible for themselves to return there; but Pius refused. He alleged his age and suffering health as a reason for remaining where he was; but the true motive was the fear that his presence in the generous king’s dominions might prove fatal to him and his people. They parted with many tears, never to meet again on earth.

All this time the captive pope devoted his whole mind to the government of the church and the strengthening of his afflicted children. He lost no opportunity of sending messages of encouragement to those who were at a distance, exhorting them to suffer cheerfully, pointing to the day of joy and of triumph that would soon dawn after the short night of darkness. His own serenity was a fountain of hope and sweetness to all who beheld it. Like the great apostle, he seemed in deed and in truth to glory in his infirmities and in Christ crucified.

A multitude of proscribed priests and prelates had fled to England, whence they wrote eloquent letters of condolence to their captive chief, protesting their allegiance to him and to the faith, and their readiness to die for both, if needful. These proofs of devout affection deeply moved the Holy Father, and consoled him for much. The Directory began at last to feel alarmed at the attitude of foreign cabinets towards the Holy See. England spoke in fearless condemnation of the cruelty of the French government towards Pius, and made no disguise of her sympathy with the exiled priests and royalists. France commanded the Grand Duke of Tuscany to drive the pontiff out of his states; but that prince replied with royal dignity: “I did not bring the pope here, and I certainly will not drive him away.” The grand duke paid for his boldness; his dominions were forthwith invaded, and Etruria added to the French territory. Austria was next appealed to, and requested to receive the pope into custody, a convent on the Danube being named as a suitable abode; but Austria haughtily declined. Spain lastly refused to become his jailer.

Nothing, therefore, remained but to secure his person by bringing him to France. Humanity cried out against the barbarity of subjecting the venerable old man to so long and painful a journey in his present state; but France had no ears for the voice of humanity. Pius VI. was now partially paralyzed; he was covered with blisters, and unable to move without labor and acute pain. But what of that? He was dragged to Parma, where a few days’ rest was granted. The medical men even then declared they would not take the responsibility of proceeding with their prisoner, lest he should die on the road. The French commissioner, impatient of so paltry an obstacle in the way of his orders, burst into the pope’s room, flung down the bed‐clothes, and, seeing with his own eyes the truth of the report, turned on his heel with the remark, “Alive or dead, he must go on!”

The cortège started accordingly. All along the road the gentle martyr was cheered by the love and pity of the people. Multitudes ran for miles by the side of his carriage, bareheaded, weeping, and invoking the blessing of the Most High upon him. Pius was moved to tears at the sight of their courage in thus openly compassionating him, and with his suffering hand, almost disabled as it was, he made an effort to bless them again and again from the window.

On the 24th they reached Milan. The escort, in order to hide his presence from the people, and prevent similar scenes of enthusiasm and indignation, conveyed their prisoner into the citadel at three o’clock in the morning. On the 26th they hurried him out of his sleep in the dead of the night, and conveyed him secretly to Oulx, and the next morning they started to cross the Alps. Who shall describe the sufferings of Pius VI. during that transit? His body was now one wound; his feeble strength was almost spent; he seemed scarcely more than a breathing corpse. They placed him roughly in a sort of sedan‐chair, while the rest of the escort followed on mules. The road over the mountains was precipitous and stony; every step was agony to the suffering pontiff. The cold was intense. Some Piedmontese officers, touched with compassion, took off their warm pelisses, and begged him to use them; the Holy Father thanked them with emotion, but refused. “I do not suffer,” said he gently, “and I have nothing to fear; the hand of God is upholding me. Courage, my friends! Let us put our confidence in God, and all will be well with us.”

On the 30th the wayfarers reached Briançon. Pius was visibly moved on beholding the soil of France, that unhappy land where such fearful crimes were being perpetrated, but where God was already preparing miracles of repentance. He was taken to the hospital for a lodging. The people, horrified at the wretched, attenuated aspect of the Vicar of Christ, a prisoner in the hands of the men who had deluged their country in blood, were loud in expressing their pity and respect; they flocked in crowds round the hospital, calling out for the Holy Father to appear at the window and bless them. But the jailers forbade him to show himself, and forced the people to disperse. The few companions of his exile who had accompanied him so far were now taken from him, his confessor and valet being alone permitted to remain. This cruel isolation lasted for nearly a month, and would no doubt have been continued still longer if the progress of Soovorof’s army in Italy had not frightened the Directory, and decided them to send their prisoner further on to Grenoble, where he was rejoined by his faithful attendants. Watched and humiliated as he was, his journey hither was one long ovation in every village and town through which he passed. The people would not be beaten off, but flocked in thousands to greet him, falling on their knees round the carriage, rending the air with their cries, and calling down vengeance on those who persecuted Jesus Christ in the person of his vicar. The women everywhere were foremost in testifying their devotion to the Holy Father. They disguised themselves as peasants, as servants, or venders, and bribed the guards to admit them to his presence, where ladies of the highest rank were proud to perform any menial service for him.

At Grenoble a hundred young girls dressed in white came forth to meet him, singing canticles and strewing flowers in his path. Pius VI. smiled lovingly on them, and blessed them with tears in his eyes. Precautions were useless; no threats could restrain the hearts of the pastor’s children, and this sorrowful journey, in spite of its cruelties, resembled the triumphal march of a king amidst his people. They reached Valence on the 14th of July. The pope was lodged in the citadel. Close by, imprisoned in a Benedictine convent, were thirty‐two priests who had shared his hospitality in Rome, and been compelled to leave it when he had been taken away. They entreated on their knees to be allowed to go and ask his blessing; but the prayer was denied, and the Holy Father was strictly forbidden to go beyond the garden‐gate, which was guarded day and night, lest by showing himself he should excite disturbance amongst the people. All prohibitions were alike to Pius now, for he felt that the goal was at hand, and the journey would soon be ended. He was suffering terribly, and knew that the hand of death was upon him. Sweet came the summons to the pilgrim pontiff. “All journeys end in welcomes to the weary.” Pius had trod the stony path, cross‐laden like his Master, crowned, like him, with the thorny diadem of sacrifice and love, and now the promised land was in sight, and angel songs were breaking on the pilgrim’s ear: “Come, thou who hast suffered persecution for my sake; come and reign with me in my kingdom.”

For some days the Holy Father remained altogether absorbed in prayer, as if unconscious of everything around him. Often in the midst of his prayer he would break out into expressions of pardon towards his enemies, or pity for the sufferings of his children. “What are the sufferings of my body compared to what my heart endures for them?” he once exclaimed. “My cardinals, my bishops, scattered and persecuted, ... Rome, ... my people, ... the church, ... O my Saviour! in what a state am I forced to leave them all.”

The symptoms of final dissolution now rapidly increased, and the pains he endured were so terrible as to bring on long fainting fits.

On the 28th of August Pius asked for the last rites of the church. He insisted, in spite of the agonies he was suffering, on being dressed in full pontificals, and placed in a chair, so as to receive the Holy Viaticum with the greatest possible reverence. His supreme devotion all through life had been to the Blessed Sacrament. His desire was complied with, and then, placing one hand upon his breast, and the other on the Holy Gospels, he made with great solemnity his dying confession of faith according to the pontifical formula. He then repeated several times, in the most impressive tones, his free forgiveness of his enemies, invoking the mercy and pardon of God upon them; he prayed earnestly also for the conversion of France; this done, he received the Bread of Angels.

On the 29th, the following day, Extreme Unction was administered by the Archbishop of Corinth. The Holy Father seemed to rally slightly after this, and was able to turn his attention a little to temporal affairs. At midnight the palpitations of his heart and other symptoms gave warning that the end had come. The faithful little band of friends and fellow‐ captives gathered round their dying pastor, and kissed the hand that could no longer lift itself to bless them. The Archbishop of Corinth gave the papal absolution, which the Holy Father received with deep humility and fervor, and, after a faint effort to give a last blessing to those who were kneeling in tears at his feet, he breathed his last with the words of the benediction half finished on his lips. It was an hour after midnight on the 29th of August, 1799. Pius VI. was in his eighty‐second year, and had governed the church for twenty‐four years, six months, and fourteen days.

A cry of anguish and of exultation rang through Christendom when the news of his death went forth. The faithful mourned their shepherd, the brave pastor who had loved them and defended them even to death; the wicked rejoiced and clapped hands, exclaiming, “Now we have done with him! This old man is the last of the popes! He has died in a foreign land, hunted like a dog, without honors or followers. His court and his hierarchy are dispersed; we have done with Rome and Roman popes!” Short‐sighted fools, that knew not how to distinguish between defeat and victory, because they could not read the mystic scroll which the hand of God has traced above the cross: “In this sign thou shalt conquer!”

The remains of the venerable old man were exposed for several days; the crowds were so great, both day and night, that it was found impossible to remove them at once, as had been intended. The people proclaimed the martyr‐pope a saint, and flocked round the bier to gaze upon those worn and emaciated features where the majestic peace of death now sat like a golden shadow. For miles around Valence multitudes flowed in to see him, to touch the bier, to throw flowers upon it, and bear them away again as sacred relics. The authorities of the place did not even try to prevent these public demonstrations of respect and enthusiasm. The Directory thought fit to be silent regarding them, and even issued orders that the pope should be laid out with the state becoming a sovereign. Thus the victim who had been denied the commonest mercies of humanity when he was on his death‐bed was surrounded in his coffin with the pomp and paraphernalia of royalty.

The body was finally placed in the citadel of Valence, where it remained until Bonaparte, on being raised to the consulate, had it removed under a bombastic decree setting forth “the magnanimity of the _grande nation_ to a good but weak old man who had for a while been the enemy of France, owing to perfidious advisers, etc.” This grandiloquent proclamation ended in the remains of the first sovereign in Christendom being transported to the common burial‐ground, where the charity of a Protestant courageously raised a small stone chapel over his grave. A few years later (1801) the body was brought back to Rome, and placed in the fitting shrine of a martyred pope—the Basilica of S. Peter. So does the King of Heaven overturn the designs of earthly kings, making sport of their power, and confounding their vain rebellion.

“Elias smote the waters of Jordan with his mantle, and with Eliseus passed over on dry ground.... And Eliseus said unto him: I pray thee let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.”

And as the friends went on, behold a chariot of fire and horses of fire came and parted them both asunder, and Elias went up to heaven, and Eliseus saw him no more; but he took up the mantle of the prophet that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the banks of the Jordan, and smote the waters with the mantle, and they parted, and he went over as before.

And who are these that we behold like a cloud travelling towards us from the West? Lo! they come, a grand procession, cleaving the waters, singing glad songs, and bearing in their hands gifts of gold and frankincense. Welcome, ye goodly company of pilgrims, who “have feared neither distance nor danger” to come from the furthest ends of the earth to lay the tribute of your love at the feet of Peter. Thrice welcome! ye sons and daughters of America, who have come to clasp hands with your brethren of the Old World, and to receive the loving embrace of our common father. May ye be blessed ten thousand‐fold for the joy your love has brought to his suffering heart!

One venerable figure shines forth amidst the band; the wisdom of nigh fourscore years is on her brow, the peace of a long life spent in the service of her Lord. She gazes on the wonders of the Holy City, on its glorious shrines, its stately temples, its monasteries and convents, its brave army of priests and monks and nuns, and, filled with holy envy at the sight, her fervent spirit exclaims: “Oh! if we could but carry this away with us. If we had these riches in America!”

“Nay, lady, grudge us not our treasure! Pray rather that this likewise may not be taken from us, and give thanks to God for the great things that are being accomplished in your own wonderful land. There the faith is like the sun at daybreak, scarcely yet above the horizon, but already powerful and splendid. What has become of that sun amongst us? Oh! I will not utter it.... Verily, there is One who will blow with his breath, and the cloud shall be scattered. Let us pray only that the day be hastened.”(166)

The mystic mantle which Christ first laid upon his apostle has descended through the ages, through evil times and persecutions, to the prophet of our own days, untorn, unstained, a garment of immortality and strength. Now, as then, it bears him in safety through the flood; now, as then, does he “throw salt upon the waters,” and cure them, so that all those who come and drink thereof have life and salvation. For God changes not, nor can those who love him and love one another in his love perish, nor their hope be confounded.

Assunta Howard.

I. Juxta Crucem.

The full moon was pouring a flood of light upon the marble pavement of S. Peter’s, and, by its weird influence, increased to an almost startling immensity the vastness of that mighty work of art, worthy offspring and expression of the faith which has subdued the world. The soft radiance in the nave seemed to throw into deeper gloom and an almost immeasurable space the ever‐burning lamps which, like fixed stars, surround the central point of Christendom—the tomb of the great apostle, to whom was first given the power of the keys. No one could remain unmoved in such an awe‐ inspiring scene; certainly not two, at least, of the three persons who alone stood within the church, silently receiving impressions which come but seldom in a life‐time. And yet, as the same sunbeam, falling upon different objects, will produce different colors, so on these three minds the impressions were stamped according to their preparation to receive them. To the man, in whom the moonlight, bathing him in brightness, revealed the appearance of gentle birth and refined culture, it was merely the human, the miracle of art, the power of man to design and execute; while the pure soul of the fair young girl at his side was struggling through the human up to the divine. The patient old sacristan standing apart, keys in hand, had dwelt for years in the midst of material and spiritual greatness with a faith so simple that he never dreamed it was sublime.

“How grand!” at length exclaimed Mr. Carlisle. “What a power there is in architecture; and how well those master‐minds understood and used this power for the elevation of man!”

“Yes,” replied his young companion; “and it seems to me that in church architecture every detail should be symbolic, and the whole should convey to the soul the impression of some one of God’s attributes. S. Peter’s is so truly the home of the Christian world, and draws the heart so lovingly to itself, that it always seems to express the paternity of God. But to‐ night there is more than this. It speaks to my very soul of the Father, but ‘the Father of an Infinite Majesty.’ ”

Mr. Carlisle smiled. “Another of your pretty fancies, Assunta. One would hardly expect to find such grave thoughts beneath this shining hair, which the alchemy of the moonlight is fast turning into gold.”

The usual ready answer did not come; for any light conversation was out of harmony with the emotion inspired by such surroundings. Besides, the young girl was struggling with herself and against herself in a contest little suspected by her companion. The wonderful influence of the time and place had brought near the moment of defeat or victory. It is sometimes the way of God with the soul to prepare it gradually for some struggle, and then suddenly and unexpectedly to bring it face to face with the trial, and to permit its whole future to hang upon the decision of a moment. Thank God! to the faithful soul the strength is never wanting. It was such a crisis as this which clouded the bright face and darkened with doubt the mind of one in whom youth and innocence would seem to preclude the possibility of mental conflict.

It was but a few days since she had become convinced that the guardian who had been to her both friend and father had come to feel for her a love which indeed might include that of father and friend, as the greater includes the less, but which was something more than either. And with the consciousness there came a strange yearning of her heart to go forth and meet his heart with an equal love, to trust herself to the protecting care she knew so well, to yield to the happiness which promised to gild her life with a radiance too dazzling to be all of earth. But there arose a barrier between them, and hence the struggle.

Strange how we play the devil’s advocate against our conscience! Must she respect that barrier? What if he were almost an infidel; would it not be her sweet mission to take heaven by violence, if need be, and by her importunate prayers obtain for him the light of faith? Dangerous sophistry! And yet on this quicksand how many women wreck themselves, instead of steering the bark freighted with the loved soul into the calm waters of truth!

They two, the guardian and his ward, had entered the church while yet the setting sun was irradiating column and statue with a glowing splendor; and they had continued to walk slowly and almost in silence up and down the long nave until the light had faded and darkness had succeeded the short twilight.

They were about to leave the calm influence and the majesty of repose which this vast temple of God ever inspires, when suddenly the moon, rising to a level with the window above the porch, poured its magic‐ working beams upon the pavement. They paused, and, turning to the sacristan, who was about to close the doors for the night, begged a few moments’ delay, which he, with unusual cordiality, granted.

And what were the busy thoughts which induced so prolonged a silence during that hour’s walk, until the gathering darkness and then the rising moon warned them how the time was passing, of which they had taken so little note? Suffice it to say that the mind of each was filled with the other. With Assunta Howard, the new sentiments kindled in her heart had conjured up the memory of a scene which, associated with her first sorrow, was a living picture to her imagination. Again, as if it were but yesterday, she, a little child, entered the room of her dying mother, and saw her lying pale and beautiful upon her bed, her crucifix in her hand, and beside her the little table covered with white linen, upon which were the exquisite flowers and the still burning candles placed there in honor of her divine Lord, whom she had just received as the Viaticum of her journey home. The little Assunta thought how much her mamma looked like the beautiful S. Catherine, borne in the arms of the lovely angels, which hung above her own bed; and she wondered if the angels would come before she had time to kiss her mother once again. It was almost with a feeling of awe that she whispered in the ear of the good priest who raised her in his arms, “Is mamma a saint now?”

“My precious child,” said the mother, strengthened for this bitter parting by the divine Guest who was reposing in her heart, “mamma must leave her little Assunta, her good little girl. But before long I hope that I shall be with the dear Jesus and his sweet Mother, whom you love so much. So you will be glad for mamma, and always remember how much she loves you. I am not very strong, my darling, but put your arms around my neck, and your curly head close to mine, while I say something to you. You will not understand me now, my poor child, but I know that you will try and remember all, and one of these days you will know what I mean. My darling, when you are grown up to be as tall as mamma, some one will perhaps find a way into that loving little heart. My little daughter, if divine love claims it, and our dear Lord wishes you to be all his own, do not hesitate, but gladly give your life as a sweet offering to him who has chosen you. Give him your whole heart without a fear. But if it is a human love which seeks to make my treasure all its own, think long and well and prayerfully, my child, before you give your heart into its keeping. And, O Assunta! remember, never marry one who does not cherish your faith as you do; who cannot kneel with you before the altar, and love you _in God_, even as you do him. I do not ask you to promise me this, for I feel that it would not be right to bind you by a promise which you cannot understand. Yet it is your dying mother’s wish. But I must kiss the wondering expression away from those dear eyes. One of these days dear F. Joseph will remind you of my request when you are old enough to understand—will you not, father? But my little girl can remember that she is to be poor papa’s dear comfort, and never forget the little prayer for him every day, that God will give to him—tell me what you ask for papa, my darling?”

The little Assunta answered through her sobs: “I want papa to love my blessed Mother Mary, and I ask God to make him. And, mamma, you said I must say faith; but I don’t know what that means, except when I say it in the catechism, and so I ask God to make him as good as mamma is, and a saint just like S. Joseph in my picture; and I think he will, mamma, because you know he heard me once when I asked him to let me go to school to Sister Rose.”

The mother smiled, as she replied:

“How earnestly I hope so, my daughter! And papa has promised me to leave you with the good Sisters for a long time; so you must please him by being his good, obedient child. And now, my dear, precious little girl, kiss me—once again, my darling. I am very tired, and must rest. Perhaps, when I wake up, I shall see, instead of my darling’s golden curls, the golden gates of the celestial city. When I am gone, Assunta, child of Mary, say every day: ‘Dear Jesus, take mamma home soon.’ Now call papa.”

The priest, who had stood by in silence, came forward and lifted the poor bewildered child down from the bed. He saw that the strength which had until now supported the mother in this time of trial was quite exhausted. She uttered aloud the words, “Thy will, not mine”—words which, since that night beneath the olives in Gethsemane, express both the bitterness of the chalice and the ministry of the angel—then her eyes closed; and though for a short time consciousness remained, they never opened until the resplendent majesty of the glorious humanity of her divine Lord burst upon her soul’s vision.

As the child turned away to obey her mother’s request, the priest began to repeat the _Proficiscere, anima Christiana_, with which the church so lovingly speeds her children on their last journey; and for the first time she realized that her mother was indeed going from her. She crept softly from the room, only to rush away to her own little chamber, where, kneeling before the picture of S. Catherine, evermore associated with that great, first sorrow, she poured out the grief of her loving, childish heart in sobs and tears.

And it was this scene which was again before the mental eye of the young girl as she stood there in the moonlight, herself so fair a picture. Her sainted mother, with her look of heavenly repose, and the angel‐borne S. Catherine, blended themselves into one image in her mind, while the Holy Spirit was guiding her innocent soul. Suddenly an impulse seized her; perhaps it was what mystic writers call an inspiration. Turning to her guardian, whose eyes had for some time been wonderingly fixed upon her, she hastily exclaimed: “One moment, my friend,” and then walked quickly towards the chapel, where hung the lamp which told of the divine Presence upon the altar.

Mr. Carlisle was quite accustomed to what he was pleased to call her “pretty, graceful piety,” and so, without surprise, he turned to exchange a few words with the patient sacristan, while, on her knees before her Lord, Assunta fought and conquered in the first real battle of her life. She realized fully now the love which seemed to offer her such human happiness, and she knew what it would cost her to refuse it. But then came the remembrance of her mother’s dying words—“Unless he can love you _in God_”—and her heroic soul gathered up its strength for the consummation of the act of sacrifice. With one appealing, heart‐breaking prayer for help, she bowed her head, and made to God the promise which her mother had not required from the child. And those alone who know what it is to offer up the crown and joy of life in sacrifice can understand the peace and rest which came to her troubled heart, even through the vision of a life robbed of its brightness.

Absorbed as she was, she had forgotten the world outside and its distracting claims until her guardian stood beside her.

“_Petite_,” he whispered, “in thy orisons be all my sins remembered. But since the list is somewhat long, I think you must not wait to recall them now. Your one moment has lengthened into fifteen by my watch, and I have exhausted my powers of eloquence in my endeavors to charm that good old man into forgetfulness of the flight of time. Can you not leave heaven for earth and us poor mortals? There are so many angels up in heaven, they can afford to spare us our only one.”

Rising hastily, Assunta exclaimed: “I have been very thoughtless, and you, as always, kind and patient. We will go at once.”

Her gentle apologies to the old sacristan added value to the gift she slipped into his hand; and as he closed and locked the door behind them, he muttered to himself:

“She is a saint anyhow, if she is an American.”

As they passed down the steps towards the carriage, Mr. Carlisle suddenly stopped, exclaiming: “Why, child, what is the matter? You have the real martyr‐look on your face. I read there, as in a book, that combination of suffering and triumph which we see in pictures, representing those times when men were not so chivalrous as now, and inflicted persecutions on account of a devotion which is so natural to your sex, and which,” he added, laughing, “is so particularly becoming where the woman is young and pretty. But,” he said uneasily, “I cannot see that expression in the face of my _petite_. Sunshine is her element; and the cloud which should cast a shadow upon her life would burst forth in thunder over mine. But what is it? Has the moonlight enchanted you?”

“No, dear friend,” replied Assunta, endeavoring to speak gayly. “Enough that you grant me the triumph. The laurel wreath is a woman’s ambition. You need not bestow the martyr’s palm until it is deserved. And now let us go home.”

“Indeed, that is the one thing in this world which I do not intend to do, at least at present. Thanks to my good sister’s well‐timed headache, we have a rare opportunity to follow out our own sweet will in the most unconventional manner. There is no respect for the world and the propriety Clara preaches left in me to‐night. I, for one, shall take advantage of the absence of that inconvenient third party and her friend Mrs. Grundy to drive to the Colosseum. If you decline to accompany me, I will just remind you that the walk home is somewhat long and the hour somewhat late.” Saying which, he gave his order to the coachman, and took his seat beside Assunta in the barouche. After a short silence, he continued:

“The cat‐is‐away sensation takes me back to my school‐boy days. Though I confess dear Clara to be the very best of the tabby race, still she does show her claws sometimes when I propose an escapade that shocks her sense of what is becoming at the advanced age of thirty‐five. To see the Colosseum to‐night is not to be resisted. There is no dampness whatever in the air, and the moon has risen just high enough to make the shadows perfect.”

“I think,” said Assunta, “that it must be a very guilty conscience that needs so many words in its justification. I, for my part, am so strong in innocence that I will meet Clara on my return with an unblushing brow—to speak poetically—as far as the Colosseum is concerned. The evening is certainly lovely enough to reduce even your friend Mrs. Grundy to a spirit of meek acquiescence. ‘How beautiful is night!’ Do you remember the first lines of _Thalaba_? It must have been just such a moon as this that suggested the opening of that remarkable poem.”

“Did you not read it to me? How can you ask, then, if I remember? However, I did not hear it then for the first time. The dogs, with their human eyes, made a great impression even upon my boyish mind. But here we are.” And jumping down from the carriage, he held out his hand to her.

One moment she hesitated; for, by that instinct which is the shadow of a coming event, she felt that her trial was not yet at an end. But if it must come, why not then? She might never again be so prepared to meet it. There is a fervor of heroism which immediately succeeds a sacrifice that makes us strong to endure. If there is a step to be taken, it is better not to wait until the inevitable reaction is upon us with its enervating influence.

The hesitation was too instantaneous to be remarked, and Assunta allowed her guardian to assist her to alight; and placing her arm within his, they passed the sentinel, and entered the vast amphitheatre. It was indeed a perfect Roman night; and, to an artistic eye, nothing could be more imposing than the strong contrast between the deep gloom beneath those bewildering arches, which threw their dark shadows across the open arena, and the brightness of a winter’s moon. The two walked towards the centre, and seated themselves upon the steps of the large cross which rises in the midst of this mighty relic of heathen Rome. Assunta almost shuddered, as if at an evil omen, when she observed that she had unconsciously placed herself so that the shadow of the cross fell directly upon her, and stretched out its unnatural length at her feet. But even had she been superstitiously inclined, she might well have felt that no place could be so safe and sure as beneath the shadow of the cross; it rested so protectingly on her young head, seeming to stand between her and evil. Soon she realized this, and checked the impulse which, alas! too many of us follow when suddenly we find ourselves close under Calvary—the mount whose crown is a cross, and whose cross is salvation—the impulse to move “out of the shadow into the sun,” out of the cloud which wraps us about in love into the sunlight with which the world seeks to dazzle us into forgetfulness.

Gradually they fell into a quiet conversation, the beauty of the scene, the many associations of the past which cling to these ancient walls, furnishing ample topics. At last Mr. Carlisle, turning suddenly to Assunta, said:

“And how many years is it since your poor father summoned me to his bedside, and told me of the troublesome charge I should find in the convent, to be transferred into my hands when the patience of the nuns had reached the limit of endurance, and my young lady the age of eighteen?”

“It is five years since, my most ungracious and ungrateful guardian. But you will soon be released from duty. The fifteenth of next August will be my twenty‐first birthday. It was because I came into the world on the Feast of the Assumption that my dear mother gave me the name, at which all her good, practical American friends wondered and held up their hands. Well, on that morning I shall offer you freedom, and I shall expect to hear you exclaim, quoting your favorite Shakespeare, ‘For this relief much thanks!’ ”

“And I suppose you will think,” said Mr. Carlisle, somewhat bitterly, “that it will be enough, after all these years, to say, ‘You have been kind to me, my guardian, quite like a father; I am very grateful, and hope that we may meet again’; and with a good‐by and a pretty courtesy shake off the shackles, and take yourself, with all your sunshine, out into the world to make bright the life of others, forgetting him whose life you alone have the power to darken by absence. Ah! child,” he said, his tone changing to tender earnestness, “do you not know with what tie I would bind you to me so that no age could have the right to separate us? Do you think that it is as a father that I love you? That might have been once; but now it is the love of a man of thirty‐five, who for the first time has found his ideal of woman realized. Assunta, do I ask too much? When that day comes of which you speak, will you not give me the right to devote my life to you? You were looking forward to the day which was to give you freedom; and you hesitate to put yourself under bondage? If you knew my love for you, you would believe that I ask but the right to love and protect you always. Have I been so severe a guardian that you dare not trust me as a husband? Assunta, you do not speak. If you cannot love me now, will you not at least let me try to win your love?” And as he looked into the face which she now turned towards him, he exclaimed with a mingling of doubt and triumph, “Child, you do love me!”

It was well for Assunta that she had fought her battle beforehand, else she could hardly have hoped to conquer now. “My dear, kind friend,” she said sadly, “I would have given much to spare you this. It seems indeed a poor return for all you have been to me to reject the love for which I am very grateful. But it must be so. I cannot marry you, Mr. Carlisle.”

The triumph in his face faded; but, fortunately for his diminishing hope, doubt remained.

“_Petite_,” he said, “I have taken you by surprise. Do not give me your answer now. Let me take home to‐night but a hope and your promise to reconsider your hasty decision, and I will try to be content. But you are so cold, so calm, Assunta. Can it be that I have entirely deceived myself, that perhaps some other”—He paused.

“I am calm, my friend,” she answered, “because there is no struggle of indecision in my mind. There is very great regret that I must give you pain, and it costs me more than you know to do so. I entreat you to be generous—more generous than I have been to you—and end this trying conversation.”

“I cannot end it without one question more; pardon me if I am wrong in asking it. Assunta, there is something that I do not understand. You do not say that you could not love me, but that you cannot marry me. Who or what is it, then, that comes between us?”

“God!” And she spoke the word so reverently that for one moment Mr. Carlisle was subdued and silent. Then the bitterness which was always latent in his nature gained the ascendency, as he replied:

“Some interference of your church, I suppose.”

Assunta was not a saint, and her previous emotion had weakened her powers of self‐control, for she spoke with unusual spirit.

“Yes, the church does interfere, thank God, to save her children, else were she no true mother.” Then, a little ashamed of her warmth of defence, she continued, without seeming to notice Mr. Carlisle’s ironical repetition of her words “_save_ her children”:

“You will no doubt consider me fanatical, but you have a right to know why I refuse the love which I value so much, and which, at the same time, I must beg you to forget. I can never marry one who is not of my faith. I believe that, in a true marriage, there must be more than the tie of human love—there must be the union of soul and the blessing of the church. And more than this, there is the insuperable barrier of a solemn promise made to God in consequence of my dying mother’s last request. Need I say more? And must I lose my best friend because I can only respect and love him ‘as friends love’? I had not looked for so great a sacrifice.” And for the first time the tears stood in her eyes and her voice trembled.

She waited for a few minutes, but no reply came. Then, noticing that the moon had risen above arch and wall, and, pouring its light full upon the open arena, had sent the shadows back to their hiding‐places, she said gently:

“Mr. Carlisle, it is getting late. Shall we go home?”

He started from his moody silence, and, taking in his the hand that rested on the cross, he said:

“Assunta, you are a noble girl; but,” he added with a faint smile, “this conclusion does not make your words easier to bear. But you are shivering. Is it so cold? Come, we will go at once.” And as he led the way towards the carriage, he wrapped her shawl closer about her, saying, “My poor child, how thoughtless I have been!”

Once seated, there was again silence until they reached the entrance of the villa. As they ascended the long stair‐case, Mr. Carlisle paused. His old tenderness of manner had all returned, and he was her guardian, and nothing more, as he said:

“Assunta, I have not been generous. I have taken an unfair advantage of my position, and have told you what I had not intended you should know until you were released from all obligation to me. My child, will you trust your friend and guardian to be only that until next August shall make you free? I cannot promise to give up all hope, but I will not repeat what I have said to‐night. Can you forgive me so far as to go back to our old relations? Will you trust me?”

“Most gladly,” said Assunta. “I feel as if my friend, whom I had mourned as lost, has been restored to me. And, Mr. Carlisle, the day will come when we will both look back without regret upon the decision which was made to‐night under the shadow of the cross.”

“I hope so, even while I doubt, fair prophetess.”

But his thought was of the time when he might even yet win that stern conscience to his views, and then indeed he could afford to think without regret of a past disappointment; while she was thinking of that sweet providence of God which, in compensation for sacrifice, always lets us see in the end that all things are for the best to those who can wait and trust.

Mr. Carlisle opened the drawing‐room door, and entered an apartment which had the rare combination of elegance and comfort, of art and home. Mrs. Grey, his pretty, widowed sister, was fond of what she called the “dim religious,” and therefore the candles were not lighted; but a blazing wood‐fire contributed light as well as warmth, while the silver urn upon the side table hissed out an impatient welcome.

Mrs. Grey herself was lying upon the sofa in the most charmingly artistic costume and attitude; and the injured manner she assumed rather added to her fascination. She idolized her only brother; and when, after a short wedded happiness of two years, he had offered the childless widow a home with him, she had gladly accepted; and after a few months of becoming weeds and retirement, she was so far consoled as to mitigate her crape, and allow her brother’s visitors to gaze from a distance upon her charms. The mitigating process had gone on until she was now the gayest of the gay, except when an occasional headache reminded her that she was mortal, and others that amiability is not to be found in perfection in this world any more than any other virtue. She was too frivolous to satisfy her brother’s deeper nature, but he was as fond of her as her affection for him deserved. She had taken the orphan Assunta into her heart as if she had been a sister; though she insisted that the position of matron to a beautiful young girl was no sinecure.

“Really, Severn,” she exclaimed, as he seated himself beside the sofa, “you must have thought it very entertaining for me to stay alone five mortal hours with only my poor head for company.”

“Dear Clara, if I had dreamed you would be doomed to such a dearth of companionship, I should not have gone at all.”

“Hush! No impertinence,” she said. “Where have you left Assunta?”

“Here I am,” said the young girl, entering the room at the same moment, and answering for herself. “And how is your head, Clara? I hope you have not been suffering all this time.”

“Your sympathy is very pretty and pleasing, Assunta; but, indeed, it is of too mushroom a growth to be very consoling. Confess that this is the first time I have been in your thoughts since you left the house. But,” she exclaimed, suddenly recollecting herself, “you have been out alone all this time. Dear me! I hope you did not meet any one you knew, for what would they think? Where have you been?” And as she spoke, she rose from the couch, and went about the womanly occupation of making tea.

“We went to the Colosseum,” replied her brother; “and truly the night was so lovely that if it had not been for you and your head, who knows but we might have wandered about until the Roman police lighted upon us, and committed us to the care of the Holy Office as vagabonds?”

“Nonsense! I would risk you with Assunta anywhere, as far as that is concerned. She is Papal protection in herself. She is wrapped about in the yellow and white, metaphorically speaking. Besides, I believe it is not exactly the province of the Holy Office to deal with vagabonds, but with heretics.”

“And what am I?”

“Oh! I don’t know anything about religion. Has Assunta been calling you a heretic?”

“Assunta never calls me hard names,” he answered, and he could not forbear adding under his breath: “But she has made me count the cost of unbelief.”

“Has she been trying to convert you?” asked his persistent sister.

“She has offered me every inducement,” was his reply.

“Assunta, here is your tea,” called Mrs. Grey; for the young girl had been arranging her music in another part of the large drawing‐room during the conversation.

“Yes; and she needs it very much, poor child,” said Mr. Carlisle, placing a chair for her. “I was so selfish that I did not even notice it was cold until she was quite chilled through. You find your own head such poor company that you must go with us next time, Clara, and take better care of us.”

And then they relapsed into a quiet tea‐drinking; after which, and the removal of the various articles which constitute the tea service, Mrs. Grey returned to her sofa, while Assunta went to the piano, and played some of Mendelssohn’s “Songs without Words,” and Mr. Carlisle sat in deep thought before the fire.

It was a state of things which Clara could not endure long. Anything like constraint gave her the sensation of a caged bird, and she began at once to beat her wings against imaginary bars.

“I never knew such stupid people. Severn, do please light my candle. I am sure I trust my dreams will be more agreeable, or I shall die of _ennui_. Good‐night, dear Assunta. Do not fatigue me by your efforts to rival the larks in early rising, if you have any mercy.” And looking the very picture of lovely discontent—if so paradoxical an expression may be allowed—she retired to her own room.

Assunta extended her hand as usual to her guardian. He held it a moment, and then said: “Good‐night, _petite_; we will begin anew to‐morrow”; and then he returned to his arm‐chair, which he did not leave for many hours. Assunta was very tired; but it was rather with the weight of the cross she had lifted upon her shoulders than from any physical fatigue. She soon dismissed her maid, and, like a victorious soldier wearied with the conflict, she fell into a dreamless sleep, not, however, until she had returned thanks for the victory to the God of battles.

II. Cor Cordium.

It was an established custom of the household of Villa Moroni to be quite independent of each other until the twelve o’clock breakfast afforded occasion for an agreeable reunion. However pleasant an early family gathering may be in many home circles, where the habits and pursuits of all are entirely dissimilar and incongruous we escape much of the roughness of life by not attempting too early an interchange of forced courtesy. Indeed, in Mr. Carlisle’s family it would have been difficult to effect an earlier meeting than the one which suited all parties so well. Mrs. Grey declared that the morning hours with Morpheus were absolutely necessary to her peace of mind. And certainly the drowsy god must have been lavish of bright visions during those hours when the sun was so carefully excluded from the apartment of the fair sleeper; for when at last he permitted the pretty lady to awake from her dreams, she came from the hands of her maid into the outer world the very quintessence of amiability and freshness. Who would feel assured of such a result had she seen the sun rise? True, it might occur to some persons who take severe views of life to wonder what her soul was doing all that time; but it never did to her. The supernatural was to her a _terra incognita_. She had skimmed over her sorrow as sea‐birds over the waves of the ocean, scarcely bearing away a drop on their spread wings. The waters had never gone over her soul and forced her to cry from out of the depths to the God whom she acknowledged in theory, but persistently ignored in practice. Yet she was so lovely and affectionate, and besides, when she chose to exert herself, she had so much good sense withal, by all means let her enjoy life’s sunshine, and pluck its sweetest roses, carefully guarding her dainty fingers from contact with the hidden thorns. But why waste our time in moralizing over one who would smile in unconsciousness of our meaning if we uttered our thoughts aloud, and charm the frown from our brow by some pretty petulance?

Mr. Carlisle understood as little of the supernatural as his frivolous sister. But he had a deep, earnest nature, which could not be satisfied with the mere outside of life. Mental food he must have, though it may be a question whether the mind is ever fully nourished when the soul is starving. He therefore, after taking his coffee and smoking his cigar, devoted his morning hours to reading or writing in the cosey little room he used as a library.

The carriage was thus left at Assunta’s disposal; and she usually availed herself of it to assist at Mass, accompanied by her maid; and often an errand of mercy or charitable visit was accomplished before her return. It was her guardian’s wish that she should never walk about the city, unless accompanied by himself, else she would many times have preferred to show her American independence by taking a morning stroll with her faithful Marie.

The morning after the eventful visit to the Colosseum was Friday, and on that day Assunta was accustomed to make her confession and receive Holy Communion. She awoke with a stunned feeling, as if recovering from a blow. It was still very early, but, remembering the duties before her, she arose quickly. She was so glad that it was Friday; for good F. Joseph would certainly be in the confessional; as he always expected her, and she felt the need of his counsel. It was the same F. Joseph du Pont who had placed her beside her dying mother, but who had shortly afterwards returned to Rome. When, a few weeks since, she had arrived in the Eternal City, he had welcomed her as a dear child, and she loved and respected him as a true spiritual father. The sun was just rising when she entered the carriage and drove to the Gesù. Her confession was soon made, and after the Precious Blood had poured its healing drops upon her soul through the words of the absolution, she said: “Father, can you spare me a few minutes more this morning? I want your advice.”

“Certainly, my child,” answered the good priest. “It is nearly an hour before my Mass. How can I help you?”

“Last evening,” said Assunta in a low voice, “I did what I believed to be right; but the morning light has only confused my mind, and I see nothing clearly. Father, Mr. Carlisle, my guardian, asked me to marry him.”

“And you, my child?” questioned the priest somewhat anxiously.

“I had been prepared somewhat to expect it. I had thought of my mother’s request, and remembered that it was in accordance with the teaching of the church, and I was impelled to fortify myself by a promise to Almighty God to fulfil to the letter my dear mother’s wish. Therefore, when the question came, I could only refuse.”

“It cost you something to do this, I can see, my poor child, and this morning you are suffering from the revenge our human nature takes upon us when we have done it violence. Let us look at the matter calmly before God. I believe that you are right, but it will help you to look at both sides of the question. It is a reasonable service that God requires of us; and, be very sure, he never leads us to the altar of sacrifice without bestowing upon us the strength and generosity we need to place our offering upon it. Perhaps you were a little too impulsive in binding yourself by anything like a vow. We must always be very careful not to mistake impulse for inspiration. However, as I understand you, your mind was already decided, and the promise to God was to act as a protection to yourself against your own human weakness. Am I right?”

“Partly, father,” replied Assunta, “and yet, as I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, I felt that the sacrifice was required of me in a way I thought I could not mistake.”

“Then, my child, doubtless the Holy Spirit has inspired it for some end that we do not now see. But, aside from that, without that additional and conclusive obstacle in the way of such a marriage, I think you acted rightly. Our holy mother, the church, is very wise, as well as very lenient; and it is with great reluctance that she risks the soul of one of her precious children by placing it under the constant influence of one without faith. It is very true that while there is wisdom in knowing how to keep a rule, there is still greater wisdom in knowing when judiciously to make the exception. And I confess that, from a human point of view, yours would seem to be an exceptional case. You are quite alone in the world; and your guardian has been, and no doubt would always be, a faithful friend. As a man, I esteem him highly for his many noble qualities. The world will unquestionably look upon such a marriage as eminently fitting; and so it would be, but for the one thing which is so important. We, however, cannot act upon human principles, as if this world were all. It was not without reason, my child, that your poor mother said those last words to you. When she was married, her faith was as strong, her life as true and pure, as yours. But your father’s intellect was powerful, and her love for him so great that she yielded to him until she nearly lost her soul. God be blessed for his mercy, she had the grace to die as a saint, and is now, as I hope, in heaven. But I have seen her in an agony of remorse such as I should grieve indeed to witness in this dear child of hers. The last two years of her life after her return to her faith were truly years of martyrdom, passed in the struggle to reconcile those duties which never should conflict—her love of God and duty to her husband. It was from the very depths of her own sad experience that she pleaded with her little girl. My child, that mother is praying for you now.”

“I believe it, father,” said Assunta, deeply moved by this story of her beloved mother, which she heard for the first time.

“So, my child, the past is all as it should be; and now for the future. May God grant you the grace to be always as good and brave as you were last night! I would not discourage you, and yet I must remind you that the sacrifice is only begun. It is not likely that your guardian, with only human motives to urge him, will give up so easily where his heart is engaged. He will, of course, do all he can to turn you from your purpose, and no doubt your own heart will sometimes plead on his side. Here lies your further trial. And yet I cannot, as under other circumstances I should do, advise you to shun the temptation. You cannot leave your guardian’s care until you are of age; therefore you must face the trial. But I trust you entirely, my child—that is, I trust to the purity of your heart and the power of grace that is in you to guide your actions, even your very thoughts. You must try to be as you have been before; try to forget the lover in the guardian. Avoid coldness of manner as a safeguard; for it would only place you in an unnatural position, and would inevitably strengthen in the end the feelings you would conquer. It is not easy to give an exact rule of conduct. Your own good sense will teach you, and God will be with you. And, my child, you must pray for your guardian, and at the same time it must be without any future reference to yourself in connection with him. Is this too hard for you? Do your best, and grace will do the rest. By remembering him before God you will learn lo purify your feelings towards him—to supernaturalize them; and by committing your future unreservedly to the loving providence of God, your prayer will be a constant renewal of the act of sacrifice you have made. Make it heroic by perseverance. Do I explain myself clearly, my child?”

“Yes, father, perfectly so; and I feel so much comforted and strengthened.”

“Well, these are but the words of your father, spoken out of his love for you. Go now, child, and prepare to receive your divine Lord, and listen for the words of peace and comfort he will speak to your soul. To him I commend you with all confidence. One thing more—remember that there is nothing which helps us so much in such a trial as acts of charity towards the poor and the suffering. I know that you never fail in this respect; but now especially I would urge you to forget yourself in sympathy for others as occasion offers, though you must always recognize those claims which your position in society entails upon you. Come to me freely whenever you feel that I can help you. God bless you! I shall remember you in the Holy Sacrifice.”

The good priest went to vest himself for Mass, while the young girl returned to the place before the altar where Marie was patiently awaiting her. She was herself a pious woman, and time spent in church never seemed long to her.

When the Mass was over and her thanksgiving ended, Assunta returned home with her heart lightened of its burden. She dressed herself for breakfast with her usual care and taste, and, finding that it still wanted half an hour or more before the great gun of Sant’ Angelo would boom out the mid‐ day signal, she seated herself at the piano, and song and ballad followed each other in quick succession. Her voice and manner were in harmony with herself. Her music soothed, but never excited. It had not the dangerous power to quicken the pulse and thrill the heart with passionate emotion, but it roused the better feelings, while it conveyed to the listener a restful, satisfied impression which ambitious, brilliant performers rarely impart. She was just beginning Cherubini’s beautiful Ave Maria when Mr. Carlisle entered the room.

“Here is our early bird welcoming us in true songster fashion. Do not stop yet, _petite_,

“My soul in an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing.”

But as Assunta had already left the piano to greet her guardian and his sister, he continued:

“By the way, Clara, my quotation has suggested to me an answer to your question. Assunta, my fickle sister, who a week ago was ready to live and die in a picture‐gallery, has just now assured me that the very mention of a picture or statue is a fatigue to her; and she has mercilessly compelled me to find some new and original bit of sight‐seeing for to‐day. We cannot, of course, visit any church, since the Holy Father is, unfortunately for her, not an iconoclast. But, Clara, what do you say to making a Shelley day of it? We will take _Prometheus Unbound_ with us to the Baths of Caracalla, and there, on the very spot which inspired the poem, we can read parts of it. And when we are tired, we can prolong our drive to the cemetery, and visit Shelley’s grave, as a proper conclusion. How do you like the plan?”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Grey, “it will be deliciously sentimental; only breakfast is announced, and I am in a famished condition. I was up so early this morning. It must have been before eleven when that stupid girl called me, and it is an hour since I took my coffee.”

“Poor Clara!” said Mr. Carlisle, “your condition is truly pitiable. I should think you might find the almshouse a pleasant change.” Mrs. Grey seemed only amused at her brother’s sarcasm, when suddenly she checked her silvery laugh, and, springing from the table, at which she had just seated herself, she went towards Assunta with such a pretty, penitential air that she was quite irresistible.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “speaking of almshouses reminds me of something you will never forgive. Promise me not to scold, and I will devote myself henceforth to the cultivation of my memory.”

“What is it?” asked Assunta, smiling at her earnestness. “I am sure such a pleading look would force forgiveness from a stone.”

“Well, then, for my confession, since you absolve me beforehand. While you were out yesterday morning that miserable woman of yours sent word that she was sick, and something about not having a mouthful of bread in the house. I forget the whole message. My maid saw the girl who came, and I promised to tell you. But you remember my wretched headache. You forgave me, you know.”

Assunta looked both grieved and vexed for a moment, and then she controlled herself enough to say:

“I must attach a condition to my forgiveness, Clara. Will you let me drive to the house on our way to the baths? I will only detain you a few minutes.”

“Heavens! Assunta, you will not go there yourself?” exclaimed the astonished Clara. “I dare say it is some filthy hole, and perhaps the woman may have fever. Send a messenger with some money. I’ll give her five dollars.”

“Thank you. I will take the five dollars to her willingly,” replied the young girl; “but I will take myself too. I can easily walk,” she added, looking for permission to her guardian, as the occasion was exceptional.

Displeasure at his sister’s thoughtlessness was evident in Mr. Carlisle’s tone, as he said:

“You will go in the carriage, Assunta, and I will accompany you. We will return for Clara after the visit. Giovanni, order a basket of provisions to be put up before one o’clock, and be ready yourself to go with us and take charge of it; and now that the matter is settled, we will have some breakfast.”

Poor Mrs. Grey looked disconcerted; but she thought it her duty to make a further protest.

“You surely will not wear that dress, Assunta? It will never be fit to put on again.”

Mr. Carlisle laughed outright at this new objection, while Assunta said with a smile:

“Why, Clara, have you so soon forgotten your admiration of Mrs. Browning’s _Court Lady_, who put on her silks and jewels, and went to the hospital as to the court of the king? On the same principle I should be arrayed in purple and fine linen, for I am going to the court of the King of kings; and if I am not very much mistaken, this same poor woman, whose contact you fear so much, will find her place very near to the throne in the ranks of the celestial nobility. However, I should be sorry to ruin my new dress, as you predict, and I will be very careful.”

The breakfast was soon despatched, the carriage came punctually to the door, and Mr. Carlisle and his ward drove rapidly towards the miserable home of the poor woman, who, in the midst of her poverty, possessed a faith at which Assunta often wondered.

“You are very kind, Mr. Carlisle,” she said. “I am sorry I have given you so much trouble.”

“In this case,” he replied, “the trouble is not altogether disinterested. I must myself find out what the sickness is before I can allow you to enter the house. I cannot let you run the risk of fever or any other malignant disease. You see I came as a sort of police.”

“But,” said Assunta, touched by his thoughtful care of her, at the same time anxious not to be prevented making what amends she could, “I am so accustomed to visiting the sick, I do not think there can be any danger.”

“My child,” he said, “as long as your life can be guarded by me, it shall be done. You are under obedience still, you know.” She dared not insist; and, indeed, at the same moment they reached the wretched dwelling. After exacting from her the promise to remain in the carriage, Mr. Carlisle ascended the broken stair‐case. In a few moments he returned, and, without saying a word, he took the basket from Giovanni, and again went up the stairs. As he reappeared, he said to the coachman:

“Drive on slowly. I will walk a little. You must not go in, Assunta.”

He continued to follow the carriage at a quick pace for a quarter of a mile; then he hailed the driver, and took his seat beside the wondering girl, saying:

“I thought it would be best to give myself an airing after leaving that room. _Petite_, the poor woman died two hours since of a terrible fever. You could have done nothing, and, as usual, Clara was mistaken in the message. They sent word to their ‘guardian angel,’ as they are pleased to call a certain little friend of mine, of their suffering and need, but with the particular warning that she should on no account direct her flight that way, lest she should expose the unangelic part of her nature to contagion. I left the basket, and money enough to supply all the temporary wants of the children; but it was a dreadful scene,” he added with a shudder.

He had striven to speak lightly at first, because he saw the distress in Assunta’s anxious face and tearful eyes. But his own feelings were strangely stirred, and he forgot his self‐control, as he continued, in a voice low and husky from the very intensity of emotion:

“Child, I am in an agony of terror at the bare thought of what might have been the result had you been exposed to that atmosphere, whose every breath was poison. My God! when I think of the danger you have so narrowly escaped. Oh! if I might always shield this dear life at any risk to mine.”

“My life is in God’s hands,” said Assunta coldly, as she gently disengaged the hand which her guardian had clasped in his, as if he would show, by the action, the power of his love to avert any and every evil which might threaten her.

Poor child! she longed to ask more about the woman’s death, and especially to express her gratitude to Mr. Carlisle for his kindness; but she dared not face his present mood. However, as they again reached the villa, she said hurriedly and in a tone full of anxiety:

“Mr. Carlisle, you have exposed yourself to great danger, and I do not forget that it was for my sake. I shall not be satisfied unless you promise me that you will take every possible precaution to avoid any future evil consequences. I should never forgive myself if any harm came to you.”

Her eyes lowered beneath the look he for one moment fixed upon her appealing face; then, with the exclamation, “An unblessed life is of little consequence,” he sprang from the carriage, and, saying to Giovanni, “I will summon Mrs. Grey,” he dashed up the stone staircase.

Assunta sank back with a feeling almost of despair at the task before her. Even if she had not to struggle with her own heart, it would have been hard enough to steer the right, straight course between these contradictory moods in her guardian; one moment so tender and thoughtful, the next so full of bitterness. How could she reconcile them? How should she ever be able to bear her burden, if this weight were added to it day by day?

Assunta possessed the gift—which, advanced to a higher degree, might be termed the natural science of the saints—of receiving religious impressions and suggestions from the natural objects about her. Now, as in a listless manner she looked around, her eyes fell upon the snow‐crowned hills which bound the Roman horizon, and rested there. She had no thought of the classic associations which throng those mountain‐sides and nestle in the valleys. She needed strength, and instantly the words were present to her mind: “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me.” And following out the consoling train of thought, she passed from those peaceful Roman hills to Jerusalem and the mountains which surround it, even “as the Lord is round about his people.” Then, by a natural transition, she turned her thoughts to the poor woman who had just left behind her poverty, privation, and suffering, and, accompanied only by that hope and love which had endured and survived them all, had entered, so she confidently hoped, into the possession of God—the Beatific Vision. What a contrast between the temporal and eternal!

Her silent requiem for the departed soul was interrupted by Mrs. Grey’s bright presence and merry voice.

“I cannot imagine what you have been doing to Severn,” she said; “but he is in one of his unaccountable conditions of mind, and declares that he will not go to drive—pressing business, etc. I am sure we can do without him very well, all but the reading part, which had been assigned to him. It is so late, at any rate, that perhaps we had better give up the baths, and drive at once to the cemetery. You see I have secured an excellent substitute for our recreant cavalier,” she added, as a gentleman emerged from the massive doorway. “Come, Mr. Sinclair, we are waiting for you.”

There was just a shade of stateliness in Assunta’s manner as she greeted the somewhat elegant man of the world, who seated himself opposite to her. She would gladly have been dispensed from the drive altogether, feeling as she did then; nevertheless, she submitted to the necessity which could hardly be avoided.

“Truly, Miss Howard,” said Mr. Sinclair, as they drove away, “I begin to believe the ancient goddesses no myths. Flora herself would find in you a worthy rival. It is not often that I have the happiness to be placed opposite two such lovely ladies.”

“Very good for a _finale_, Mr. Sinclair,” replied Mrs. Grey; “but if you were to speak your mind, you would be calling me Ceres, or something else suggestive of the ‘sere and yellow leaf.’ ”

“That is a gross injustice, not only to me, but to yourself,” answered Mr. Sinclair in his most gallant tone. “Have not the poets ever vied with each other in disputes as to the respective merits of spring, with its freshness, and the rich bloom of early summer? And permit me to add that neither has yet been able to claim a victory. In such a presence it would be rash indeed for me to constitute myself a judge.”

“Unwise, certainly,” rejoined Mrs. Grey, “to take into your hand such an apple of discord. Women and goddesses are pretty much alike, and the fate of Paris might be yours. Remember the ten years’ siege.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Sinclair, “there you do not frighten me. Welcome the ten years’ siege, if during that time the fair Helen were safe within the walls. After ten years one might perhaps be reconciled to a surrender and a change of scene, since even the lovely Trojan’s beauty must have lost the freshness of its charms by that time.”

“O faithless men!” said Mrs. Grey, very much as if she were pronouncing an eulogy.

“Miss Howard,” said Mr. Sinclair, “you are silent. Does our classic lore fail to enlist your interest, or are you studying antiquities?”

“Pardon me,” replied Assunta; “it was rude in me to be so abstracted. I must excuse myself on the ground of sympathy for suffering which I have been unable to alleviate.”

“By the way, Assunta,” exclaimed Mrs. Grey, “how did you find your _protégée_?”

“She is dead,” replied the young girl, softly.

“Oh! I am so sorry. How very sudden! Mr. Sinclair, you were telling me about the Braschi ball when Severn interrupted us. When did you say it is to be?”

“In about three weeks,” replied the gentleman. “I hope that you ladies will be there. Our American blondes are greatly in demand among so many black eyes. You are going, are you not?”

“Most certainly we shall,” answered Mrs. Grey with ready confidence, the future being to her but a continuation of to‐day. The cloud that might appear on her horizon must be much larger than a man’s hand to turn her attention to it from the sunshine immediately about her.

And so, between pleasantry and gossip, the time passed until the carriage stopped at the gate of the cemetery.

“You have chosen a very serious termination to your afternoon’s drive, Mrs. Grey,” said Mr. Sinclair, as he assisted the ladies to alight. “I always carefully avoid whatever reminds me of my latter end.”

“Let me play Egyptian coffin, then, for once,” replied Mrs. Grey, but with a merry laugh that belied her words. “I will lead you to a contemplation of the fate of genius. I dote on Shelley, and so we have made a pilgrimage to his grave.”

“You have every appearance of a pilgrim about to visit some sacred shrine,” said Mr. Sinclair with an echo of her bright laugh. “Lead on, fair pilgrim princess; we humble votaries will follow wherever your illustrious steps may guide.”

A small, horizontal slab, almost hidden beneath the pyramid of Caius Cestus—itself a tomb—is all that marks the resting‐place of the gifted, ill‐fated Shelley.

“Here is your shrine, my lady pilgrim,” said Mr. Sinclair, as he removed some of the green overgrowth from off the inscription.

“Somebody make a suitable quotation,” said Mrs. Grey. “You know we ought to be sentimental now.”

Assunta at once rejoined:

“ ‘How wonderful is Death— Death and his brother, Sleep!’

Poor Shelley! But I do not like the inscription, Clara; or rather, I do not like such an expression on such a grave.

“What do you mean, dear Assunta?” said Mrs. Grey, looking at her as if she were talking Sanscrit. “I think it is lovely. _Cor cordium_—the heart of hearts, is it not? I am sure nothing could be more appropriate.”

“It does not seem to me appropriate,” answered Assunta; “but then you know I always do have strange ideas—so you say. Why should _Cor cordium_ be written over the ashes of one who was burned in true pagan fashion, and who, as I think, should rather be pitied for what he did not do, with his marvellous gifts, than loved for anything he has done?”

As she paused, a voice beside her exclaimed, “I am sure I cannot be mistaken. Is not this Miss Howard?”

Assunta turned and welcomed with a pleased surprise the young man who appeared so unexpectedly, then she presented him to her companions as Mr. Percival, of Baltimore, the brother of her only intimate school friend. He was tall and slender, not handsome, but with a manly and at the same time spiritual face. His eyes were his finest feature, but their beauty was rather that of the soul speaking through them. Assunta had not seen him since her school days at the convent, and then she had known him but slightly; so she was herself surprised at her ready recognition of him.

“And what has brought you so far away from my dear Mary?” she asked after the first greetings were over.

“I am on that most unenviable of expeditions—health‐seeking,” was his reply. “After graduating at college, the physician doomed me to a year of travel; and so we meet again at Shelley’s grave!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Grey, “and Assunta and I were in the midst of an amiable quarrel when you found us out. I engage you on my side, Mr. Percival. It is about the inscription, which I like and Assunta does not, for reasons which are Greek to me.”

“I was just going to say,” said Assunta, “that _Cor cordium_ seemed to me a sacred phrase wholly misapplied, though I have no doubt the irreverence was unintentional.” And turning to Mr. Percival with that sort of spiritual instinct which teaches us where to look for sympathy even in a crowd, she continued:

“I hope that I am not guilty of the same want of reverence in thinking that if those words are to be inscribed on any grave, they should be written upon that stone which was rolled against the opening of the new sepulchre in the garden, and sealed with the Roman seal; for there the true _Cor cordium_ was enclosed.”

“Mr. Percival, I see that you have gone over to the ranks of the enemy,” said Mrs. Grey; “and if Mr. Sinclair deserts me, I shall never be able to stand my ground against two such devotees.”

“I am yours to command, Mrs. Grey,” replied Mr. Sinclair with an expression of contempt in his tone. “But perhaps it might be well to transfer our operations to another battle‐field. Allow me to offer you a souvenir of the occasion.” And he handed to each of the ladies a sprig of green from beside the marble tablet.

Assunta quite simply shared hers with Mr. Percival at his request, and then they retraced their steps. As they approached the carriage, Mrs. Grey very cordially begged Mr. Percival to occupy the fourth seat, which he reluctantly declined, as also the invitation to visit them.

“For,” said he, “to‐morrow I start for Jerusalem; and, Miss Howard, when I am kneeling, as I hope to do, in the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, I shall remember you and those suggestive words of yours.”

“You could not do me a greater kindness,” replied Assunta, “than to remember me there. And when you return, what do you intend to do in the way of a profession? You see I am interested for Mary’s sake. I know what her desire is.”

An hour before, if this question had been proposed to him, Augustine Percival would have been able to give a probable answer. Though he had not yet decided, his few days’ sojourn in Rome had stirred up within him a feeling which had been latent even in his boyhood, and from the depths of the Catacombs and beneath the lofty domes he had thought he heard an interior voice which whispered to him, “Follow me.” And now a fair young face had made him hesitate, though, in justice to him, it must be added that no mere charm of beauty would have touched him for a moment. It was the purity and beauty of mind and soul, which he read and appreciated, that caused him to reply to Assunta’s question:

“The matter of my future vocation will be left, I think, until my return.”

Then, with many pleasant farewell words, they parted; and, except to mention the meeting to her friend in her next letter, Assunta thought no more of the thread of another life which had for a moment crossed hers.

That evening there were guests at the villa; and, as usual, Assunta’s amiability was taxed by the repeated demands for music. As she sat absently turning over the leaves before her in one of the intervals, Mr. Carlisle came and stood beside her.

“_Petite_,” he said, “I have been to see the authorities about the family of that poor woman who died to‐day, and everything will be arranged comfortably for them; so you need feel no further anxiety!”

“How good you are, dear friend!” she replied. “God bless you for it!”

“It is your blessing that I want,” said he. “It was for you that I took the little trouble you are pleased to magnify into something deserving of gratitude.”

“Please do not say so, Mr. Carlisle,” said Assunta earnestly. “You do such noble acts, and then you spoil them by your want of faith.”

The word was unfortunately chosen.

“If by faith,” Mr. Carlisle replied, “you mean your Catholic faith, I cannot force myself to accept what does not appeal to my reason. I can respect an honest conviction in others when I am in turn treated with equal liberality; but,” he added in a low tone, “I could hate the faith, so called, which comes between me and the fulfilment of my dearest wish.”

There was a call for more music, and so there was no opportunity, even had there been inclination, for a reply. But as Assunta was passing wearily to her room after the last guest had departed, Mr. Carlisle stopped her, and, after his usual good‐night, he said: “Forgive me, child. I have not been myself to‐day.”

Two weeks afterwards, when her guardian lay prostrate on his bed in the delirium of fever, Assunta remembered those few words, which at the time had given her pain, with that agony of sorrow which can only be aroused by the knowledge that the soul of one beloved may at any moment be launched upon the immeasurable ocean of eternity, rudderless and anchorless.

To Be Continued.

Church Music. Concluded.(167)

II. (Continued.)

Having settled that plain chant should have a part, and indeed a large part, in our choral service, but that figured music should not be excluded, it remains for us to say what figured music is to be used in alternation with plain chant, or substituted when plain chant is completely set aside.

Some seem to imagine that no figured music is suitable for the church but that which is termed _alla Palestrina_. They urge the great fitness of this species of music for church purposes; for, like the plain chant, it is ancient, can boast a long and exclusive connection with the Catholic ceremonial, admits of no personal display, is dissimilar from the music of the world, never alters the words or does violence to them, is not only distinctly ecclesiastical but papal, and quite as solemn and grave as plain chant, while it is of wider range and of far more pleasing effect. Though written in strict measure, it follows the tonality of plain chant. Its origin is holy, since S. Charles and S. Philip were intimately associated with Palestrina. Then, again, it has the best possible authorization—that of having been used for the last three hundred years by the popes, to the edification of the whole world, non‐Catholic as well as Catholic.

We admit all these claims. But against the use of this species of music amongst us there is a fatal objection.

It was written to be sung without instrumental accompaniment, which, when used in conjunction with it, always mars its effect; and hence, though nothing more suitable can be imagined for Lent and Advent, when, according to the rubrics (too often slighted), the sound of the organ should not be heard, we cannot be expected to sing it at other times; for we absolutely need the organ to make amends for our scanty numbers, our lack of proficiency in execution, to support the voices, and to give variety to the service.

The organ is regarded by us as essentially a church instrument by its nature and the associations we connect with it; indeed it never fails to arouse in us deeper feelings of reverence and devotion, and we cannot do without it.

An attempt was made in several of the German cathedrals some years ago to revive music of the Palestrina style, to the exclusion of the more modern; but circumstances, we think, have already led to some modifications of the strict rules first proposed.

III.

Practically, we can hardly hope ever to exclude from our churches modern figured music—as Benedict XIV. says, that would be an extreme measure; but we can exclude, and are bound, he says, to exclude, such compositions of it as are unsuitable for church purposes.

But how shall we determine what is suitable and what is not?

Music, it will be said, is a mere matter of taste, and the adage has it, _De gustibus non est disputandum_.

But there is bad taste as well as good taste. Moreover, church music is a matter of principle as well as of taste, and good taste in this case is closely allied to principle.

Taste is the instinct or habit, or rather the instinct following habit, and perfected by it, whereby we are enabled to discern and detect what is most proper and congruous in each province of art.

Now, the reason for employing music in the service of the church is religious or it is none. Unless the musical sounds, therefore, subserve the meaning of the text, they are better away. “Where the religious song is accompanied by musical instruments,” says Benedict XIV., “these must serve solely for adding to its force, so that the sense of the words penetrate deeper into the hearts of the faithful, and their spirit, being roused to the contemplation of spiritual things, be elevated towards God and the love of divine objects.” That style of music, then, will be the most religious which deals most reverently with its subject, and gives the least scope to the play of irreligious dispositions. Being the most suitable to its subject, it will also be in the truest taste.

Hence that music will be the most suitable and the best which in its construction will correspond most perfectly with the peculiar spirit of each festival and with the special character of each service; which will most naturally and reverently render the sense of the words without changing, inverting, or abridging them, or marring their sense by useless and tiresome repetitions,—which, in other words, will speak as distinctly and as religiously to the ear as the altar, the vestments of the priest, and the ceremonies speak to the eye. Music and ceremonies, and everything connected with them, should be in the most perfect harmony, reminding all that they are in the house of God, and assembled in his presence to pay him homage on earth like that rendered him by the members of the church triumphant in heaven.

Hence, 1, church music should not in any way recall the world, its temptations or its pleasures; and the prohibition made by popes and councils against the introduction into the church of compositions written originally for the theatre or the concert‐room, but with other words, or of compositions written for the church, but in a style suggestive of the stage, is so evidently just and proper that any one who objects to it must be wanting in common sense.

“Humana nefas miscere divinis” finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.(168)

Hence, 2, not even the feelings of the congregation should ever tempt the director of the music of the church to admit what is not in every respect most suitable to the place, the time, and the occasion. Fortunately, we have no difficulty here in the United States with our own people. The only trouble is when we go out of our way to satisfy the expectations of non‐ Catholics who occasionally are present at our services, or of a few musicians not otherwise interested in the services.

Hence, 3, undue prominence should never be given to individual singers. It is, to say the least, very distracting.

Hence, 4, the director of the music should never be willing to sacrifice the liturgy, even the least part of it, to the exigencies of the music, whatever they may happen to be; but, on the contrary, he should be ever ready, if need be, to sacrifice even the most admirable musical numbers to the exigencies of the ceremonial.

In other words, he should never forget that music is one of the many accessories to our public worship—never the essential—and is never to be heard merely for its own sake.

This is brought out clearly and distinctly in two decrees that have for us in this section of country the full force of law—a decree of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, and another decree of the Third Provincial Council of New York:

“That all may be done according to prescribed order, and that the solemn rites of the church may be preserved in their integrity, we admonish pastors of churches to labor earnestly to remove those abuses which in our country have crept into the church chant. Let them therefore provide _that the music be subservient to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the other offices_, and not _the divine offices to the music_. Let them also bear in mind that, according to the ritual of the church, it is not lawful to sing hymns in the vernacular languages at High Mass and at solemn Vespers.”(169)

“At solemn Masses singers are prohibited from so protracting the Offertory, the _Sanctus_, and the _Benedictus_ that the celebrant is obliged to delay till they have made an end of singing.”(170)

The general principles we have laid down will be still better understood if we examine the declarations made by the church through several of the popes.

The most notable and the most precious of these are the brief of Benedict XIV. already mentioned, and the rules for composers given by Pius IX.

Pope Benedict XIV., in his Constitution _Annus_ 19, February, 1749, begins by laying down the general principle that the music of the church must be so ordered that nothing profane, nothing worldly, and especially nothing theatrical, be heard in it. He repeats this principle again and again, and says that there is no one who does not detest operatic music in the church, and who does not look for and desire a difference between the music of the church and the music of the stage.

He then reminds us of the Constitution of Pope Innocent XII., by which it is forbidden to sing at solemn Mass and Vespers motets or hymns that are not a part of the Mass or the Vespers of the day; that is, at solemn Mass, the only pieces allowed to be sung besides the _Kyrie_, _Gloria_, _Credo_, _Sanctus_, _Benedictus_, and _Agnus Dei_ are the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion of the Mass of the day (a single exception being made for Corpus Christi, when the _O Salutaris!_ or other hymn of the office of the Blessed Sacrament may be sung at the Offertory), and at solemn Vespers only the Antiphons and the proper hymn with the Psalms.

He then proceeds to condemn frequent repetitions of the same words, and places the chief distinction between theatrical music and church music in this: that in the former the words are made quite subservient to the singing and the accompaniment; whereas in the latter the words are rendered intelligibly, and the music is made subservient to them.

He next instructs bishops to banish from the church absolutely all instruments except the organ; but with the organ he allows the use of violins, violas, violoncellos, contrabassos, and bassoons, because these add, he says, to the force of its tones; but he prohibits cymbals, horns, trombones, oboes, flutes—in general, all wind‐instruments, as also harps and guitars, because all these, he says, recall the theatre.

He directs that while the singing is going on the instruments must merely accompany, never take the place of, the voices.

He allows suitable symphonies when these are dissociated from the office proper—probably meaning the pieces played at the beginning and the end of service, and to fill up pauses when the choir is silent.

He closes by urging the Italian bishops to comply with these instructions faithfully, that foreign bishops coming to Rome may see in Italian, and especially in Roman, churches the public offices properly carried out, and thus be induced to imitate them.

The present vicar‐general of Pius IX., Cardinal Patrizzi, by order of the Pope, wrote two letters to composers of church music in Rome, on the 18th and 20th of November, 1856, and in them he so far supplements the directions of Benedict XIV. that we have wherewith to determine without much difficulty what music is, and what music is not, admissible in Catholic choirs.

In his first letter he says:

“The most sustained gravity is to be observed, and nothing introduced suggestive of theatrical pieces, either by the arrangement or by the melody; too many repetitions, and all changes and arbitrary inversions of the words are to be avoided.

“At Mass, Exposition, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and other sacred ceremonies, organists are forbidden to execute the whole or parts of theatrical pieces, or to play in a too florid or distracting style; and their music ought to be such as to promote the recollection and devotion of the faithful.

“As we consider an interruption between the various parts of the words of the liturgy very unbecoming, even when any verse is finished, as being an occasion of distraction and noise among the musicians and hearers, we order that every part of the offices, especially at Mass, shall be sung through continuously, so that the _Kyrie_, _Gloria_, and other parts may each have a unity of structure.”

In his second letter he teaches composers the necessity of their having for their object the praise of God and the devotion of the faithful, and shows how church music in its whole construction ought to differ from that of the stage.

“If all composers,” he says, “drew their inspirations from piety and religion, as some of them have the good spirit to do; if they always kept before their minds that their music ought to tend to praise God in his holy temple, and to excite the devotion of the faithful, there would have been but little need to make rules for musical composition. But it is only too true that, in some instances, to the great surprise of the truly religious among the faithful, there has been heard in the churches certain music unworthy of the house of God, and showing that the composer, far from having in view the service of the divine Majesty and the edification of his hearers, has only aimed at displaying his own imagination, and that he has forgotten the church and written for the theatre, not only by borrowing its style of melody, but also by introducing portions of theatrical music, to which he has sometimes violently adapted the words of the sacred liturgy. In order that so great a scandal may not be renewed, and that those who write music for the church may have a rule to keep them within due bounds, we prescribe as follows:

“1. Music destined for execution in the churches ought to be distinguishable from profane and theatrical music, not only in its _melodies_, but also in its whole character; hence

“2. Those movements are forbidden which would not be naturally inspired by the sacred character of the words, and which would be suggestive of the theatre.

“3. We forbid too lively or exciting movements; if the words require cheerfulness and joy, let it be expressed by the sweetness of religious mirth, and not by the unbridled liveliness of the dance.

“4. In all movements, whether slow or quick, the words of the sacred text must be pronounced clearly, and never more quickly than in ordinary discourse.

“5. The words must be put to music in the order which they occupy in the sacred text. When the sense has been entirely expressed, it will be allowable to repeat some word of it, or some phrase of it, as may be necessary, without inversion, without confusion of the sense, and with the required moderation.

“6. All the words must be sung, and none added nor any omitted. It is not allowed for one syllable of them to be changed.

“7. We forbid ariettas, duets, and trios in imitation of theatrical pieces. Recitative and everything approaching to it is forbidden; as also operatic finales, such as are known by the term _cabaletta_.

“8. As regards instruments, long introductions and long preludes are to be avoided, whether with full orchestra or with solos.

“9. Without depriving instrumental music of the grace and coloring which art and good taste suggest, an effeminate softness is to be avoided, as well as immoderate noise, which is always tiring and unbecoming in the house of God.

“10. The composer must not forget that _the use of instrumental music in the churches is in a state of simple toleration_; the object of it must be to sustain and enrich the singing, to be far from overpowering it, or from enfeebling and deadening it, or reducing it to a mere accessory.”

These rules, if adhered to, would give us music which would meet the requirements both of devotion and of art; nor do they exclude such variety as the diversity of our feelings calls for. It could, by its placid, quiet, and smooth‐flowing measures, soothe and subdue us into that mood which best fits us to offer to God reverential homage, and to make acts of resignation when we feel the hand of affliction bearing heavily upon us; but also, by more joyous and inspiriting strains, dispose us to praise God according to the immensity of his greatness, in joy and gladness, on loud‐ sounding cymbals (_in cymbalis jubilationis_), and send us back to the battle of life with renewed courage and strength.

IV.

But, it will be asked, can this style of music which we have just sketched be had? Most certainly.

It is true our organists do not know it; for they are lamentably ill‐read in musical lore. They seem to imagine that whatever is published as music for the service of the Catholic Church is to be regarded as “Catholic music,” and perfectly proper, and they scarcely dream of looking further than to the publications or importations of Ditson, Peters, and Novello, or of critically examining these to test their fitness for the purposes of divine worship. To take the two best composers of their class, how few organists have taken the trouble to study critically the Masses of Haydn and Mozart. Of the sixteen Masses composed by Haydn, there are only four in which the words are all correct. These are Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 9. All the others are consequently defective.

In Nos. 7, 8, and 11, although all the words are to be found in one or other of the voice parts, yet each voice is often singing different words at the same time.

In Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 16 the words _Qui ex patre filioque procedit_ are altogether omitted. In Nos. 3 and 16 the words _et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, filium Dei unigenitum_, are wanting. In No. 2 the words _Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur_ are omitted. In No. 10 the words _Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis_, are omitted. In the _Credo_ all the words from _et in unum Dominum_ as far as _per quem omnia facta sunt_ (inclusive), and again all the last part of the _Credo_ from _et in Spiritum_ to the end, are altogether omitted.

In No. 12 the words _Qui tollis peccata mundi_ (_secundo_) are omitted.

In No. 13 the words _Jesu Christe, Domine Deus_, are omitted. The words _Filius Patris_ are immediately followed by _miserere nobis, quoniam tu solus_, etc.

Again, in the _Credo_ of this same Mass, after the words _et invisibilium_ we find the text read thus: _credo per quem omnia_, etc., with all the intermediate part left out. No. 14 consists of a _Kyrie_ and _Gloria_ only. In the _Gloria_ the words _Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe_, etc., _qui sedes_, etc., are omitted. In No. 15 the words _Qui tollis peccata mundi_ (_secundo_) are omitted. In the _Credo_ of this Mass, beginning with _Et resurrexit_, different words are sung simultaneously by each part, as remarked above of Nos. 7, 8, and 11.

While it cannot be denied that much of the Mass music of Haydn is the most beautiful in the world, some of it is trivial and undevotional, and it would seem as if, by some of his movements, he wished to

“Make the soul dance a jig to heaven.”

Concerning the sacred compositions of Mozart, a recent French author, M. Felix Clement,(171) makes the following startling assertion:

“The religious musical compositions of Mozart are much less numerous than is generally believed, and the catalogues of music publishers and the repertories of _maîtres de chapelle_ are not to be trusted. Many of these musicians frequently take the liberty of stealing from Mozart’s operas, and even from his compositions for instruments, and of adapting them to a Latin text, let the adaptations be worth what they may.... The only authentic religious compositions of Mozart are the following:

“A _Stabat mater_ for four voices, without instruments, and very short.

“A _Veni Sancte Spiritus_ for four voices, two violins, two hautboys, two horns, a clarinet, tympanum, alto, and violoncello.

“A solemn Mass for four voices, two violins, two hautboys, two altos, four clarinets, and tympanum, 1768.

“A short Mass for four voices and the same accompaniment, 1768.

“A Grand Offertory for four voices and similar accompaniment, 1768.

“An _Ave Verum Corpus_, 1791.

“The Mass of Requiem.

“Two solemn Masses in C major.”

There are adaptations in many of Peters’ publications that are simply shocking, and even our most worthy Anthony Werner forgot himself while he was compiling the _Memorare_ and the _Cantate_, and inserted a few compositions that are out of rule, and therefore out of taste.

Again, few organists amongst us have a sufficient knowledge of Latin, of the structure of the ritual, and of the traditions of the church to judge of the appropriateness of compositions; and the evil is aggravated to the last degree by the custom of making the organist the director of the music as well. Hardly any of them know either the theory or the practice of plain chant.

Music of the kind we have described as fit for church use abounds in Italy, but mostly in the condition of MS. The works of the Augustan age of Italian music, from the time of Carissimi to that of Jommelli, including those of Durante, Leo, Clari, Steffani, Martini, and Pergolesi, and even of later masters, like Terziani, afford inexhaustible treasures almost entirely neglected.

The new order of things in Italy has wrought and is working mischief there in more ways than one. Thus it has already been the occasion of the loss of a great number of valuable musical manuscripts, and unfortunately the end is not yet. The revolution of 1848 caused a great deal of wanton destruction, the result of that spirit of vandalism which seems to possess all revolutionists; and the recent suppression of so many churches by the Italian government has brought about the dispersion and consequent loss of the manuscripts of as many musical libraries—a loss that can never be repaired.

If we do not resume the execution of the compositions of the older masters, we must at least recur to them for the purposes of study. In no other way can we shake off the influence of the drama.

We have learned from the instructions of Benedict XIV. and the cardinal vicar of Pius IX. that there is a distinction between the music of the stage and that of the church, and that this distinction is based on the fact that in the latter the music must be written to suit the words of the sacred text, and that the music, whilst having that serious and chastened expression which befits the language of devotion, should be distinctively vocal and choral; whereas in the former the tendency is to make the words suit the modulations of the music, to subordinate the voices to the rich and powerful instrumental symphony which accompanies them, to flatter the popular ear by light and taking airs, and to display to the best advantage the voices of individual singers and their wonderful execution.

These characteristics of secular music, due to the influence first of Mozart and afterwards of Rossini more than to that of any other composers, have been too long felt in the music of the church, and to be rid of them we must lean more towards the past, and return to the study of those grave and solemn forms which existed prior to their day, and in which the instrumental accompaniment contained no suggestion of levity, and was used to support and enrich the vocal harmony without drawing attention from it.

The celebrated Robert Franz is now editing some of the works of Durante, who flourished not long after the departure from Palestrina was made, and whose piety and exclusive devotedness to church music have given a more ecclesiastical character to his compositions than to those of any other composer of his day.

In France the war between those who advocate the exclusive use of plain chant and those who plead that music may have some share in the divine service is waged fiercely, and the consequence is that both parties go to extremes, and both assert principles with regard to the respective merits of the two styles that are utterly untenable. There is no country in the world where plain chant is so much sung, and none where so much wretched stuff is palmed off as sacred music. Nevertheless, France has composers of merit, who might achieve great results if they had a public of broader views to write for, chief among whom is Gounod, who, in his _Messe Solennelle_ and his _Ave Verum_, has struck the right chord, and proved himself able to write sacred music for great occasions, in which all the resources of modern art may be combined with a solemnity and an expression of piety not less remarkable than that which we find in the compositions of Palestrina.

In England the advocates of what we may call the canonical style of church music are not inactive.

The late Cardinal Wiseman had an excellent collection of Palestrina music, published in the most elegant style by Burns.

Years ago Monsignor Newsham, at the cardinal’s suggestion, composed for smaller choirs four chorus Masses, to be sung in unison or in parts _ad libitum_. They are easy, flowing, and very devotional, and strictly in rule. They are published by Novello.

Mr. Richardson, an excellent musician, has revised some of the Masses of Haydn and Mozart, and, without altering substantially the music of these two great composers, reset the words with rare skill; so that we have all the beauty of the music, while the text of the Mass does not suffer. They are published by Burns & Oates.

Of late years Archbishop Manning has had a series of six Masses composed by excellent musicians, chiefly for unison singing, but they may also be sung alternately in parts. They have a full and artistic organ accompaniment, and are so arranged that the effect produced by them is scarcely inferior to that of vocal part music, while they are not hard to learn, and do not overtax the voices.

He has also had other Masses published _for four voices_ in the highest style of art. These are by eminent composers, and have organ _obbligato_ accompaniment. They are full without being of inconvenient length.

In these, as in the preceding Masses, the _Sanctus_ and _Benedictus_ in no case exceed the proper limits.

They are published by Burns & Oates.

Other compositions of the same class are promised.

Of what is being done in Belgium we cannot speak so confidently; but at the last Catholic Congress of Mechlin the subject of church music received due attention; prizes were offered for compositions that would meet the requirements of devotion as well as art, and a _concursus_ actually took place, and the works of the contestants published.

It is in Germany that the movement in favor of the reform of church music has been the most active and has made the most progress.

We have already mentioned the introduction of the Palestrina style of music into some of the German cathedrals, and four immense volumes of music of that class have been published by Pustet, of Munich; and, as we have just said, Franz is publishing and drawing attention to the works of Durante, who represents the style that came into vogue when Palestrina was first departed from.

But they have a large and able society, called the Cecilia, extending all over Germany, which last year numbered 7,000, and is ever increasing. They have at their head F. Francis Witt, an exemplary priest of Spire, whom the Germans call “the modern Palestrina.” He is trying to achieve in our day the success that Palestrina met in his.

The number of compositions for the church published by this society or under its own influence is immense.

A writer in the London _Tablet_ stated recently that by means of S. Cecilia’s Society a thorough reform had been effected in the church music of Germany, and that frivolous compositions in the secular style have at last been banished from the churches.

The writer of this paper remembers hearing in the autumn of 1869, in the Cathedral of Munich, two Masses of this school, which contained no passages for _soli_, and in which the words were treated as respectfully as in the compositions of Palestrina and his school, none being repeated or inverted. The accompaniment of the organ and the orchestra, in which no wind instruments were heard—except, perhaps, the bassoon—was so fully subordinated to the voices and so perfect otherwise that his ear has been spoiled, as it were, and every similar performance heard since in other places has been a grievous disappointment. He never heard any music more pleasing artistically, and at the same time more devotional and proper. It showed that composers can give us the best music which modern art can furnish, and yet keep strictly within the limits marked by ecclesiastical authority.

The Cecilia Society of Germany has a branch in this country, which has recently begun to publish select music, and to issue a musical journal called the _Cecilia_. The editor is F. Singinberger, and the publishers Fisher & Brother, Dayton, Ohio.

The publications of sacred music amongst us have not been very numerous or very remarkable for excellence. Among the very best we feel bound to notice the publications,(172) and especially the elegant compositions(173) of Mr. Falkestein, who has shown that he knows how to unite in his skilfully‐constructed and charming yet devout compositions the depth and severity of the old ecclesiastical masters with the graceful and flowing melody and orchestral effects of the modern school.

There is no lack of good‐will and talent amongst our musicians, but the trouble is that they have not the models by the study of which they may form a true ecclesiastical style. A library is as necessary to the student of music who hopes to be a composer as it is to the student of literature who has the ambition of becoming an author. Our directors of church choirs need a larger acquaintance with the great masters, especially the older ones. Above all, they need to have a better knowledge of Gregorian chant. For this chant should not only form a part of our service, as was already stated in the first part of this paper, but it should also be the source of inspiration to those who wish to compose for the church, as it was to Palestrina and his followers, as it is to‐day to Gounod. The language of Mr. Ritter may be exaggerated, but it conveys a truth to be remembered:(174) “The Gregorian chant,” he says, “runs like a red thread through the musical part of the service of the Catholic Church; this really sacred song creates in Catholic countries the first impressions which touch the soul of the young Christian on his entrance into the church, and is, as such, the indestructible echo of his first sacred associations. As Holy Writ forms the invariable foundation of the religious and moral principles of the true Christian, so the Gregorian chant ought to form the ground and invariable theme of the true church composer; and as long as composers understood and valued this inestimable, noble, and really sacred practice their works composed for the church truthfully and appropriately fulfilled their solemn office; these works were thus imbued with the sacred character derived from the themes of the sacred songs; then necessarily a distinct line of demarcation was drawn between secular and sacred music.”

A Week In Wordsworth’s Haunts.

We had only a week to spare, but we were not long in choosing where to spend our holiday. At that time the Lake Country was accessible, but not yet crossed through and through, by railroads. The cars took us from London almost through to Windermere, but, that being the gate of the sanctuary, they went no further. We had to cross the “Black Country,” a weird region of coal‐mines and furnaces, where scarcely a blade of grass meets the eye; interminable plains, strewn with gaunt machinery and bristling with tall brick chimneys or low, wide, oven‐like buildings, stretch from the track of the railroad as far as the horizon; a muffled noise, rumbling and crackling, is the only sound besides the shrill whistle of the engine; the sky is black as with the promise of ten thousand thunder‐storms, the murky air hangs like a pall over the earth, and tongues of flame shoot up now and then from the mouths of the furnaces. At night the scene is gloomily splendid; everywhere lurid flashes leap up from these openings, for the work is incessant here; half‐ naked forms stalk from chimney to pit, wheeling giant barrows or pushing forward heavy trucks on tramways; no sound but the never‐ceasing rumble of wheels and crackle of flames—apparently a silent Pandemonium or Dantesque city of Dis; at any rate, a sight that one does not easily forget.

Windermere is the largest, the most fashionable, and the best known of the English lakes. It was Saturday night when we reached it and went to an inn overlooking the calm sheet of water. The moon was up, and streaked the shadows of the great mountains that lay across the lake with her shimmering silver pathway; the little boats moored by the various landings rocked to and fro in the gentle breeze, and the wavelets came with a “swish” against the pebbly shore. Next morning, on inquiring for the Catholic church, we were told that there was a private chapel in the house of a Catholic gentleman who lived on an island in the lake, and allowed any respectable tourist to come on Sunday. We rowed over to the island, and found it all a garden: smooth lawns to the water’s edge, broad gravel‐ paths through groves of elm and chestnut, a glowing parterre, rustic seats, fountains and marble balustrades, and by the boat‐house a little group of gay skiffs dancing up and down on the blue water. The chapel was up‐stairs, and there was an outside stair‐case leading to it, down which we saw a familiar figure coming slowly towards us. It was that of a London priest whom we knew, and who, like us, was spending a brief holiday among the lakes. He had come over to say an early Mass; the master of the house was not at home, he said, but the chaplain would be glad to welcome all Catholics, many of whom came during the touring season. After Mass we strolled for an hour about the garden, admiring the vistas contrived between the trees, at the end of which glimpses of the blue sky and sparkling water, with some gray or purple peak cleaving the line of the horizon, could be seen. From every point of the lake itself these mountains strike the eye; for the most part bare of trees, their lower ledges covered with green pasture‐land, and seamed here and there with the foamy streak of a beck or stream; their summits sheer rock. Their names all have a grand, free sound that suits their craggy, majestic beauty—Helm Crag, Hammar Scar, Silver How, Skiddaw. This one is the monarch of the lake country. Great How is a single, conspicuous peak rising at the foot of Lake Thirlmere, to the west of the lovely vale of Legberthwaite, near the high‐road between Ambleside and Keswick. Ambleside is a favorite resort of students; young men from the two universities often come to spend the long vacation here, where reading, walking, and boating can be combined. The scenery is very beautiful; the valleys are broken up into a thousand nooks where fern and heather grow, and some tiny rivulet trickles beneath the broad‐arched fronds of the bracken; every old wall wears a golden crown of celandine, or, in native dialect, pilewort; the “ghyll”—_i.e._, a short, steep, narrow gorge, a miniature cañon—is traversed by the foamy brook, leaping to the waterfall called in Cumberland a “force”; the birch, the rowan, the oak, cling to the rocky ledges that jut out over the little cataract, and everywhere above the greenery lies the shadow of the great lonely hills. Black Comb in Cumberland Wordsworth calls a spot fit for a “ministering angel” to choose, for from its summit, on a tolerably clear day, England, Scotland, and Ireland are all three visible. Many of the mountains, both in Cumberland and Westmoreland, have traces of inscriptions on the native rock which have by some learned men been supposed to be Runic, but which it is now generally agreed to call Roman. They are very rude, and much effaced by time and the action of the weather; hence the uncertainty.

It was by the shores of Windermere that a party of young men, all enthusiastic Tractarians, spent a vacation in one of the first years of that movement now called Puseyite and ritualistic, but then known as the Young England movement. In those days ladies washed and ironed the church linen, and wore their dainty fingers to the bone sewing surplices and embroidering altar‐cloths; while others would take it by turn to sweep the churches and dust the pews; and others again, intent on doing penance, would kneel for hours on stone floors, and even use the _discipline_ unsparingly, until the doctor’s verdict put an end to their misguided zeal. Blindly they were beating about for the truth, and thought they had found it in practices of self‐denial. It was a touching blindness—one that God often and often enlightened during those fruitful years. Young men made a point of exercising bodily mortification, even in vacation time, and, when thrown by circumstances amid unsympathizing companions, would carry their zeal into the commonest actions, and make a silent boast of their new‐found faith. One Friday, for instance, a few young members of Parliament, assembled in the lobby of the House of Commons, called for “tea and toast” instead of the unfailing mutton‐chop of tradition, and the mild protest created quite a sensation. On going home they were received by their several households as champions of a holy cause who, from humble beginnings, were going to bring about a mighty revolution, a national awakening. It was very beautiful, this child‐like faith in their own ideal—so beautiful that God rewarded many of those who held it by leading them into the everlasting reality of the great universal, apostolic church. The athletic young hermits of Ambleside were not left out of the reckoning. One day one of them strayed out alone over the hills, with some old volume of the fathers under his arm, and his questioning young soul eager for the knowledge which the wonderful serenity of this mountain region seemed at the time to typify so well. He was out a long time, and, when he came home to his companions, he seemed to them transfigured. A new peace and yet a more ardent enthusiasm had come to him, and he spoke in words almost incomprehensible to them:

“I have found the man who has the idea!”

What had happened to him was this: In his walk he had met a young stranger, and spoken to him. Kindred thoughts and aspirations had led them into a long and eager conversation, wherein it soon appeared that the stranger, with his fair, girlish face and dreamy blue eyes, was the master, and his new friend only the humble disciple. They had talked on into the twilight, and the latter, entranced, at last asked the name of him who in a few short hours had taught him to see things in a clearer, diviner light than all the patristic reading had been able to do during his college course. The young man opened the book he had with him, and showed him his name written on the fly‐leaf. It was Frederick William Faber.

From Windermere we started on our real tour. The native conveyances are called “cars,” and hold four people sitting opposite each other, but sideways and parallel with the horses. From a rough, square box, painted dark blue or green, up to a real town‐made carriage in the same shape, this conveyance is universally in use over the north. Everywhere the same beautiful scenery—moist nooks, a natural fernery, tumbling waterfalls, walls covered with wild flowers; here and there an old‐fashioned inn with an old‐fashioned landlord, waiting himself on his customers, and sitting down to tell them at his ease all the gossip and the guide‐book lore of the neighborhood, the best time to go up the mountain, when it was safe to take a boat out on the mere, the accident in the lead‐mine last year, etc., etc. At such an inn, “The Swan,” we passed one night, and had an excellent and abundant rustic supper, not a hundred yards from the brand‐ new tourist hotel, “The Prince of Wales,” gas‐lighted and high‐priced, with saucy waiters and London upholstery, and each floor exactly the counterpart of the other, like a penitentiary.

Ullswater is a stormy lake, a sort of caldron enclosed in steep, forbidding rocks rising perpendicularly from the water. Above them is a wooded table‐land, with old houses hidden up the slopes beyond, one a ruined monastery, with a modern home fashioned out of a few available fragments of strong mediæval masonry, and a sort of museum or armory contrived among the standing arches of a less useful portion of the building. It was a steep climb to get to it, and for miles on either side of the pathway, that was half a natural staircase, there was no other road to it. The view over the dark lake was impressive; the waters, calm enough now, lay beneath us like a floor of black marble, with a fringe of heavy shadows along the edge where the cliffs overhung it.

Now and then we would pass detached hamlets with their sturdy, grave population all astir, the women fine specimens of their sex, with that frank expression and grand physical development which are bred of mountain training and open‐air life. Together with all the people of the north, they have many peculiar customs, and altogether form a race apart from the inhabitants of other English counties. The accents of their nervous, expressive dialect, the names of their mountains and lakes, the flavor of quaintness and individuality that hangs about their life, somehow suggest the old times of early Christianity when S. Wilfrid ruled in York, or struggled inch by inch for his invaded territory and ignored rights. Stopping to water your horses in one of these hamlets, you may see a knot of men standing silently and expectantly round the door of a clean, home‐ like cottage, and just outside, laid on the porch seat, a basin filled with sprigs of box‐wood. The men are waiting for a coffin to be borne out, and, when it comes, they will all fall into line behind it, and each, taking a sprig from the basin, will throw it into the grave after the prayers have been said. Of course this is a Catholic reminiscence of the days when the box sprigs were used to sprinkle the coffin with holy water, as they are now in most countries on the Continent; but, besides this, box‐wood is an evergreen, and therefore a symbol of the immortality of the soul.

Sometimes we would come to a little mountain tarn, across which we were ferried, car, horses, and all. The regular travelling in these regions is done by stage‐coaches, of which we availed ourselves for sending forward our slender baggage, so as to be quite independent and unencumbered in our movements. The mountain lakelets, that are never mentioned in guide‐books, are very beautiful with their fringe of rushes and boggy earth starred with white and golden flowers, and their flocks of teal and wild duck dwelling in peace in these undisturbed wildernesses.

Grasmere, a village on one of the larger lakes bearing the same name, was Wordsworth’s home for eight years, the first eight of this century. He was born in Cumberland, and the home‐passion that has gained him his title of Lake Poet never left him. Fortunate in his worldly circumstances, he went to Cambridge, and, though a desultory reader, took a fairly creditable degree after four years’ study. He made tours on foot through Wales and Germany, and published his poetical reminiscences, though with little success; but through their medium he gained the friendship of Coleridge, his fellow‐poet and life‐long companion. He settled at Grasmere in 1799 with his sister, who was throughout his life, even after his marriage, his guiding star—the kindred spirit whose approval and sympathy were the secret sources of his intellectual life. Of her he says, speaking of a peak which they could see from their “orchard‐seat”:

“There is an eminence, of these our hills, The last that parleys with the setting sun.

The meteors make of it a favorite haunt; The star of Jove, so beautiful and large In the mid‐heavens, is never half so fair As when he shines above it. ’Tis, in truth, The loneliest place we have among the clouds. _And she who dwells with me, whom I have loved_ _With such communion that no place on earth_ _Can ever be a solitude to me_, Hath to this lonely summit given my name.”

Of his wife he wrote, after three years of marriage, words contrasting his first impressions as a lover with the sweet, solemn experience of a husband. Then “a phantom of delight, ... a lovely apparition, ... a dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay,” but now

“A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller betwixt life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect woman, nobly plann’d, To warn, to comfort and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light.”

Song seemed to gush from Wordsworth’s soul as naturally and copiously as water from a mountain spring. Some of his verses were written with a slate‐pencil on stones in lonely places; for instance, in a deserted quarry on one of the islands at Rydal, on a stone half way up the grim mountain of Black Comb, in Cumberland, or with a common pencil on a stone in an outhouse on the island at Grasmere. He _lived_ poetry. Everything with him was a pretext for verse; neither the commonest household occurrence nor the sublimest spectacle of nature up there among those rocky fells and green valleys lying under awful shadows of coming storms, was a stranger to his ready pen. He says of himself that

“The sounding cataract _Haunted me like a passion_; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms were then to me _An appetite, a feeling, and a love_.”

There are few places so thoroughly fitted for a poet’s home as the lake country of Cumberland and Westmoreland, yet more so then than now, when it has become the fashion to make a tour among the lakes, even as one does down the Rhine. England has wakened to the consciousness of her own beauty within the last forty years, and a home‐tour often takes the place of a foreign one; yet to those who first visited these Eden‐spots the rare charm is gone, for sight‐seers have taken the place of the “wanderer,” and regular guides usurp the simple escort of a stray shepherd whom in old times you might have happened to meet by some _force_, on the cool banks of which he would have told you, in his racy dialect, the old traditions and legends of the neighborhood—the legend of the horn of Egremont Castle, for instance, a Cumberland tale, telling how Sir Eustace Lucie and his brother Hubert rode away to the Holy Land, and the former, pointing to the “horn of the inheritance” that hung by the gate‐way, and which none could sound,

“Save he who came as rightful heir To Egremont’s domains and castle fair,”

said to his brother: “If I fall, and Christ our Saviour demand my sinful soul, do thou come back straight‐way, and sound the horn, that we may have a living house in thee.” And Hubert promised. But out in Palestine Sir Eustace disappeared, and, when the news was brought to Hubert that his elder brother lay “deep in Jordan flood,” he said darkly to the messengers: “Take your _earnings_. Oh! that I could have _seen_ my brother die.” He went home, and whether he sounded the horn or not none knew; it was never heard, but Sir Hubert lived in glee for years, with wife and sons and daughters, until one day

“A blast was uttered from the horn Where by the castle gate it hung forlorn,”

and Sir Eustace came back safe and unsuspecting. Hubert rose up and fled in silence, and it was years before he was again heard of; then he came and asked forgiveness, and obtained it, and ended his penitent life in the cloister; so that Eustace’s “heirs of heirs, through a long posterity, sounded the horn which they alone could sound.” The same legend is told of the Hall of Hutton John, an old house of the Huddlestones in a lonely valley on the river Dacor, also in these parts.

Or it might be the tradition of Henry, Lord Clifford, the shepherd‐boy, whose father lost his title and estates during the wars of the Roses. Henry was restored, after twenty‐four years of shepherd life, in the first year of the reign of Henry VII., and it is recorded that, when called to Parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely, but otherwise came seldom to London or the court, and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles. “There is a tradition,” says Wordsworth himself, “current in the village of Threlkeld (in Cumberland, where lay the estate of his father‐ in‐law, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld), that in the course of his shepherd life he had acquired great astronomical knowledge.” The poet clothed this incident (as he did every other that struck his fancy in that poetic land of the north) in verse, singing a lay of the Red Rose, revived at last, the flower of Lancaster, and weaving in the tale of the boy’s wanderings on “Carrock’s side,” in “Rosedale’s groves,” and “Blencathara’s rugged coves.” The common name of this last‐mentioned mountain is Saddle‐Back. Near Threlkeld, hidden in the gorges of the purple hills, lies Bowscale Tarn, where the people of the country still believe two immortal fish to dwell. Tarn signifies, in north‐country dialect, a small mountain mere, or lake. Wordsworth’s descriptions of scenery are exquisite; everywhere you find the traces of that personal love of the places he paints, that patient, detailed minuteness of touch which only comes of long gazing on a favorite scene, and of familiarity with its every aspect, in winter and summer, in storm and sunshine, in mist and rainbow. Every place has some tender associations in his memory; the stately fir‐grove whither he was wont

“To hasten, for I found beneath the roof Of that perennial shade a cloistral place Of refuge, with an unencumbered floor,”

reminds him of a dear friend, “a silent poet” but a sailor by profession, after whom he called the pathway to the grove, whence

“The steep Of Silver How, and Grasmere’s placid lake And one green island”

could be distinctly seen. That friend never returned, but perished by shipwreck in the discharge of his duty. Here, too, in this beautiful lake country, both at Grasmere and at his later and more celebrated home, Rydal Mount, in Westmoreland, Wordsworth lost others dearer yet—two of his children, who died young, and Dora, his favorite daughter, who died six years after her marriage. When on his own death‐bed, three years later, his wife, brave and self‐forgetting to the last, comforted him by whispering: “William, you are going to Dora.” His poems are so complete a guide‐book to the lake country, as well as a series of living sketches of the people of the north, that it is almost unavoidable to treat them as tourists in Scotland do _The Lady of the Lake_, or tourists at Rome _Childe Harold_. In his day, however, many popular traits were in full vigor which now have almost disappeared. For instance, he says himself that “the class of beggars to which the old man here described belongs will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor and mostly old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighborhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.” In his verse he describes the “Old Cumberland Beggar” thus:

“Him from my childhood have I known; and then He was so old, he seems not older now.

He travels on, a solitary man— His age has no companion.”

The passing horseman does not throw him a careless alms, but stops, lingers, and drops a coin safely into the old man’s hat; the toll‐bar keeper sees him from a distance, and leaves her work to lift the latch for him; the post‐boy slackens his horse’s speed, and turns with less noisy wheels out of his path; the very dogs do not bark at him.

“But deem not this man useless. Statesmen! ye Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye Who have a broom still ready in your hands To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud Heart‐swoln, while in your heart ye contemplate Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not A burden of the earth.”

No; he is “a record binding together past deeds and offices of charity”; “a silent monitor” to those who sit sheltered “in a little grove of their own kindred”; an object to call forth that blessed feeling that you have, though “poorest poor,” been “the fathers and dealers‐out of some small blessings”; a prompter to “tender offices and pensive thoughts.” See this picture:

“Such pleasure is to one kind being known, My neighbor, when with punctual care, each week, Duly as Friday comes, though press’d herself By her own wants, she from her chest of meal Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip Of this old mendicant, and from her door, _Returning with exhilarated heart,_ _Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven_.”

And the poet, the lover of nature, the child of the mountain, ends by a warning and a prayer:

“Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness Gives the last human interest to his heart. May never House, misnamed b‘of Industry,’ Make him a captive! For that pent‐up din, Those life‐consuming sounds that clog the air, Be his the natural silence of old age!”

Though we have quoted Wordsworth’s poetry, it is not as a poet but as a man that we speak of him here, not desiring to criticise his verse or to enter into discussions concerning the judgment given of it by critics of his own time. In the Lake Country his personality strikes you with the same sense of reality and continued presence as do the everlasting hills and the changeless lakes themselves. He died only a quarter of a century ago, though his principal poems all belonged to the first and second decades of this century. In 1814 _The Excursion_ was published, and the poem which has made his chief fame was so severely criticised at the time that one of the reviewers boasted that he had _crushed_ it. A brother poet, Southey, exclaimed: “He crush _The Excursion_! He might as well fancy he could crush Skiddaw!” If his verse was coldly received at first, it was chiefly because emotional, passionate poetry, such as Byron’s, Moore’s, Scott’s, and Campbell’s, was the fashion then. Wordsworth’s was calm as nature herself, and concerned itself little with man’s history, past or present. When he _did_ mingle the deeds of men with the loving touches of his scenery descriptions, he would choose pure, white lives, such as would not jar with the calmness of lake and fell, of opal sky and shimmering water. Here is what the legend of the ruined hermitage on S. Herbert’s Island, on Lake Derwentwater, suggested to him. The story of the holy friends is told also in Montalembert’s _Monks of the West_.

“This island, guarded from profane approach By mountains high and waters widely spread, Is that recess to which S. Herbert came In life’s decline, a self‐secluded man, After long exercise in social cares And offices humane, intent t’ adore The Deity with undistracted mind, And meditate on everlasting things.

But he had left A fellow‐laborer whom the good man loved As his own soul; and when within his cave Alone he knelt before the crucifix, While o’er the lake the cataract of Lodore Peal’d to his orisons, and when he paced Along the beach of this small isle, and thought Of his companion, he would pray that both (Now that their earthly duties were fulfilled) Might die in the same moment. Nor in vain So prayed he; as our chronicles report, Though here the hermit number’d his last day, Far from S. Cuthbert, his beloved friend: Those holy men both died in the same hour.”

Derwentwater is the most picturesque of all the lakes in point of smiling landscape. It has several little wooded islands dotting its surface; its waters are clear and more blue than those of the other lakes, and the mountains round the shore are less abrupt and naked. Lodore _Force_ tumbles almost perpendicularly into it from the steep, shelving rocks that jut out from the dense forest growth, like the backbone of a huge black snake wriggling through the underbrush. These are the same waters whose sound swept over the lake and smote the ears of the hermit‐saint twelve centuries ago. It is, except one, the most romantic waterfall in the Lake Country. Below this wooded hill, and on the very margin of Derwentwater, stands a little old‐time inn, as clean as a Dutch house, with a rustic porch and a little lawn before it, ringed in with chains hung in festoons from four or five low posts. In the middle is a miniature gun, which is fired off every now and then for the amusement of the tourists. The echoes thus awakened among the surrounding hills are almost endless.

This beautiful North Country has another interest not so romantic—that of its mines, which are mostly of lead. Just across Derwentwater there is a fine mine, which, from its convenient position, is often visited. We rowed across the lake to see it; but if you have seen one mine, you will scarcely care to see a second—at least if you have no better motive than curiosity. To us on that first expedition it was simply _fun_. Luckily, there was no proposition made to don male attire for the only woman of the party; a huge oilskin coat with an ample hood quite wrapped her up and protected her for the downward journey. We got into a rough box or “basket,” preferring this quicker and more adventurous mode of descent to the species of chair contrived for the visitors to the mine, and were shot down in an incredibly short space of time to the second “level” of what we saw there is really very little to tell. The lodes or veins of metal looked like irregular lines of shining moisture drawn on the rocky walls; there was a tramway occupying the whole of the narrow gallery that formed the level, and up and down this tramway, at a tremendous rate, and with a noise like thunder, came the trucks loaded with ore. We had to squeeze up against the wall as they passed. The path was more than half submerged; we splashed into pools and puddles at every third or fourth step, and the moisture dropped persistently from the glistening roof. We should have gone to the third and lowest “level” had it not been so thoroughly under water that the miners had to wear long waterproof boots mid‐way up their thighs when they worked there. On going up again we stopped at the first level, which looked exactly like the other. We did not gain much information by our excursion, but it was a rare frolic, and we were greatly excited. Our clothes came out of the “basket” in a soaked and streaky condition; but nobody cared, the achievement was enough to make up for anything. Some years later we tried the same sort of experiment, and did not find it nearly so exciting. It was at an iron‐mine in Monmouthshire, near the river Wye, famed in the legends of the Round Table; we were let down the shaft in a kind of iron cage (the miners’ regular conveyance), which swung unpleasantly to and fro, grinding against the sides of the narrow opening, and bumping us roughly down at the bottom, where, as their time was nearly out, the men were gathering, ready to go up. Here there was literally nothing to see. The work was done a long way off, and there was no time to go there; besides, the place was several inches under water. The interest of this expedition consisted simply in going down and coming up again, and in the feeling that we could “say we had done it.” What was really interesting on this same occasion was the sight of the iron‐works and furnaces at nightfall. The metal was put into the furnaces at one end, and came out at the other in a continuous stream of intensest light; blindingly white it poured out, running slowly and spreading itself into a network of grooves all parallel with each other, ready fitted for its reception, where it was left to cool. Few things so truly realize one’s idea of _light_ as molten metal. There seemed no color in this beautiful stream, and one could fancy just such an intense glow as that to be the very radiance round the throne of God. It was impossible to stand near it for more than a second, the heat was so fierce, and we had to watch the calm, uninterrupted lustre from a respectful distance. This work was going on in a kind of open shed, sheltered above to protect the furnaces and machinery, but open at the sides, where in the darkness all kinds of strange groups and forms succeeded one another. The commonest circumstances took on solemnity and mystery in this half‐light, the red flashes from inside darting like tongues into the fading light, and making of it all a wonderful, living Rembrandt.

To return to our lakes. We had seen all the great ones, and driven across the country in all directions—through mountain passes where the bare crags and bowlders lay heaped together, as if the Titans had flung them there to bar the passage to their fastnesses; through smiling pastoral valleys where the summer stream bubbled peacefully enough, hiding its secrets of roads washed away and trees uprooted by its anger in early spring; by Esthwaite Lake with its solitary yew‐tree celebrated by Wordsworth; out into a bleak region of gray stone walls and hungry‐looking pastures to Westdale (valley) and Wastwater. Lonely and silent lies the black mere under its frowning cliffs; no house, no inn, near it; tourists seldom pass it, and tradition says that its depths have never been plumbed. We got a boat at a fisherman’s hut; it was not often he used it for anything but the necessities of his craft. And yet, in spite—or rather because—of this desolation, Wastwater has made a more lasting impression on us than the show‐lakes with their pretty activity and cheerful bustle of tourist‐life. Westdale would be just the place to live in if the mind needed bracing and restoring; few places within the pale of civilization can so truly boast of being absolute solitudes. We trust it is not changed even yet. Quite close, but you would not suspect it from the grim, rocky aspect of the scenery, is a little waterfall. It is in a narrow gully, a mere cleft in the rock, but alive with a thousand varying shades of green—ferns in abundance and in every stage of development, broad, dark, glossy leaves of water‐plants, and waxy spikes of rockwort. The incline of the waterfall is so gentle, and so many bowlders jut out from the stream, that you could almost climb up this natural staircase; the snow‐white spray dashes all over the banks, turning to diamonds in the hearts of the tiny flowers, and to rainbows on the broad surface of leaves; and the noise of the waters—their plash, their gurgle, or their trickle, as they strike moss, pebble, or little hollows round the big bowlders—seems like a living voice.

Our week was nearly up, and we were to meet the noonday train at a station several miles beyond Wastwater. The road lay through rocky passes, and was reckoned a bad one. Our car‐driver was doubtful as to whether we could make the distance in the time that remained; for we had been tempted, by the rugged beauty of the lovely vale, to overstay our appointed time for exploration and natural‐history collections. The drive was sufficiently exciting, a last bit of “fun” to end our holiday, and we jolted over the rough road, crossing the worn channels of mountain streams, and noticing on the steep sides of the hills what looked like moving bowlders, but what were in reality small, sure‐footed sheep, white, brown, and black. The country grew bleaker as we went on, till at last we reached the primitive railway station just in time. We were very sorry to part with our North‐ Country driver and his car, and return to the civilized mode of rapid locomotion; the more so as the scenery through which we flew for two or three hours was as barren and as desolate as the shores of the Dead Sea. Gray stone walls made a sort of magnified chess‐board of the level country, enclosing small fields of forlorn‐looking stubble or bits of dark‐red ploughed land. It was inexpressibly dreary, and a marvellous contrast to the beautiful region, bold and rocky, or wooded and smiling, which we had left behind us.

At last we reached Furness, our last halting‐place. Here there was a coquettish little station, gay with ornamental wood and wire‐work, and with autumn flowers and late climbing roses, while beyond the trim lawn stood an inviting hotel—modern, it is true, but decked out in villa style, full of bay‐windows and gables, with green Venetian blinds and long French windows opening into a garden. There was no trace of a village near, or of any human dwelling but these two buildings. The reason was that both of these were subservient to the ruins of S. Mary’s Abbey, which stood, as it were, within the hotel‐garden. S. Mary’s, Furness, is one of the three most stately and most perfect ruined abbeys in England; the others are Fountain’s Abbey in Yorkshire, and Tintern on the Wye, Monmouthshire. It is built of red sandstone, the warm hue contrasting beautifully with the luxurious growth of evergreens all round and inside its arches and cloisters. The tracery of the great pointed windows is almost intact, but here and there the tracery of delicate climbing plants is so interwoven with it that the marvel of carving is lost in the wealth of each summer’s renewed growth. The church is built in the shape of a cross. The walls and windows of the nave are untouched, and down the centre are the two rows of columns that divided it from the aisles—round Saxon pillars, alternating with clustered Gothic shafts, a sheaf of _colonnettes_ forming one support. The bases of all of them remain, though every one is broken more or less near the base, none being more than two or three feet high. Of course the roof is gone, and everywhere around shaft and pillar grow tall flowering grasses, shrubs with bright berries and spear‐like leaves, while a carpet of grass as green as an emerald covers the stone floor. There were seven altars in the church, and the steps to the smaller ones are even now marked by the gradual ascent of the turf. Poking into the earth with a walking‐stick, we soon came to the stone steps, not more than three inches under ground. The chancel and _sedilia_ are very perfect, and everywhere the _piscinæ_ are visible in the walls. The chapter‐room preserved its stone groined roof up to twenty or thirty years ago, when it fell in. On the walls are the remains of lovely, intricate diaper‐work. The refectory is a long hall with a row of columns (only the bases exist now) down the centre, and the principal dormitory is said to have been exactly above this. The whole is now open to the sky. The quiet cloister, with some of the old graves of dead and gone Cistercian monks, is still traceable, and beyond is a little enclosed and railed‐in stone chamber, contrived out of the ruined walls, but carefully roofed in, and used to stow away such fragments of sculpture as have been found within the precincts of the abbey. They are thus preserved from the rapacity of tourists. There are bones and skulls among them, too. The North of England was once called the garden‐land of the Cistercians; their abbeys abounded in that region, and their power, temporal and spiritual, was paramount. The abbots at the head of those religious corporations of early days had episcopal jurisdiction and claimed episcopal privileges, and were far more powerful than the wandering bishops who had no abbey to back their authority. They had tracts of land and many serfs. In many respects the “villeins” of the church were a happy and a privileged set of people. They were not obliged to serve in the king’s armies, as were the serfs of secular lords, and they could not be sued for debt or trespass, or any other local offence. They were immediately and solely under the jurisdiction of the abbot, which superseded, in their case, that of the common law. In return for their service, agricultural and otherwise, the abbot gave them shelter, food, clothing, and protection—not an unequal bargain, even for our days; but when we transport ourselves into the conditions of life in the middle ages, it will be easily seen how desirable a fate it was to be “made over to the church.” In those days protection was a greater boon than even food, lodging, or clothing; it was then what “habeas corpus” and the right of inviolability of domicile are now; and so long as the substance existed, it is idle to quarrel with the garb in which it was clothed.

The ruins were thronged all day; that was the only drawback to our enjoyment, but we remedied that at night. Every train came laden with tourists to see Furness Abbey; they walked about with guide‐books and luncheon‐baskets, and popped champagne‐corks in the cloisters, and strewed chicken‐bones among the bases of the great Saxon pillars, chatting, laughing, and joking, and evidently enjoying themselves as they would at a country fair or a cattle‐show. This went on all day long; but towards night, after a late dinner at the hotel, they subsided, and scarcely a soul was to be seen in the garden. The men were in the billiard‐room, and the women probably packing their things for the morrow’s journey; so we slipped out, two of us, and went over to the deserted ruins. The moon was up, not quite at her full, but bright enough to make the scene very beautiful, and there were many stars as well. It is not easy to describe the impression this night‐view of the old Catholic abbey made on us; one might as well try to catch a moonbeam, and examine it and find out what it is made of. Every one can sketch the picture for himself; every one with a love of the beautiful, the spiritualized, will understand what was its solemn charm. We roamed about in silence from nave to cloisters, from refectory to chapel‐room, and then, hand‐in‐hand, went with something of awe in our hearts into the old chancel, where in the days of the monks none ever went but the cowled, white‐robed Cistercians themselves—an angel and virgin choir meet to sing the praises of the Lamb. By the _sedilia_, in the beautiful carved recesses of which scarcely a stone is out of place or an ornament broken off, we knelt down and said the rosary together for the conversion of England.

Presently a strange green light flashed before our eyes, right above the place where the high altar had stood of old; it was gone in a minute, and the calm radiance of the moon was still undisturbed. Seen, as it was, in this dim, silent place of song and worship, it was very impressive; and had it been nothing but what we first took it for—_i.e._, a railway signal—even then it would have remained in our imagination, idealized into something symbolic. Green is the color of hope, and where is there more room for hope than under the arches of a ruined abbey, once the pride of a Catholic country, the home of learning and charity, the representative of a nation’s civilization? We stayed a long while yet, lingering about the dusky arches, catching sight of the starry sky through the Gothic tracery of the windows, repeopling the place in fancy with its silent, prayerful denizens in their white robes and hoods, and wondering what that fitful flash might have been. Next morning we saw in the newspaper that just at that very hour a meteor of greenish hue had appeared and been observed in many places all over England. You may imagine how glad we were to find that it had been no railway signal that had cleft the white moonlight while we were praying in the chancel. It was a beautiful remembrance to carry away from the Abbey of S. Mary at Furness. God does not forget the places where his feet have rested, and there are heavenly, undying flowers yet in the gardens of Paradise which the angels fling down on those consecrated spots which princes once endowed, because they humbly acknowledged that “the roses and flowers of kings, emperors, and dukes, and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay, and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death.”(175)

So we took leave of the beautiful North Country, its lakes, its solemn mountains, its abbeys, and its hardy, independent people, whose character has in it yet all the elements out of which God, infusing into them his grace, moulded the great Northumbrian saint, Wilfrid of York, the Thomas à Becket of the VIth century.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. VI.

“An evil spirit swept the land, Of ruin and unrest.”

Not far from the villa we occupied there stood an uninviting house, as it appeared to me, the _loggia_ of which was surrounded on three sides with green trellis‐work, and commanded a fine view of Naples and the bay. Outside the door I had noticed barrels of oysters, as indicative of what we might find inside. This was the Caffe Frisio, renowned in Naples, spite of its unattractive appearance. I was somewhat surprised when, a few days after our engagement, Don Emidio suggested to Mary that we should all dine there, including, of course, the Vernons. I remonstrated. I did not see the fun of leaving our own quiet, cool house, with a modest but sufficiently well‐cooked dinner prepared by Monica and served with the honest awkwardness of our unpretending Paolino, for the hurry of noisy waiters and the click‐clack of other people’s plates and glasses. I stood up for my point with my usual undiscerning obstinacy until I thought I saw a puzzled and half‐pained expression come over the usually serene brow of my future master. Of course I yielded instantly, and, before I had stammered out a dozen words, found I had gone the length of declaring that my appetite for that day would fail me unless I dined at the Caffe Frisio. That point gained, Don Emidio hurried off (no! I am wrong there; I never as yet have seen him hurry about anything) to press the Vernons to be of our party. From thence he went, no doubt in his usually leisurely style, to order dinner for us. He was no sooner gone out of the room than I turned to Mary a bewildered face of inquiry, and asked her if she could at all understand Emidio’s being so anxious we should dine at a _caffe_. Mary’s reply was an indirect one. She look my hand in hers, and said with a smile:

“I sometimes wonder, my dear girl, whether you will quite easily take to the foreign ways of your intended husband.”

“Do you doubt it, Mary? I think, on the contrary, there is something so charming in that strange mixture of childlike simplicity and manly generosity which is so remarkable in the really good and noble Italians. Emidio always reminds me of a high‐bred school‐boy.”

“That is even more the characteristic, perhaps, of a thoroughly consistent Catholic life from childhood upwards than of any particular nation; though I agree with you that it is generally evident amongst Italians. Joy is the attribute of childhood, as distinct from any other period of life; and a joyful spirit is one of the marks of hidden sanctity. But I was not thinking of anything so serious as this. I mean that I wonder whether you will take easily to the out‐of‐door, unprivate life which is engendered amongst Italians by their beautiful climate, and which makes it not only a simple, but almost a necessary, thing that Don Emidio should immediately think of celebrating your engagement by dining at the celebrated Caffe Frisio.”

“I certainly wondered why he wished it, but I suppose it is the custom, and I am quite content.”

“You will doubtless, as you go on, find many customs which you will have to comply with. At Capo di Monte you will sit in the open _loggia_ of your husband’s house, instead of in your drawing‐room with closed doors, as you would do in England. When you want your man‐servant, you will call for him at the top of the stairs at least quite as often as you will ring a rare and occasional bell. You will order your dinner, from the balcony, of the cook below, just starting for his marketing. And I am afraid you may very possibly see your maid surreptitiously laying out your fine linen to dry on the trim‐cut box hedge which surrounds the geometrical divisions of your garden. Of course in your _palazzo_ in Rome you may succeed in keeping up a little more state. But even there, and certainly in Villegiatura(176) at Naples, you may have to make up your mind to your _chef_ calling your attention to an unusually fine piece of beef in its uncooked state which he designs for your dinner that day.”

“Do you remember, Mary,” I replied, laughing, “the man‐servant one day in Rome bringing you in a beautiful pigeon with an ever‐varying purple breast that reminded me of the shot silks or stuffs in Raphael’s pictures? You asked the man if he supposed you could by any possibility eat it an hour after you had fondled it.”

“I had to go without meat for luncheon that day, and the pigeon’s life was spared. I fed it with rice, and it used to sit on my chest and pick the grains from between my lips.”

“At last it got too bold, and, mistaking your teeth for grains of rice, pecked at your lips till they bled.”

What a mischievous bird it was! When we came home, after leaving it at liberty in the house, we found all the heads of a bouquet of violets that stood in water picked off and strewed on the table, and all the pens taken from the pen‐tray and laid on the floor. Finally one day the pins had been extracted out of the pin‐cushion and put on the table, and the long, black hair‐pins taken out of Mary’s silver toilet‐box and laid on the bed. At last we noticed a black pigeon that used to come often and sit on the water‐pipe of the house opposite. We never closed the windows on account of our purple pigeon, as it had shown no disposition to leave its human friends for others of its own kind. But blood is stronger than water; and no doubt the black pigeon had wonderful tales to tell of the many roofs of Rome as presenting eligible habitations, and of the daily markets in the Piazza Navona and beneath the shadow of the Pantheon as affording an easily‐obtained repast among the refuse. So one day, when we came home, the window was open, and the pigeon nowhere to be found. Nor did we ever again see the black seducer sitting on the neighboring water‐spouts.

After all we were very much amused at our dinner at Frisio. We ate _frutti di mare_,(177) and macaroni dressed with _pomi d’oro_.(178) Of the meat the less said the better. I rarely thought any of it good at Naples; though no further off than Sorrento the beef is excellent. All provisions are, in fact, better there than at Naples. Our supply of butter came from Sorrento, and was obtained for us by Pascarillo, our coachman’s master; so that frequently, as we passed his door returning home from our drive, his wife would hail us, and hand into the carriage the fresh butter wrapt up in green vine‐leaves.

When dinner was over, and we sat looking out on the sea, I remembered that Emidio had promised to tell us the story of Padre Cataldo’s escape at the time of the Italian revolution in 1860, and I asked him to give us the particulars.

“This will be a very good time to do so, Miss Jane,” was his reply, “because we are quite safe at Frisio from the father’s presence. He does not like talking of it. You very probably have heard of the earthquake in Italy that took place in 1857; though I dare say the devastation it caused was hardly noticed in the English papers. The Jesuit Fathers had a college at Potenza which was partly thrown down at the time, and consequently the boys had been sent home to their parents and most of the fathers dispersed. Padre Cataldo and one other alone remained. You are aware that Potenza is the principal town of the Basilicata, and is the see of a bishop. There were forty villages in the same province destroyed at the same time. The king (of course I mean Francis II.) had obtained that Padre Cataldo should be sent on a mission to the inhabitants of these unfortunate villages, not only to preach in the different places, but to carry relief to the inhabitants, and to organize the proper burial of the dead, who lay neglected among the ruins at the imminent risk of breeding a pestilence. He was also to encourage the poor people to rebuild their habitations, and to aid them once again to gain their livelihood and resume the cultivation of the land. He was engaged in this arduous labor for a period of about fifteen months, during which he lived amongst the people with the affection of a father and almost the authority of a ruler; for there was nothing they would not do at his bidding.”

“The work accomplished, he returned to the half‐ruined college at Potenza. There was but one other priest in residence with him there, and Padre Cataldo had hardly joined him when the revolution broke out. The Jesuits were far from apprehending any violence at first from the inhabitants of Potenza, a great many of whom were much attached to them. But at that time they had not had personal experience of the insidious ways by means of which the revolutionists instil their doctrines into the minds of the unsuspecting. They soon, however, began to notice that the _caffes_ were thronged with noisier guests than usual, and who remained till late into the night discussing and disputing over their wine or coffee. The few shops where books or newspapers could be found in the not highly‐educated or literary town of Potenza began to display pamphlets with brilliant‐ colored covers and dubious titles. The men frequenting the churches were fewer, and those that came were less respectful in their demeanor. At night the young men wandered about in file, arm‐in‐arm, walking rapidly with what no doubt they thought a military step, a flower stuck behind the ear, the hat on one side, and singing revolutionary songs in a loud and often inebriated voice. The symptoms were all bad. And the fathers were not surprised when one morning, having noticed an unusual agitation in the streets and the piazza, they received a secret message to the effect that they would do well to leave the town as quickly and as quietly as possible, for the one simple reason that where there is a Jesuit the revolutionist is his enemy. The persons sending this message to the fathers added that if their advice were not forthwith taken, acts of violence might follow.

“Not very far from the Jesuit college there lived a priest who had known Padre Cataldo for many years, and who, though himself corrupted by revolutionary principles, and not in any way an honor to his sacred calling, maintained a great friendship and regard for the father. He had gone on from one thing to another in his own downward course until at this time he was actually one of the leaders of revolutionary principles in the Basilicata. He had nevertheless always told Padre Cataldo that in case of need he would befriend him. And he kept his word; for one night, when Potenza was getting too hot for a Jesuit to remain in safety, and the only question seemed to be what kind of violence against the college would be attempted, the apostate priest arrived in his own carriage, to fulfil his old promise, and safely conveyed Padre Cataldo to a house at some distance where he could lie hidden for the night. The flight had been so sudden that Padre Cataldo, who was not likely at any time to be cumbered with wealth, had come away without a franc in his possession. The next morning he despatched three messengers to various friends in the neighborhood to say where and in what condition he was; and they, in return, sent him the money he needed. With this he procured for himself the disguise of lay clothes, and set out to join the Jesuits residing at Bari. When he arrived, he found the Jesuits had already left; and the condition of the country was such that he was unable to proceed with any hope of safety to Noci, his native place, where his parents lived.

“For many days he had to fly from place to place disguised as a layman, and with a false beard. But even so there was something in his whole appearance which betrayed him. One day he was walking along the street, swinging a walking‐stick, when he heard one man say to another, as they passed him, ‘There goes a Jesuit in disguise.’

“A lady residing at Bitonto concealed him in her house for one night. He left the house before dawn; but already the rumor had spread that a Jesuit was in hiding there, and early in the morning the brother of the lady, who was a liberal and the syndic of the town, came to tell her the people were in such a state of excitement that if she did not give up the father, they would burn the house to the ground. And it was not till she had taken him into every hole and corner of the place that she could persuade him there was no one concealed there, and that his assertions to that effect calmed the mob. ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests,’ but, like their Master, the priests of the Son of man had not where to lay their heads. Thus driven from place to place, and hunted down like a wild beast, Padre Cataldo at length reached Venosa, where, as he had once preached a very successful mission, he was well known and much respected. He took up his abode at the house of some friends, and the next morning, which was the Feast of S. Ignatius, the founder of his order, he went to the church to say Mass. While he was vesting in the sacristy he received a message that the _intendente_ or governor of the place wanted to speak with him. It so happened that the _intendente_ was the brother‐in‐law of a man who had been condemned to death for murder a short time previous. Padre Cataldo had been acquainted with the case; and as he considered it had been attended with extenuating circumstances, and that the crime was not premeditated, he had used his influence with success to get the sentence commuted to a term of years’ imprisonment at the galleys. He also obtained permission for the man, who was a jeweller, to work at his trade during his incarceration. Padre Cataldo had not happened to see any members of the family since that event, in which he had saved them from so great a calamity. Very naturally, therefore, on hearing that the brother‐in‐law of the criminal wanted to see him, he thought he had come to thank him for saving his relative from the guillotine. But on going to the door to receive him he found the governor surrounded by soldiers, who, at a word from him, seized the father as their prisoner. He was at that time suffering from fever brought on by exposure to all weathers in his endeavor to elude his enemies; creeping into some sheltering house late at night, when the evening damp, so fatal in Italy, was falling; making his way over fields and mountains in the noon‐tide heat, and getting from place to place through by‐ways, as he dared not take the frequented road; and of course often without sufficient food. He was put upon a horse, and conducted by a guard of soldiers to a small place called Rionero. It was a long day’s journey, and his sufferings were intense. Having been seized before he had begun his Mass, he had not tasted food. When they reached Rionero in the evening, they found a terrible scene. The revolutionists had entire possession of the town. It is said that the piazza—the large open place in the centre of every Italian town—literally ran with blood. Strange to say, many persons connected by family ties with the _intendente_ who had so cruelly betrayed Padre Cataldo perished in the massacres of that night. I know a man who saw the father brought into the town in the midst of the guard. The insane fury of the mob at the sight of a Jesuit knew no bounds. It was the _Ecce Homo_ over again in the person of one of his servants. He was taken through the piazza on horseback, and the soldiers did nothing to restrain the people. They flung at him every missile they could lay their hands on; and as it was evening, a band of masons were returning from their work, and, transported with rage, actually threw their tools at him, and beat him with them as he passed. To all this ill‐usage he made no other reply than by blessing them. Some of the most violent cried out, ‘Here is the King of the Basilicata.’ Did they know they were parodying the cry of ‘the King of the Jews’? At length the prison‐doors shut him in from his persecutors; and as he lay there, bruised all over, and severely cut about the head and face, he could hear them crying out that they would yet get at him to burn him alive, while actually they began building up a pile in the centre of the piazza for that purpose.

“The liberal priest who had been his friend in the first instance, and had brought him away from Potenza, had by this time heard of his arrest, and immediately came to the rescue. This, however, was no easy matter. He was himself one of their leaders; and, lest they should accuse him of infidelity to their cause, he was obliged to begin by pretending that he shared their views with respect to Padre Cataldo. It was only in this way that he could succeed in getting himself heard. By degrees he induced them to consider whether, on the whole, the burning alive of a well‐known Jesuit priest in their piazza would be altogether a wise proceeding. It might get them into trouble at some future day. It might be considered an extreme measure. At length he gained sufficient influence for them to propose that the question should be decided by an appeal to the people. The general inhabitants of the town were not a bad set of people. They were probably not very courageous in a good cause, and they were overwhelmed by the noisy and daring wickedness of the revolutionists. But when thus appealed to, their real sentiments found expression; and Padre Cataldo, whose prison‐cell overlooked the piazza, could hear the shouts of _Noi lo vogliamo salvo_.(179) Soon after his prison‐door was unlocked, and in the dead of the night he was conducted by two guards to a distance from the town, where they left him. Faint with loss of blood, bruised, and weary, he managed to reach the house of some friends. He lay there for a fortnight, ill from fever and the cruel treatment he had received. And it was not till some time after, when the troubles had calmed down, that he was able to return to Naples in safety.”

We sat silent for a few seconds at the end of Don Emidio’s account. It seemed to bring the nature and qualities of revolution keenly before us when we thus heard of what it had done to one so well known and so beloved by us all. Ida was the first to speak; and she told us that not long after they had settled at Posilippo with Padre Cataldo, a gentleman had called to see him on some business, accompanied by a young man. Ida remarked that when the latter came into the room, as soon as his eyes fell on Padre Cataldo, he turned deadly pale. As he was only in attendance on the other gentleman, he sat a little back, and no one paid much attention to him, while she watched him. She saw he was greatly overcome and trembled very much. She tried to enter into conversation with him, but he seemed too absent to talk. When at length the gentleman had concluded what he came to tell Padre Cataldo, the latter turned towards the younger man, who got up and approached him, exclaiming, “O father! how is it I find you here? I thought you had died at Rionero. I witnessed the treatment you received there, and I and many others believed you were dead. By what miracle did you escape?” When the conversation became more general, the young man, who could hardly recover from his emotion, told Ida that he should never forget the father’s countenance, as he sat silent and calm on his horse, with stones, sticks, and missives of all sorts flung at him. The blood poured from his head; but there seemed to be a celestial light beaming from his face which reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the martyred saints.

We finished our evening on our own _loggia_. It was a lovely night, and we felt we could never weary of watching the moonbeams on the sea, and, when the moon had gone down, the fishermen’s little boats, noiselessly sailing one by one from the dense, dark shadow of the caves where they are moored, and then, each with a burning torch at the prow, casting anchor and waiting for the fish to rise to the light. From time to time the fishermen utter a soft, monotonous cry to each other in a minor key, which comes floating through the darkness on the still night‐air like an echo from another world. There must be a strange fascination in this life of the fisherman, whose occupation begins as other men are laying aside theirs, and is continued through the silence of the night on the vast solitude of the ocean.

Don Emidio drew his chair near to where I was sitting, leaning on the low wall of the _loggia_ and looking down upon the plain of waters, which so mysteriously appear to flash an unreal light from their dark bosom, as if the sea itself gave out sparks. Presently I heard a voice asking me if I thought I could learn to love the world‐famous beauty of the Bay of Naples.

“I have learnt to love it from the first moment I saw it; for I love all that is beautiful. And when the beauty of this glorious land comes to be wound up with the duties of my life, I shall love it doubly.”

“Say with life’s affections too, dear Jane.”

“Why should I not say it? Of course I mean it.”

“Will you never tire of this unmitigated beauty? Will you never, _cara mia_, have a pining for a soft, gray day, with the perfumed damp that comes up from the velvet moss and dense greenery of an English copse? Will you heave no sigh for the pale but varied and most abundant wild flowers of your chilly springs, a lapful of primroses, a wealth of cowslips? Shall I have you longing after a narrow lane of yellow sand, the trees meeting overhead, the meadow‐sweet growing lavishly in the moist hedge, and the ripe nuts hanging just within reach, crisp and sweet in their slippery brown shells? Shall I hear you reproaching me that the mushrooms are dotting the Sussex downs all round the fairy rings, and that you long to tread the close, fine grass where the sheep are browsing, with the little hillocks of purple thyme scenting the breeze with its aromatic breath? When your nerves are overstrung by the continuous dry heat and the brisk air of our joyous land, will not your Saxon nature long for one of the short autumn days of old England, when you might walk through the fields to the edge of the western hill, and watch the sun sink amidst yellow and red clouds painted on a pale blue sky, and then, returning in the soft wind of evening redolent with nameless perfumes, feel the damp like a creamy balm uncurl your locks and bathe your cheek as if with moist kisses? It will be almost dark when you reach home; there is a low wood‐ fire flickering on the hearth, and the steam of the urn curling up with a scent of new‐made tea. Papers, pamphlets, magazines, and new volumes by the dozen from the London library are there to greet you. And day by day, hour by hour, in that land of rapid thought and universal intelligence, the latest news from pole to pole finds its way with every post into the remotest depths of the I country. _Cara mia_, it will not be so here.”

There had been a choking sensation in my throat as Emidio described the dear old land of my birth, and brought so vividly before me exactly those little touches of home and country life which I should most certainly not find in my future Roman _palazzo_ or in the villa at Capo di Monte, beyond the garden of which I could not stray into any wild woods and barren but ever‐beautiful heaths, as in England. But there was something in the close of the vision he called up before me which turned the current of feeling and made me smile. Strange as it may seem, I felt it was the newspapers and the I rapid intelligence that I could spare the more easily.

“There are good old books I have never read, Emidio, and which you have in your library. From time to time we will get a few new ones from the teeming British press. I am none the happier in England for tracing day by day the progress of modern ideas. I will turn my thoughts upon the past. I may sometimes sigh for the shady lanes and breezy downs of England; but I think the imperious beauty of Italy will hold quite as much sway over my heart in time. Are you satisfied?”

“I am satisfied as much as my jealous Italian nature will allow me to be.”

“Are all Italians jealous?”

“Nearly all, especially husbands.”

“But I shall never give you cause.”

“I am quite sure of that. But it will not prevent my being jealous. Do not look frightened, _carissima_.(180) I am not going to prove a regular Bluebeard, like some of my countrymen. But it would sound strange to your English ears to know the intense sense of appropriation which an Italian has with regard to his wife. It is true he adores her; but it is an adoration which would exclude the remotest homage of the merest stranger. He waits upon her, watches her, serves her. But it is possible to have too much of that, particularly when it is done with an evident intention to prevent the approach of any other human being. I had an acquaintance—for I cannot exactly call him a friend; he was too great a fool for that—who would not allow his wife to set her foot outside the door unless he accompanied her. She was not permitted to look out of the window, if he could prevent it; and he actually one day consulted me on the possibility of running a railing in front of his windows inside the rooms to prevent her getting near enough to look out.”

“And they did not shut him up as a madman?”

“Not at all; though I think the generality allowed he was eccentric. The poor woman had a melancholy time of it; for of course, if he would not allow her to look out, neither would he allow any one else to look in.”

“Well! and how did it end?”

“The only way any man of sense could expect it to end. She got out of the window and over the wall one fine night, and left him. The poor thing went no further and to no other place than her father’s house. But nothing would ever persuade her to return to her husband, who grew yellower and greener every day until he finally died—of jealousy.”

“Serve him right,” was all I deigned to reply, being too indignant to be grammatical.

“I knew a young girl,” continued Don Emidio, “who had made up her mind she would marry a certain Neapolitan duke of immense wealth. Her parents did not object (which they ought to have done). But her confessor, that Padre Cristoforo whom you heard preaching through the month of May at Santa Catarina, did everything he could to dissuade her. The only answer she would ever make to his remonstrances was that she should have a carriage. All life seemed to résumé itself in her mind in the possession of that one luxury, with just the addition of gowns from Paris. She was married to the old duke, and very soon after came to Padre Cristoforo to complain of her hard lot. He could only repeat that he had warned her how it would be, and recommend her to take a drive in her carriage, and ever more and more to drive in her carriage, reminding her that it was for that she had married. Alas! she had to confess that even that consolation was denied her, as her husband was too jealous of the passers‐by to allow of her being seen driving out, and that for the most part she was kept to the house. It is true he was constantly making her magnificent presents of that other great object of her ambition—dresses from Paris; but, as she represented to him, they were quite useless to her, as she could not wear them shut up alone with him in the house. Now, are you not frightened by this peculiarity in us Italians, _carina_, or are you prepared for it?”

Emidio was laughing, and so was I, when he more gravely added:

“The other day we were talking of the reverse of the medal, as regards the good or bad qualities of different people and nations. And I think I can promise you, _cara mia_, that as my respect for you, and I hope my own good sense, will always preserve me from this ludicrous excess of a national characteristic, so the only form which it will take will be in making me more observant that you should receive from my hands alone those little attentions, and what the French call _petits soins_,(181) which are so necessary to a woman, and which make up so large a share in the lesser enjoyments of her life. I hope never to bore you. But I hope always to wait upon you.”

I looked over my shoulder as we came to this point in our discourse. Frank and Elizabeth were discussing their future also in another part of the _loggia_. And I thought to myself, if we could have compared notes, we should no doubt have traced many differences characteristic of English and Italian future husbands. But I am convinced that both English maidens were equally content with their prospects.

We paid more than one visit to the great museum of Naples, now called the Museo Nazionale, but which Mary and Frank remembered as the Museo Borbonico. Since they were last here, the dynasty being changed, the name of the collection and the arrangement of the objects have also changed. Mary, who is very decided in her artistic preferences, had her favorites here, as I have always found she had in every collection of pictures or statues she had once visited; and faithful to her old loves, she never could rest or look at other objects till she had revisited those that had already struck her imagination. I do not know whether it may arise from the fact that in Rome the attention is naturally more turned, in the collections at the Vatican, to those which have reference to the life and customs of the early Christians, in preference to the indications of pagan life; but certainly the objects in the museum at Naples brought before me, with a vividness I had never felt elsewhere, the very minutest details of old Roman existence. And I believe, in point of fact, no collection equals that at Naples, enriched as it is by the treasure‐trove of Pompeii and Herculaneum. It would be quite easy to furnish a house with every requirement of life from roof to kitchen out of the abundance of these interesting relics of the long ago past. And as I wandered about the large chambers filled with kitchen utensils, lamps, vases, and female ornaments, and then passed into the halls where are the frescos that decorated the walls of their dwellings, I felt I could realize to myself the many differences in the external forms of their life and our own.

The first conclusion I arrive at is that there was more sameness and less multiplicity. For instance, there was a certain received form for lamps. You had your choice, in the ornamental parts, of the heads of lions or of griffins, but the shape was the same. In the kitchen the like shape reigned as in the _triclinium_ or the _œci_—the dining‐room and drawing‐ rooms of the ancients—minus the ornaments.(182) The same absence of diversity is observable among the jewels. There could be very little difference, except in size and weight, between one lady’s necklace and another’s. The houses, judging from the discoveries at Pompeii, and borne out by the classic writers, were all built on the same model, some large and magnificent, others small and mean, but alike in structure. I pause, and ask myself how life went on without modern china in the houses of the great. Though much of their glass was beautiful, yet what a difference between their earthenware pots and our Sèvres and Dresden, Worcester and Minton! Everywhere the tables and seats and chairs were alike. The difference lay in the draperies and the cushions, never in the shape. It sounds bald and trite to register these remarks; but if we carry out the thought, and try and place ourselves where the men and women of Rome and its subject provinces stood, and in imagination sleep in a _cubiculum_(183) six feet long and four wide, sit on a marble representation of a camp‐stool, and lay our work or our book—which latter will be in the inconvenient shape of a long roll of papyrus—on a round marble table with three lion’s paws for legs; if we fancy our rooms divided one from the other by _portières_, or hangings, instead of doors, artistically draped in longitudinal folds, and fastened with cords by the fashionable upholsterer of the day; if to this we add an almost entire absence of washing‐basins, and, instead, a lavishness in the article of marble baths, all more or less taken in public; if from vestibule and _atrium_,(184) from _hospitium_(185) and _exedra_,(186) we dismiss all notion of knicknacks, all glass‐fronted cabinets, all buhl and _marqueterie_, all enamelled snuff‐boxes, china pug‐dogs, and filigree; with no Berlin‐wool work and no miniatures; a few severely beautiful bronze figures, some busts, some heathen goddesses in tinted marble, standing cold and naked in a niche; an ever‐plashing fountain like the pattering of incessant rain—if we bring all this vividly before us, we shall soon feel that the minute yet all but infinite circumstances of external life having been so different from our own, the whole flow of thought and fancy must have been different.

We owe more than we are aware, both for good and evil, to the way we furnish our houses. And if we decorate them according to our own ideas, we must remember that those decorations are for ever throwing back our ideas upon ourselves in a perpetual reflection until a sort of moral identity is established.

My impression is that the greater simplicity of form, combined, as was the case with the ancients, with a very high though but slightly varied style of decorative art, may have left a greater solidity, unity, and intensity in the old‐world characters, as compared with what we find in modern minds, distributed amongst such an endless variety of objects.

It is a great thing to be elevated by noble desires and high Christian aims above the trivialities of modern life. But if those high aspirations are absent, it is perhaps a safeguard to take to old china, old lace, and Louis Quinze furniture. It breaks up the thoughts into a kaleidoscope of fancies; and that, on the whole, is decidedly preferable to the restlessness of youth, health, and idleness, leading to a craving for gladiatorial fights and scenes of bloodshed and cruelty. In those days the virtuous were nobly virtuous, and were very rare. The vicious were horribly vicious, and formed the generality. It always struck me that an old Roman house must have been a dull home. And _ennui_ is the mother of naughtiness quite as surely as the devil is the father of lies. There are minds which cannot be great, as there are lives which never are much more than harmless. Surely for these the multiplicities of modern times, the toys of fashion, the novelties of the day, in dress, furniture, and ornament, are safety‐valves and almost godsends! At least they are better than the arena, with its brutalizing scenes of blood and horror, where a vestal had but to turn her thumb to take the life of the victim bleeding before her eyes!

These results of modern civilization are not Christianity; and I am taking a very low standard in all I am now saying. But they are the dross of a civilization leavened by Christianity, and they are very different from the poison that found its way into the daily life of Roman men and women from the seething wickedness of the great heathen empire.

Nothing can exceed the interest of the paintings taken from Pompeii. Of course I was intimately acquainted with them from engravings, and had been all my life. One of the early impressions of my childhood was the delight of finding that the grave old Romans (and therefore the Greeks before them), for whom I had a very pagan admiration, were capable of appreciating humor as expressed in the movements and attitudes of animals. I was overjoyed at this touch of sympathy with a dead past; and I recommend all visitors to Naples to look out for certain cocks and hens and other creatures among the lesser mural decorations taken from Pompeii. The well‐known dancing girls I had never properly admired until I saw them being copied by a Neapolitan artist in the Museum. He had not deviated one hair’s breadth from the original outline; but the mere restoration of vivid coloring had imparted to them an airy, floating grace which I had failed fully to detect in the scratched and faded originals, but which I at once felt must have belonged to them when they decorated some rich Pompeian’s house.

While I was wandering about, trying to live for an hour the inner homespun life of a Roman maiden by gazing long on the walls she must have looked on, Mary had gone in search of the Farnese Bull and the exquisite half‐ head and figure of the Psyche, that wonderful embodiment of virginal grace and feminine delicacy which makes one long to have seen the statue in its unmutilated condition. She had stood for a good quarter of an hour before the Aristides (for we insist on believing it is Aristides), and was, as she told me afterwards, growing more and more in the consoling belief that many of the old pagans will have found a place among the thrones of the blest through the mercy of Him who never asks for more than he has given, and who since the creation has never left the world without a witness of himself. Then she visited the Farnese Flora, that wonderful triumph of art over matter, where in a statue of above twelve feet such floating grace is expressed that she seems to be skimming along the ground, while the light wind plays in the drapery.

I found Mary lost in thought before a beautiful bronze statue of Mercury in repose. The lithe figure has just sat down to rest on the edge of a rock. The tension of the muscles is gradually relaxing. One foot as yet only touches the ground with the heel. Wait a moment, and the foot will yield and rest. Never was fatigue gradually giving way to repose more exquisitely depicted. Then Mary turned to the dead Amazon with the death‐ wound beneath her breast, and finally declared that having satisfied herself by revisiting these, that for one reason or another had haunted her for twenty years, she was ready to admire the others. It is curious how the long lines of statues and busts seem to give out cold. The same stone walls covered with pictures could never be so severely cold. The old gods and heroes seem to breathe upon you with an icy breath from out of the grave of the old classic world.

The best pictures in the Naples Museum are not very numerous, but are admirable specimens of the Italian schools. They are collected into one or two rooms, deserving time and study. A cursory view of the others will be sufficient to satisfy most people. There is much more to be seen besides the relics from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the statues and pictures. It is all worth visiting, and, to be fully appreciated, requires many hours to be spent on each different class of objects.

I had a very distinct and not altogether a pleasant recollection of the mysterious grotto of Pozzuoli, which had haunted my imagination ever since I was here as a child. Ida and I had made an engagement to visit Astroni, Victor Emanuel’s happy hunting‐grounds, one day when we were to have the carriage to ourselves; and accordingly we were to pass through the grotto. You approach it by a deep cutting in the rock, the sides of which are draped with ivy and hanging plants, with bright tufts of wild flowers wherever a few grains of earth give them a roothold. There is a small oratory to the right as you enter, of a most simple and rustic kind, and kept by a Capuchin, whom I cannot call a venerable hermit, as he happened to be of rather youthful appearance. On _festas_ his little altar was covered with flowers, and a few votive candles burnt before the obscure picture of the Madonna within the dark recesses of the cave. When the poor Capuchin heard a carriage approaching, he would hurry forth with a little tin box, which he held up to us for an alms. We seldom failed to give him some, and from time to time it would be silver instead of the more frequent copper; and then his gratitude became eloquent, and many a blessing followed us down the murky gloom of the long, unsavory grotto. Certainly, this strange road, which it appears dates from the middle of the first Christian century, is not calculated to leave a pleasant impression, though in many ways it presents picturesque bits which reminded me of some of Salvator Rosa’s pictures. It would be quite dark but for the yellow, faint light of gas‐lamps, not sufficient in number to dispel the gloom, which is greatly increased by the clouds of dust the numerous carts, carriages, and herds of goats are constantly raising, the latter adding thereto their own peculiarly suffocating odor. It is paved in the same way as the Neapolitan streets, and the noise reverberates from the roof. It has a curious effect when you lean forward to see the bearded goats just visible through the dusty air, and further on, perhaps, a cabriolet laden with people—six inside, four out, and one boy at least, after the Neapolitan fashion, hanging in a net beneath the vehicle—drawn by one horse, always equal to his load, no matter how starved and miserable he may be. On it comes, the merry inmates singing, shouting, piercing the darkness, but compelled thereby to slacken their pace a little, lest there should be a collision in this Erebus. We were always silent and a little uncomfortable in the din, the dust, and the darkness. Yet it had to be passed through again and again, as being the only road out into the country, unless we went all round by the Strada Nuova and Nisida. At the entrance of the grotto from Naples is the supposed tomb of Virgil, hidden beneath ivy and acanthus leaves‐just as a poet would have wished! We came out from the grotto on the busy, picturesque village of Fiorigrotta, where the whole population seem to live out in the one long street. Astroni is an extinct volcanic crater, the sides of which are clothed with ilex and other trees. It is circular, and a wall runs along the upper rim to prevent the escape of the deer and wild boar that are kept there for the king’s pleasure. There are two carriage‐roads through the dense forest. At the bottom of the basin there are a few open spaces, marshy land, and water. The solitude and silence are intense; for, as usual in Italy, there are not many singing birds, and what there are do not give song during the heat of the day any more than in our northern climes. I never shall forget the silence that reigned, nor the feeling of solitude induced by peering through the trees, looking down on the small lakes of intensely blue water below, and knowing that in those dense thickets myriads of wild animals were hiding in their lair, while we were the only human beings. The gates are kept locked, and it requires a special order to penetrate this sylvan scene. It does not seem to me a very satisfactory way of sporting. You are too sure of your game, walled in as it is all round. After visiting the extinct crater, we saw the emptied lake of Agnano, once notorious for malaria, now drained off and leaving a wide plain more or less adapted for agriculture. At present it seems in a rather neglected state, of which nature has taken advantage to cast her unsolicited gifts of flaunting bright wild flowers broadcast over the whole space.

One of our most interesting excursions was to the Solfatara, not far from the Lago Agnano. This also is an extinct crater; and yet so barely extinct that we feel, as we tread the sulphur‐checkered soil, and hear the hollow reverberation if we stamp on the ground, as if at any moment it might again burst forth.

From time to time our nostrils were disagreeably met by a puff of steam redolent of sulphur; and occasionally these puffs grow stronger and more threatening. The stones you pick up are tinged with yellow. The vegetation is sparse and dwarfed. At the further end of the plain is a cave, from whence at regular intervals rush clouds of hot steam, while a roaring, boiling sound surges within. The aperture is large enough for a person to enter by stooping a little. Most of our party peeped in, but instantly retired from the suffocating and horrible stench and great heat.

The rocks are covered with sulphur and alum; and in my eagerness that we should all equally benefit by the sight, I wanted to persuade Ida just to take one peep. It would, however, have been a risk to do anything which even for a second might embarrass the action of her delicate lungs and weak heart. She tried to approach, but turned back with the feeling that one puff more would have suffocated her.

I think we all felt as if we were standing in one of the outer halls of a region never to be mentioned “to ears polite,” and almost too “Dantesque” to be pleasant. We gladly breathed a purer atmosphere as we passed out of the gate (inside which is a fabric of sulphur‐works), and bent our steps between white walls on which the green lizards basked, and between fields of unripe corn and mulberry‐trees, till we reached an open space commanding a fine view of the Gulf of Pozzuoli and the hills beyond. From thence we turned into the Capuchin church dedicated to S. Januarius, and said to be built over the spot where he suffered martyrdom in 305. There is a stone, on which he is believed to have been beheaded, let into the wall, and protected with an iron grating. It is seamed with red marks as of blood. It is very probably a stone on which he knelt and on which the blood fell. But a block, whether of stone or wood, for the purposes of beheading, is a modern invention. The Romans used a sword—as the Turks use a scymitar for that ghastly purpose to this day—and the patient knelt upright.

It was pleasant to rest in the cool church, which, humble as it is, is not without its quota of beautiful marbles, and is kept exquisitely clean, with fresh flowers on the altar, and all care taken of it as if the community were still there. We found only a lay brother left in charge. I think he said he had a companion. All the poor fathers were dispersed by Victor Emanuel’s government, and Mass is only said on feast‐days; though it seemed to be the only church in that immediate neighborhood, and the poor of the district must greatly miss the presence of the Capuchin fathers, those special friends of the poor.

As we came down the hill, we were met by peasant lads, who wanted us to buy lumps of sulphur and the skeletons of the pretty little fish called the sea‐horse, which abound in this part of the Mediterranean, and which are just like the knights among chessmen. They may be seen alive in quantities in the aquarium at Brighton. They twist the tapering end of their tails round a fragment of sea‐weed, or indeed, as the buoyancy of the water keeps them up, they need but to touch something stationary. And there they stand in groups, motionless, and looking for all the world like a grave assembly of horses’ heads of the most delicate race, and with noses slightly turned up. Nothing can be more graceful than the way they hold themselves. Their heads are not bigger than those of ordinary‐sized chessmen.

As the Vernons had been at Posilippo all through the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in April, 1872, they were naturally anxious we should see something of the devastation it had occasioned. We determined, therefore, to drive to San Sebastiano, a village which was almost entirely destroyed. As we approached the spot, it seemed as if we were driving into the kingdom of chaos, where “the earth was void and empty.” On either side lay wide plains of gray‐black lava, looking as if a dead, unfertile earth had been furrowed with the burning shares of some gigantic and infernal plough, and had remained calcined and sterile for ever after. We left the carriage and climbed up a large mound of lava. I found myself nearly on a level with the low roof of the small church, round which the lava had crept, but had spared it. I looked down into the basement of a house below me. The lava had poured in and filled what once were rooms, but had left the walls and the roof standing. There was part of a street left, the lava having, with seeming caprice, turned off to the left, as it poured down the mountain, just in that spot. Our friends told us that as they used to sit by the hour and watch the progress of the burning stream through glasses, they could see the small white houses, with the fiery flood approaching, when suddenly each house seemed to leap into the air like a lighted straw, and then was seen no more. A cat ran past me, in haste to save her paws. We could not stand still long, for, though more than a year had elapsed, the land was still too hot to be pleasant; and when we reached home, we found our feet were blistered. The poor creatures whose homes have thus perished approach you timidly with bits of lava to sell. They still have a scared look in their faces. But nothing will persuade them to shift their quarters and leave their grand but dangerous neighbor. They are trying to rebuild their village, and are deaf to all the remonstrances of the great scientific philosopher(187) who lives a hermit’s life in the observatory half‐way up the mountain. He has a Capuchin priest as a companion; and the latter was able to give the last rites of the church to about forty of the unfortunate people, who, actuated by curiosity, had attempted to climb the mountain during the eruption. It seems they had never calculated upon the effect of the burning heat from a distance. They thought if there were a certain space between them and the lava, they should be safe. They forgot that actual contact was not needed; and they were scorched to death long before the stream reached the spot where they stood. Not one of those thus licked up by the breath of the volcano ever recovered, or even lived long enough to quit the place.

Signor Palmier and the Capuchin saw a carriage full of people, coachman and two horses, advancing up the mountain. Suddenly the whole was submerged. They could only tell where it had been arrested by the carrion birds hovering over a certain spot for many days after!

A Discussion With An Infidel.

VIII. Laws Of Nature And Miracles.

_Büchner._ We differ very widely in many points, sir; but there is one point about which we shall have no difficulty in agreeing—the immutability of natural laws. In fact, you have already conceded that the laws of nature are unchangeable.

_Reader._ Yes, I admit the unchangeability of the laws of nature; but I most strongly protest against your rash inference that therefore miracles are impossible.

_Büchner._ Yet my reasoning is very plain. “The law of nature, observes Moleschott, is a stringent expression of necessity. There exists in it neither exception nor limitation; and no imaginable power can disregard this necessity. A stone not supported will in all eternity fall towards the centre of the earth; and there never was, and never will be, a command for the sun to stand still” (p. 33).

_Reader._ Is this what you call “reasoning”?

_Büchner._ Yes. “The experience of thousands of years has impressed upon the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect to this great truth” (p. 34).

_Reader._ This I grant.

_Büchner._ “Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of the gods ...” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ It was Christianity, not science, that conquered the gods.

_Büchner._ “The eclipse of the stars and the stupendous powers of the Titans of the olden times have been grasped by the fingers of man” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ How can the _fingers_ of man grasp the eclipses and the Titans?

_Büchner._ “That which appeared inexplicably miraculous, and the work of a supernatural power, has, by the torch of science, proved to be the effect of hitherto unknown natural forces” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ You dream, doctor. Has “the torch of science” made known those hitherto unknown forces? No scientific work has yet explained how, by an act of the will, water can be changed into wine, how the deaf and dumb can be instantaneously cured, how the blind can be made to see, the paralytic to walk, and the dead to rise, at the sound of a voice, four days after burial, and when already in a state of advanced putrefaction. You may of course deny these facts, as you deny that the sun ever received a command to stand still; but to say that “the torch of science” has shown these facts to be the effect of unknown natural forces is to tell us the most stupid lie that can be uttered. Lies, you know, should at least be credible.

_Büchner._ “We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in asserting that there is no such thing as a miracle. Everything that happens does so in a natural way—_i.e._, in a mode determined only by accidental or necessary coalition of existing materials and their immanent natural forces. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous, could occur in any other manner” (p. 34).

_Reader._ These are mere words. I deny that science gives you the least right to suppress miracles. How can you establish such a right?

_Büchner._ “Wherever fire and water meet, vapors must arise and exert their irresistible power. Where the seed falls in the ground, there it will grow; where the thunderbolt is attracted, there it will strike. Can there exist any doubt as to these truths?” (p. 35).

_Reader._ Please, doctor, come to the point.

_Büchner._ “How is it possible that the unalterable order in which things move should ever be disturbed without producing an irremediable gap in the world, without delivering us and everything up to arbitrary power, without reducing all science, every earthly endeavor, to a vain and childish effort?” (p. 36).

_Reader._ All this rhetoric is most absurd, doctor. “The order in which things move” is not unalterable; and He whom you call an “arbitrary power” can alter it when he pleases without asking your permission, or without reducing science to a childish effort.

_Büchner._ What? You contradict yourself, sir. For, if the order in which things move is changeable, the laws of nature cannot be unchangeable.

_Reader._ Not at all. You sophistically confound two things entirely different—the _law_ of nature, and the _course_ of nature. The first is unchangeable, because it is connected with the essence of things; but the second is changeable, as a constant and universal experience compels us to admit. However much you may hate “arbitrary power,” you cannot deny that, besides necessary causes, there are others which are free in their exertions. Can you deny, for instance, that a stone may be thrown upwards in spite of gravitation, or that we can catch hold of the stone from the window, and, in spite of gravitation, we can prevent it from falling back to the ground? Now, if we do this, we do not change the _law_ of nature, and nevertheless we modify the _course_ of nature by freely producing a phenomenon which nature would not produce.

_Büchner._ Would you call this a miracle?

_Reader._ The question is impertinent. I call it a change in the course of nature. Now, if the course of nature can be modified without the law of nature being altered, it is absurd to pretend that there is contradiction in holding the unchangeableness of the latter and the changeableness of the former. This being evident, let us go a step further, and draw an obvious conclusion. We can, when we please, catch the stone from the window, and prevent it from falling; and cannot God do the same? We are free to exert our power; but is not God free, or has he less power than we have? If you are honest, you will own that what can be done by us can be done by our Creator and Lord. Now, if he stops the stone in the air, a miracle will be wrought, and no law of nature violated. You cannot deny the possibility of miracles without denying God.

_Büchner._ “A spirit independent of nature cannot exist; for never has an unprejudiced mind cultivated by science perceived its manifestation” (p. 36).

_Reader._ Are you not ashamed, doctor, to repeat such a nonsensical assertion? You have already failed to prove it, and I have shown its absurdity in a preceding discussion. Must I answer it anew? The only answer you now deserve is that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” Fools, in fact, deny God in their hearts, but cannot deny him in their minds, because atheism is not the result of intellectual knowledge, but of moral depravity. Our present question, however, is not theism or atheism, but the possibility of miracles without any breach of natural laws. Surely, if there were no God, no miracle would be possible; but your argument was that if the laws of nature are unchangeable, no miracle is possible; and this I have shown to be false. If there is a God, as we must now assume, miracles are possible. In the same manner, if a single true miracle has ever been wrought, there is a God.

_Büchner._ “Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called _miracles_, of which there have been many at all times” (p. 36).

_Reader._ You should know better, doctor. The church is not satisfied with “apparent” exceptions from the natural order; the exception must be rigorously proved.

_Büchner._ “We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scientific, person who is convinced of the immutable order of things can nowadays believe in miracles. We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended so much logic in refuting the Christian miracles. What founder of religion did not deem it necessary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to perform miracles? And has not his success proved that he was right? What prophet, what saint, is there who has not performed miracles? The miracle‐seeker sees them daily and hourly. Do not the table‐spirits belong to the order of miracles? All such miracles are equal in the eye of science; they are the result of a diseased fancy” (pp. 36, 37).

_Reader._ This is miserable logic, doctor. Why do you speak of the _natural_ impossibility of miracles? Have we ever taught that miracles are _naturally_ possible? We know that nature works no miracles, and that all miracles are supernatural. It is therefore either a mean trick or a logical blunder on your part to pretend that the _natural_ possibility of miracles is the point in question. That no educated or scientific man can nowadays believe in miracles is not only an empty boast, but also a disgraceful calumny. We Christians believe in miracles, and yet, I venture to say, we need not resort to you for lessons in science or education. As a reason for not believing in miracles, you allege “the immutable order of things”; that is, you assume what is to be proved. The order of things is so far from being immutable that we see it modified at every moment. It is the laws of nature, not the order of things, that are immutable. That Feuerbach “expended so much of logic in refuting Christian miracles” I will not deny; I only say that his logic, like your own, is mere sophism and cavil. Of course you call him “so clear and acute a thinker”; but we know what this means on the lips of Freemasons. If he was “so clear and acute a thinker,” why did he not furnish you with at least one good argument against Christian miracles?

Besides, you pretend that all founders of religion deemed it necessary to perform miracles. What then? Were it true, the fact would scarcely help your cause; for it would only prove that there have ever been impostors, as there have been quacks and coin‐forgers. Now, who would think of selling counterfeited articles, if there had existed none genuine? Would there be quacks, had there been no doctors? And yet your reasoning leads to the conclusion that, because there are so many quacks, there can be no doctors. Are you, then, a mere quack yourself?

You say with a malicious sneer that all prophets and saints performed miracles. Yes; they performed miracles, or rather, to speak more correctly, God wrought miracles through them. Yet, in the teeth of sacred and ecclesiastical history which testifies to an infinite number of unquestionable miracles, you are shameless enough to conclude that no miracle has ever been performed, on the plea that miracle‐seekers, table‐ spirits, and diseased fancy must have conspired to deceive the world. Is it necessary to refute such a silly assertion? Was Elymas the magician a miracle‐seeker when S. Paul, to punish him for his opposition to Christianity, struck him blind with a word in the presence of the Roman centurion? Was it a trick of table‐spirits that made the blind see, the lame walk, or the dumb speak? Was it diseased fancy that impressed on an immense crowd the belief that they had been miraculously fed by Christ in the desert, where no provisions were at hand? No, doctor, you are not silly enough to believe anything of the sort.

_Büchner._ But what do you answer to the following difficulties? First, if we admit miracles, “science will be reduced to a vain and childish effort” (p. 36). Secondly, how can we conceive “a supreme legislator who allows himself to be moved by prayers and sobs to reverse the immutable order which he himself has created, to violate his own laws, and with his own hand to destroy the action of natural forces?” (p. 38). Thirdly, “every miracle, if it existed, says Cotta, would lead to the conviction that the creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the created world the imperfection of the Creator” (p. 38). Fourthly, “is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course, and puts on a screw, etc., like the regulator of a watch? If the world has been created by God perfect, how can it require any repairs?” (p. 39). Fifthly, we see that nature works without superior control; “its action is frequently quite independent of the rules of a higher reason, now constructing, now destroying, now full of design, then again perfectly blind and in contradiction with all moral and rational laws. That in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies, which are constantly being renewed, there can be no direct governing reason at work is proved by the most striking facts. The _nisus formativus_ inherent in nature is so blind and so dependent on external circumstances that the most senseless forms are frequently engendered, that it is often incapable of obviating or overcoming the slightest obstructions, and that frequently the contrary of what according to reason should happen is effected” (pp. 41, 42). These are serious difficulties, sir.

_Reader._ I hardly think them to be serious, doctor. The first entirely disappears when you reflect that the conclusions of physical science are _all hypothetic_, inasmuch as they regard phenomena which must take place under the action of given powers, to the exclusion of any other power extraneous to those taken into account. Such conclusions, therefore, imply the condition that no extraneous agent and no disturbing cause interferes with the production of the phenomena. If an extraneous power interferes, the conditions are changed, and with them the phenomena; but science is not upset. A stone not supported must fall. _Not supported_; such is the condition. Now, whether you, or I, or the roof, or God, or an angel support it, the consequence will be that the stone will not fall. Now, I ask you, is science “reduced to a vain and childish effort” because you or I or the roof prevent the stone from falling? I presume, doctor, that if such were the case, science would long since have disappeared from this world. Why, then, should science become a vain and childish effort as soon as God would do himself what we can freely do without destroying science? Take another example. Nature builds no stately palaces, no fine steamers, no locomotives, no railroads. All such things are our free creations. Yet surely you will not maintain that by building palaces or by boring mountains we destroy science, although we may interfere very materially with the works of nature.

Now, if our free action upon nature does not destroy science, why should God’s free action destroy it? Answer me in the name of reason: What theory of natural science would be falsified were God to send angels to build you a palace, or devils to dig you a grave?

And now I come to your second difficulty. You assume that the supreme legislator cannot work a miracle without destroying the action of natural forces and violating his own laws, thus reversing the immutable order which he himself has created. But you are mistaken. The order of things is not immutable; this I have already shown. On the other hand, we have just seen that no law of nature is ever violated by a miracle. Lastly, God’s action does not destroy the action of natural forces, but produces an effect superior to and independent of them. Nor is this strange; for we ourselves can do the like within the range of our limited powers. When we go up‐stairs, do we destroy the action of gravity that urges us downwards? By no means. The action of gravity continues its work, but our contrary exertion prevails; and thus our body obeys the resultant of the two opposite actions, both of which obtain their effect. You see, therefore, that there is no need of destroying the action of natural forces in order to produce an effect which natural forces cannot produce. After these remarks, nothing remains of your second difficulty but “the prayers and sobs” which you cruelly ridicule as useless and superstitious. But our Father who is in heaven listens to such prayers and is moved by those sobs. This is abundantly proved by innumerable authentic facts; and this suffices for us.

Your third difficulty is based on Cotta’s notion that the creation deserves respect on account of its perfection. Cotta may be one of your great men, but surely he does not know what he is speaking about. What “respect” do we owe to creation? Benighted barbarians thought, indeed, that the sun, the earth, and the stars deserved respect; but how can a man who pretends to be a philosopher, and who professes himself an enemy of superstition, adopt such a stale pagan view, unless he blinds himself and renounces reason by bestowing upon matter the worship which he refuses to the living God? To say that the world is “perfect” is a mere equivocation. The world is perfect after its own manner, inasmuch as it serves all the purposes for which it has been made; it is perfect in the same sense in which we say that a thermometer, a telescope, or an engine is perfect; it is a perfect instrument in God’s hand for the attainment of a determinate end; and therefore its perfection is _relative_ only, and might be greater and greater without end. Now, Cotta’s argument overlooks this obvious restriction, and presents the world as _absolutely_ perfect. If the world is imperfect, says he, God is imperfect; but miracles would show that the world is imperfect; and therefore miracles would show that God is imperfect. Now, is not this, doctor, asinine logic? We might as well argue thus: If an engine is imperfect, its maker is imperfect; but the opening of a turning‐cock for admitting more steam shows that the engine is imperfect; and therefore that opening shows that the engine‐maker is imperfect. And this leads me to your fourth difficulty, which is nothing but a repetition of the third.

You ask: “Is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course?” I answer, _Yes_; it is quite worthy of God to exercise his power in the world in the way he thinks fit. Shall we say, then, that God, “like the regulator of a watch, puts a screw on the world”? Why not? The watchmaker is not degraded by regulating his work. But, then, “the world requires repairs”? I say, _Yes_. And if you conclude that the world “has not been created perfect,” I reply that although it came out relatively perfect from the hands of the Creator, it has gradually and most sadly deteriorated by the malice of man. Moreover, the world, whether more or less perfect in itself, without a constant active intervention of its Creator can neither work nor last for a moment. The world is, therefore, constantly “repaired,” to use your expression, and has “screws put on it,” as history testifies; and other “screws” are undoubtedly ready for further “repairs” when they will be wanted.

Your last difficulty arises from your assumption that nature works without being controlled by a superior power. But how do you know that nature is not controlled? What are the “striking facts” which prove that “there is no direct governing reason at work” in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies? Your _nisus formativus_ proves nothing. You say that the _nisus_ is “blind.” You may well call it blind, inasmuch as it is a work of secondary causes; but you cannot deny that it is ruled by a superior reason. What does it matter if “most senseless forms are frequently engendered”? You yourself admit that the _nisus formativus_ depends very much “on external circumstances,” which may mar or spoil the work of organization, and which nothing obliges the superior reason to alter or improve. On the other hand, such senseless forms are not so “frequently” engendered as you pretend; and if a few such senseless or monstrous forms can move you to doubt whether their formation is controlled by a superior reason, I do not see why the immensely greater number of other forms perfectly constituted should not constrain you to banish the doubt, and to recognize that matter not controlled and not directed by reason cannot co‐ ordinate its efforts towards the formation of an organism of which it knows neither the plan nor the object.

I trust, doctor, that these remarks suffice to solve your difficulties, and to show that the world is governed by a superior reason.

_Büchner._ It may be; yet “what this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so the naturalists with their science. They both proceed by different routes” (p. 43).

_Reader._ This is no reply, doctor, and your remark is misplaced. The existence of a personal God, the possibility of miracles, and many other such truths, are proved by natural reason. Had I refuted your objections by quoting “theologians” and “articles of faith,” your reply might have some meaning. But since your allegations have been answered by reason, what does it avail to say that “theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves”? Moreover, you unwittingly condemn your own tactics. For if theologians are to be left to themselves, why do you, then, who are no theologian, and not even a philosopher, invade the province of theology, and fight against faith?

If you have any desire to know the truth about the reality of miracles, I will tell you what you have to do. M. Artus, a Frenchman, on the 23d of July, 1871, publicly challenged all the free‐thinkers of the world to show the falsity of any two out of the many miracles registered in M. Lasserre’s book entitled _Notre Dame de Lourdes_, and staked 10,000 francs upon the issue of the contest. This money was safely deposited by him in the hands of a notary‐public in Paris; and fifty judges were appointed, some of whom were members of the French Institute, and others fellows of other celebrated institutions and academies, or members of the bar, including even a Protestant; so that there could be no suspicion of fanaticism, ultramontanism, or mysticism about them. Now, incredible as it may appear to you, none of your great braggarts has dared from that day till now to accept the challenge. It is for you, who are so peremptory in denouncing miracles, to come forward, and to blot out by an act of philosophical valor the stain which the cowardice of your enlightened friends has left on the glory of free‐thinkerism. It is for you, I repeat; for if a man of your standing and reputation quails before the challenge, the world will most reasonably conclude that you have no faith whatever in your own doctrines.

IX. The Heavens.

_Reader._ The laws of nature are universal. Such is the subject of the seventh chapter of your _Force and Matter_. I need hardly say that, while admitting with you the universality of the natural laws, I cannot but condemn the materialistic spirit which disgraces your explanation of that obvious truth. But in the chapter which follows you speak of the heavens in a most objectionable style.

_Büchner._ “Every school‐boy knows that the sky is not a glass shade covering the earth, but that, in contemplating it, we behold an immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” (p. 51).

_Reader._ This I grant; but I am at a loss to understand how the contemplation of the heavens can furnish you an argument against the existence of God. Is it not strange that what has hitherto been considered to proclaim most loudly the existence, and magnify the power, of God, has become, in your hands, an evidence in support of atheism?

_Büchner._ The heavenly masses “are in constant motion—a motion singularly combined and complicated, yet in all its modifications merely the result of a single universal law of nature—_the law of attraction_.... All these motions may be determined and predicted with mathematical exactness. As far as the telescope of man reaches, the same law, the same mechanical arrangement, according to the same calculated mechanical formula, is found. Nowhere is there a trace of an arbitrary finger which has ordered the heavens or pointed out the path of comets. ‘I have searched the heavens,’ says Lalande, ‘but have nowhere found the traces of God.’ And when the Emperor Napoleon asked the celebrated astronomer Laplace why there was no mention of God in his _Mécanique Céleste_, he replied, ‘_Sire, je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse_.’ The more astronomy progressed in its knowledge of the laws and motions in the heavens, the more it repudiated the idea of a supernatural influence, and the easier it became to deduce the origin, grouping, and motions of the heavenly bodies from the properties inherent in matter itself. The attraction of atoms rendered the bodies compact, whilst the law of attraction, in combination with their primary motion, produced the mode of their reciprocal rotation which we now observe” (pp. 51, 52).

_Reader._ Waiving the more than problematic plausibility of your premises, and setting aside the blasphemies which you have diligently copied from the books of the French unbelievers, and which are too stolid to need an answer, I reply, doctor, that you are always too hasty in drawing your conclusions. Why did you not reflect that the matter of which the celestial bodies are formed must have had an origin, that the revolutions of those bodies cannot be ruled by an abstract law, and that their enormous distances, as well as the expanse of their orbits through the immensity of space, compel the admission of an infinite being ranging infinitely above matter and necessarily prior to it? You should not have overlooked the fact that the heavens proclaim God’s existence by their immensity far more eloquently than by the revolutions of the celestial bodies. You speak of movements ruled by a law. I admit the movements and the law which rules our calculation of the movements. But without space there is no movement, and without God there is no space; therefore without God there is no movement. Extricate yourself, if you can. Do you concede that without space there is no movement?

_Büchner._ It is evident.

_Reader._ Do you admit that without God there is no space?

_Büchner._ This I deny.

_Reader._ Then what do you mean by “space”?

_Büchner._ I fancy that space is nothing but the volume of bodies.

_Reader._ How is this possible? A body moves through space. Now, does a body move through its own volume, or does it move through the volume of other bodies? On the contrary, the body cannot move without pushing away before it all other bodies and volumes whatever from the space they occupy. It is therefore evident that space, as such, is not the volume of bodies.

_Büchner._ Then I shall say that space is the capability of bodies and motion.

_Reader._ This definition of space may be admitted if properly understood. But what is such a capability? Is it, in your opinion, a real and positive entity?

_Büchner._ I should not think so, unless, indeed, it be occupied by bodies.

_Reader._ I know that many are of this opinion, that the reality of space depends on the presence of bodies; but I say that, if such were the case, then empty space would be mere nothing. Now, if you admit this, you will be compelled to admit also the absurdity that a mere nothing can be greater or smaller. For between two neighboring atoms there may be a greater or smaller interval of space; and such an interval, by the hypothesis, would be nothing. Hence it is evident that space, no matter whether occupied or unoccupied, must be something real.

_Büchner._ Then I say that space is a mere relation of material objects.

_Reader._ There are relations of bodies in space; but all such relations _presuppose_ the existence of absolute space, and therefore space itself is none of those relations. Moreover, since all real relations have their reason in something real, which is the foundation of the relativity, it follows that space, as that through which one body is really related to another, is in itself a reality, independently of the relations which may result from the existence of bodies in it. And again, before bodies can be considered as related through space, they must be each located in space. But, evidently, they cannot be located in space if there is no space. And therefore there must be space before any local relation of bodies can be imagined as possible. Hence you cannot maintain that space is a mere relation.

_Büchner._ Perhaps I shall be obliged to say with Kant that space is only a subjective form of the mind.

_Reader._ Then you will entangle yourself still more. The assumption would imply the denial of all real distances, of all real volumes, of all real movements, of all real phenomena, and of all natural laws. For if space is only a subjective form of our mind, then there is no space out of the mind; and consequently there are no real distances and no real movements in the outside world, and science becomes an array of lies.

_Büchner._ What is, then, your notion of space?

_Reader._ Space is the region of all possible ubications and movements. Do you accept this definition?

_Büchner._ Why not? It is substantially the same as that which I have given by saying that space is the capability of bodies and motion.

_Reader._ Very well. Then, since I have shown that this capability of bodies and motion is a positive reality, space is a positive reality. Moreover, space is neither matter nor any of the forces of matter, nor dependent on matter, but prior to it, and is prerequired as a necessary condition for the existence of matter. Lastly, space is independent of time and motion, and therefore is absolutely and strictly eternal and unchangeable. Do you object to these conclusions?

_Büchner._ No, sir.

_Reader._ Then you concede that space is an infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent reality, prior to matter and above matter, and therefore, according to your own theory, prior to the world and above it. Now, to concede so much, and then to deny God, would be an evident contradiction. For you must admit that absolute space is either a substance or not. If it is a substance, then it is an infinite, eternal, independent, unchangeable substance, embracing and transcending with its immensity all imaginable worlds; and a substance having such attributes is what we call GOD. If space is not a substance, it must still have the reason of its reality in a substance from which it borrows its infinity, its eternity, its immutability, and of which it is the extrinsic manifestation. Hence the contemplation of the heavens and of “the immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” affords an irresistible proof of God’s existence, and leaves no room for your pretended “scientific” objections. If there is no God, there is no space; and if there is no space, science is a dream and scientists mere visionaries.(188)

_Büchner._ I cannot fight on this ground, sir. Space is a mystery which our reason has no power to explain; and I decline to argue about anything that transcends reason. The strongest argument in favor of the existence of a personal God was ever drawn from the necessity of a first mover, in order to account for the movement of the celestial bodies. But such a necessity has never been proved; and therefore “even in this remote position a personal creative power cannot hold its ground” (p. 52).

_Reader._ You cannot cover your retreat by pretending that space is a mystery; for if space is a mystery, then science also is a mystery—a conclusion which you do not accept. But while you thus implicitly acknowledge your defeat, you try to secure a safer position by alleging that the movement of the heavenly bodies may have originated in the powers of matter itself without any exterior impulse from a first mover. I wish you to remark that the words “first mover” can be understood in two manners; for not he only who directly imparts the first movement, but he also who governs the exertions and establishes the conditions on which the first movements depend, can be called “first mover.” The old philosophers, who did not know the fact of universal gravitation, proved the existence of God by affirming the necessity of a first mover—that is, of a first cause—giving the first impetus to the heavens, and governing their revolutions. But since gravitation became known philosophers have acknowledged that all matter could receive motion through the action of other matter, and therefore that the first movements in the material world could arise from matter itself, with no need of a special impulse from without. This, however, does not mean that we can dispense with a “first mover.” However great your effort to convince yourself that “matter is eternal, and the motion of matter as eternal as matter itself” (p. 53), you will not succeed. Matter is created; and He who created it placed it in definite conditions, that it could exert its powers in a definite manner and give rise to definite effects. To him, therefore, as to a first cause, are to be traced all the movements arising from his production and arrangement of all the proximate causes. Now, the first cause of all movements is a “first mover.” What can science object against this evident truth?

_Büchner._ “Why matter assumed a definite motion at a definite time is as yet unknown to us; but the investigations of science are as yet incomplete, nor is it impossible that we may get some clue as to the period of the first origin of individual worlds. Even at this day astronomers give cogent reasons that some of the nebular spots are worlds in embryo, which, by gradual condensation and rotation, will become worlds and solar systems. We have, therefore, concluding from analogy, a right to say that those processes through which the existing solar systems have arisen can have formed no exception to the general laws inherent in matter, and that the cause of the first definite motion must have existed in matter itself” (p. 53).

_Reader._ This is possible; but is it true?

_Büchner._ “We are the more justified in asserting this, as the many irregularities, contingencies, etc., in the economy of the universe and individual bodies, exclude the thought of an external personal activity” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ What? Are you serious?

_Büchner._ “If it were the object of a personal creative power to create worlds and dwelling‐places for men and animals, why, we may ask, these enormous, waste, useless spaces, in which but here and there suns and planets swim, floating about as imperceptible points? Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man? Why is the moon without water and atmosphere, and consequently adverse to every organic development? Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system? Why the deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty? Why have all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, proved idle fancies? Why, asks Hudson Tuttle, did the Creator give rings to Saturn, which, surrounded by its eight moons, can have little need of them, while Mars is left in total darkness? And again, the moon’s rotation round its axis is, in relation to that of the earth, such that it always presents to it the same surface. What is the reason of this? If there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect. Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred?” (pp. 53, 54).

_Reader._ Unfortunate man that you are! You have already received the just punishment of your rebellion against truth; you have been struck with blindness. The thing is evident, say what you will. You make a fool of yourself, as your preposterous queries prove nothing but your arrogance, ignorance, and malice. You will never be cured of your blindness till you lower your tone and humble your pride before the God whose works you disregard, and whose wisdom you call in question. You are a smoky little candle challenging the sun thus: “Why these enormous, waste, useless spaces?” Is it necessary to inform you that those spaces are not waste and useless? We have just seen that the expanse of the heavens reveals the infinity of the Creator; accordingly, the enormous spaces which you arrogantly call waste and useless proclaim most eloquently the highest truth, the necessary truth, the source of all truths. “Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man?” In return let me ask you, Why is not the atmosphere so formed as to be inhabited by fishes? Indeed, if God has no need of peopling the air with fishes, it would be hard to say on what principle he can be obliged to people the planets with beings exactly similar to us in their organization. It is plain that man, though the best creature on earth, is not the last effort of Omnipotence; there can be rational beings made according to other patterns, having a different organization and different needs. But whether there are or not, it is not for you to ask why the planets are not so made as to be inhabited by man. It is no less preposterous to ask, “Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system?” If the planets were all alike, and their distances equal, would you not pronounce the world monotonous, and the plan of creation a limited conception of an unintelligent mind? But now it is variety that offends your æsthetics; and you denounce it as being “irregularity.” Did you never hear that variety is a source of beauty? To me, the musician who always harps on the same chord is a nuisance; and I am sure that you too would prefer a full orchestra, with all the “irregularities and enormous differences in the size, etc.,” of the instruments employed. You find in the heavens “a deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty.” This only shows your bad taste. Do you think that symmetry is indispensable for beauty? An oak is beautiful, though its branches are not symmetrical. The sea‐shore, the hill, the valley, the mountain, would lose much of their beauty, were they to be reduced to symmetrical forms. Then you speak of a want of “order.” What do you imagine order to be? Look on a chess‐board when the game is going on. Is there any order? If you are no chess‐player, you will not perceive order, but confusion; and yet there is order. Order is a suitable disposition of things in pursuance of an end, and must be different when it has to lead to a different end. He who has no knowledge of the end pursued cannot judge of the suitableness or deficiency of the arrangements made in view of such an end. When you think that the pieces are most disorderly mixed up on the chess‐board, then perhaps they are in the most perfect order, and the intelligent player already knows that he is about to checkmate his adversary. So do not speak again of the order of the heavens until you are called into the secret council of Divinity. I thought, doctor, that you had some ability; yet how dull that man must be who asks “why all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, have proved idle fancies”! The _why_ is evident. It is because men are ignorant, and yet presumptuous. But does our ignorance show that there is a deficiency of order in the heavens? No; our ignorance only shows that the best thing we can do is to hold our tongue. As to the rings of Saturn, what do you know besides their existence? And how could you show that, because Saturn has eight moons, the rings can have no duty to perform? But then, you say, “Mars is left in total darkness.” I reply that twelve hours of darkness are not a _total_ darkness. Moreover, the dense atmosphere and the small diameter of Mars are calculated to afford it a long crepuscle, which may shorten very sensibly the length of its night. And, after all, what need is there that Mars should have a moon? Could we not do on earth without our moon? But you are scandalized that our moon “always presents to us the same surface,” and never deigns to show its other side. What a disorder! What an evidence of a want of design! This it is that causes you to exclaim that “if there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect.” I remark that you here admit with Tuttle that there may be design in this arrangement. But if there is a design, there is a designer. Who is he? Is he not the Omnipotent? For how can he fulfil his design if he does not hold the heavens in his hand? The design, however, in your judgment, is imperfect. Why? Only because your ignorance can put a question to which it cannot make an answer. You say: “Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred”" Your curiosity, doctor, lacks modesty. What right have you to be instructed in detail of the intentions of the Creator? Is he not the Master? Is he obliged to discover his secrets to you, rebel and arrogant being, who disregard the most clear evidence of his very existence? Would you be able to understand his plan if he were willing to reveal it? The heavens proclaim God’s existence and attributes; they glorify him by their beauty, variety, and harmony; they reveal the general scope of creation; but they withhold the secrets which God has reserved for himself. God’s providence and his government of the world are infinitely wise, but they are inscrutable.

_Büchner._ Although you treat me with little regard, and apply to me very hard epithets, I wish to make a short remark on what you call “providence”: “Some perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars a designing providence; but they do not consider that they confound cause and effect, and that we should be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing” (p. 55).

_Reader._ I think that you would have done better if you had withheld your remark. That I treat you with little regard I do not deny; but, in truth, I believe that if you deserve respect as a doctor, you deserve only contempt as the author of _Force and Matter_. Freemasons praise your person and extol your book; be satisfied with this. To us you are nothing but a blind and obstinate sophist. If we apply to you some hard epithet, you gave us the fullest right to do so; for remember that you have called our great men “charlatans.” We, at least, when we call you ignorant, arrogant, presumptuous, take care to prove that such epithets are well applied; whilst you make denunciations, and give no proofs.

And now as to your remark about Providence. “Some,” you say, “perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars, a designing providence.” Indeed, all great philosophers, nay, all mankind, perceive that designing providence; but, from your words, it would seem that this is only a peculiar bias of a few obscure and eccentric thinkers. Hence those words, “_some_ perceive,” are calculated to conceal or disguise a great historical truth—the testimony of mankind in favor of divine providence. This may be called a trick. But what follows is a real blunder. Those who recognize a providential order “do not consider,” according to you, “that they confound cause and effect.” Where is there confusion? Do you mean that what we call “Providence” is an effect of natural laws?

_Büchner._ Exactly so.

_Reader._ Natural laws are abstractions, and abstractions can produce nothing. Did you ever imagine that a law of geometry could make a circle, or that a law of harmony could write a _quartetto_? Laws do not produce facts, but are gathered from facts of which they exhibit the general expression. Thus the natural laws are not natural causes, but abstract formulas, and do not rule the world, as scientists too often assert, but only our calculations and scientific inductions. Your blunder is evident. But is it true, at least, that “we should be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing”? No, doctor, you are not happy in your illustration. A change of inclination of the ecliptic would only alter the _distribution_ of heat on the terrestrial surface without altering its _amount_; and as now men can live under different latitudes and in different climes without being differently organized, so also they would live and thrive under some different inclination of the ecliptic without acquiring a different organization. And if so, it would appear that your physical knowledge is as limited as your philosophical attainments.

_Büchner._ Of course I am a doctor in medicine, not in physics or in philosophy; but this I know: “that empirical philosophy, wherever it may search for it, is nowhere able to find a trace of a supernatural influence, either in time or space” (p. 55).

_Reader._ Quite true. Your “empirical philosophy” is unable to find anything supernatural, wherever it may search for it. But are you so simple as to believe that, if there is a God, you should be able to reach him with the telescope, or to detect him by the microscope, or to get by the balance an indication of his presence, or to find him in a retort, as a residue after some chemical manipulation? Shame! shame! Is this your method of convincing yourself that there is no God? Then, by shutting yourself in a dark cellar, you should be able also to convince yourself that the sun does not exist. Is it not a mockery to pretend that there is nothing supersensible, _because_ it cannot be reached by experimentation upon sensible things? I cannot but repeat that you have received the punishment of your rebellion against truth. A man of your ability would never fall into such absurdities from want of light; it is your hatred of truth that distorts your reason and instigates you to heap sophism upon sophism, and blasphemy upon blasphemy. You need not search for God; you know him, and try in vain, like Cain, to fly from his face.

_Büchner._ You make a sermon rather than a discussion.

_Reader._ But whose fault is it if your assertions are so openly incongruous as not to bear discussion? Even your “empirical philosophy” is a myth. Are you not ashamed to appeal to a science which has no existence? Chemistry is empirical, and other parts of physics may be empirical; but empirical philosophy is nothing but a bombastic word without meaning, a fit conclusion to a chapter wherein you try to make the heavens bear witness against their Maker.

X. The Earth.

_Reader._ After the heavens you try to enlist the earth also among your witnesses against God. But what can the earth say in your favor?

_Büchner._ “The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and important light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water, now by their combined action. These revolutions afforded, by the apparent suddenness and violence of their occurrence, a welcome pretext to orthodoxy to appeal to the existence of supernatural powers, which were to have caused these revolutions in order to render, by gradual transitions, the earth fit for certain purposes. This successive periodical creation is said to have been attended with a successive creation of new organic beings and species. The Bible, then, was right in relating that God had sent a deluge over the world to destroy a sinful generation. God with his own hands is said to have piled up mountains, planed the sea, created organisms, etc.” (p. 56).

_Reader._ And so he did. But mark that these Biblical expressions are metaphorical.

_Büchner._ “All these notions concerning a direct influence of supernatural or inexplicable forces have melted away before the age of modern science” (p. 57).

_Reader._ Melted away? Indeed? And how?

_Büchner._ “Like astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the millions of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed the history of the earth, and has given rise to all kinds of religious and mysterious dreams” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ To call our views “religious and mysterious dreams” is no argument, doctor. We have a history of the earth far more certain than all your modern geology; and that portion of geology which is not fiction and charlatanism not only does not contradict, but rather completes and confirms, the Mosaic history.

_Büchner._ This is what I cannot admit. “It is now known that there can be no discussion about those periodic creations of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so‐called days of creation of the Bible; but that the whole _past_ of the earth is nothing but an unfolded _present_” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ You say, “It is known.” No, sir, it is not known; it is only wished. You infidels pretend to know a great many things of which you are ignorant. If you _know_ that geology refutes the Bible, how does it happen that you cannot impart to us such a knowledge in a rational manner—that is, by proving what you assert?

_Büchner._ “Geology, supported by the knowledge of surrounding nature and its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has happened in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently with certainty. It has proved that everywhere and at all times only those material and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present surrounded” (p. 59).

_Reader._ This cannot be proved by geology.

_Büchner._ “Nowhere was a point reached when it was necessary to stop scientific investigation, and to substitute the influence of unknown forces” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ Not even for the origin of life?

_Büchner._ “Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the possibility of visible effects from the combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed the same law and the same matter” (_ibid._)

_Reader._ Of course. But this does not exclude the intervention of a superior cause.

_Büchner._ “An enlightened intellect no longer requires the aid of that powerful hand which, acting from without, excites the burning spirits of the interior of the earth to a sudden rebellion, which pours the waters as a deluge over the earth, and shapes for its designs the whole structure like soft clay” (p. 60.)

_Reader._ This is openly false. All enlightened intellects acknowledge that He who declared his intention of desolating Sodom by fire and the world by the Deluge must have had a hand in the fulfilment of his menace.

_Büchner._ This is your Bible history, which we reject.

_Reader._ But can you refute it?

_Büchner._ “How curious and whimsical is not the conception of a creative power, which conducts the earth and its inhabitants through various transitions and immense periods of time to a more developed form, in order to make it finally a fit dwelling‐place for the most organized animal—man! Can an arbitrary and almighty power require such efforts to attain its object? Can it not immediately and without delay do and create what seems good to it? Why these roundabouts? The natural difficulties alone which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations of its parts can explain to us the peculiarity of the origin of the organic and inorganic world” (p. 60).

_Reader._ It is ridiculous to speak of “efforts” of the Almighty; for no one but a fool could dream of such an absurdity. Moreover, you confound _creation_ with _formation_. By creation matter received existence immediately, without “roundabouts”; for creation is not movement, and therefore needs no time. This creation of matter was the work of God alone; but the formation of the earth was successively brought about, according to God’s plan, through the exertion of the natural powers, which were not created to remain idle, but to carry on the objects intended by their Creator. Now, the exertion of natural powers could not give rise to a perfect order of things “immediately and without roundabouts.” Hence your argument is worthless; and it is worthless precisely on account of the “difficulties which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations” of complex things. But matter meets with a much greater difficulty, which you omit to mention. The difficulty is that matter does not know how to form a molecule of hydrogen; and yet there is hydrogen.

_Büchner._ It chanced to be formed by nature.

_Reader._ Indeed? Chance might form _one_ molecule, or _two_, but could not form millions of millions of them _all perfectly equal_ to one another, for chance excludes uniformity. Nor does it avail to say that their formation is the work of nature; for nature, according to you, is only matter, and consequently it cannot do more than matter itself is capable of doing.

_Büchner._ Science is still imperfect; we cannot as yet explain everything. But geologists refute the Bible as to the six days of creation. “The so‐called coal formation alone required, according to Bischof, 1,004,177; according to Chevandier’s calculation, 672,788 years. The tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their development about 350,000 years; and before the originally incandescent earth could cool down from a temperature of 2,000 degrees to 200, there must, according to Bischof’s calculation, have elapsed a period of 350 millions of years. Volger finally calculates that the time requisite for the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to 648 millions of years! From these numbers we may form some notion as to the extent of these periods of time. They give us, moreover, another hint. The enormous distances in the universe which stagger our imagination, in combination with these almost unlimited periods of time, lead us to acknowledge that both time and space are infinite and eternal” (p. 61).

_Reader._ You are always the same. Your conclusion that time is _infinite_ is pinned on the statement that the periods of geology are _almost_ unlimited—that is, not altogether without limit. I need not show that such a rash conclusion is contradicted by your very calculations. And again, as to the geological periods themselves, their length does not clash with the six days of creation as described by the Bible. The word “day” is often used in the Bible to express a great interval of time, and may be interpreted as an “epoch,” or, as you say, a “period.” This is, in fact, the interpretation of the word now accepted by our writers when explaining the days of creation. Only our writers, more prudent than you, do not pretend to determine the length of those epochs or periods; for they do not indulge in wild calculations or imaginary data. When we see a difference of 331,389 years between the results of two calculations regarding the period of the coal formation, we may well suspend our judgment, and not commit ourselves by the premature choice of either opinion. But we admit the periods, nor are we afraid of identifying them with the days of creation. The Bible has nothing to fear from geology or any other science. We might, on the contrary, prove from geology the truth and divine inspiration of the Mosaic narrative. Moses was no geologist, and could not know the order of the events which took place before the creation of man, except by supernatural revelation. Now, in his cosmogony we observe not only the description of an order of events like that deduced from modern geology, but “a system in the arrangement, and a far‐ reaching prophecy,” as Prof. Dana well remarks,(189) “to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.” You see, doctor, that your geological periods, instead of refuting the Bible, furnish us with a new argument in support of its divine origin. Have you anything to reply?

_Büchner._ Your explanation of the Bible is quite new.

_Reader._ Be it so. Our ancient doctors, however, knew very well that the word “day” in the Bible frequently means a great length of time. Had they known geology, they would have unanimously interpreted the six days as six great geological periods, just as we do.

_Büchner._ But I have still other arguments deduced from the primeval generations.

_Reader._ I am ready to meet them. But I really think it is scarcely worth the trouble to continue the discussion, as you have hitherto uniformly failed in every point you have tried to establish.

(To Be Continued).

Hymn Of The Flowers.

A Memorial of the First Mass of ——, One of Eleven Young Jesuits Who Said Their First Masses at Woodstock on the Feast of S. Aloysius, June 21, 1874.

I.

Chosen from many, Tenderly nurtured, We budded to sunlight, Our fragrance we scattered; Queens of the garden, Languishing beauties, Reserved for high favor— Fair flowers! fair flowers!

II.

Emblems of purity, Fitting for virgins, Our sisters are gathered To grace the blithe maidens Who go to their bridals— Oh! fair be their fortune. Glad flowers! glad flowers!

III.

Emblems of innocence, Fondly we’re sought for: Young mothers will scatter The blossoms just budding, Will scatter our sisters, Kept still fresh and dewy, With sad pearls of affection, O’er the vanishing image Of the lost darling— Ah! kindred with blossoms. Sad flowers! sad flowers!

IV.

Emblems of triumph, Emblems of glory, The nations will cull them, Will cull from our sisters To honor their true ones. Mingling with life, Mingling with death, The flowers will crown the hero’s brow, Or wreathe the stone that marks his grave. Frail flowers! frail flowers!

V.

But we—O glad fortune! O blest among flowers!— We have been chosen High o’er our sisters:

Culled for the altar, We gave all our beauty, We spent all our perfumes, When God’s priest in oblation Pronounced his first _fiat_. How we trembled with rapture When the Christ was descending! Oh! our bloom caught new glory From the priest’s face all radiant, As he held for adoring His God in his hands, And our odors were mingled With prayer from his lips.

And, oh! the pale mother Who guided his lisping, Who gave up her peerless, The one jewel left her, Robbed her breast for God’s warfare, The gift ne’er recalling— How her heart is now pealing, Ringing out unto heaven Glad chimes that are drowning The dull whispers of sorrow!

And the prayer of th’ Anointed, The heart‐voice of the mother, The breath of the flowers, Triple incense, are wafted Up, up to God’s footstool.

Ah! such incense is treasured; Our odors shall die not. They give fragrance in heaven To that glad first oblation Of God’s priest at the altar. Blest flowers! blest flowers!

Kathleen Waring.

The loveliest of autumn days shed its warmth and brightness over magnificent Rome, while the bells from many towers announced the hour of twelve, and a still more emphatic reminder of mid‐day boomed from Castle Sant’ Angelo, the firing of whose cannon frequently startles strangers, though even they soon become unconscious of its loud report. Citizens meeting complained of the horrible sirocco day; visitors congratulated one another upon such beautiful weather for the fulfilment of their plans; and a very perceptible thing was that not even in the Eternal City can every individual be satisfied. In no way could an unbeliever be better convinced of this solemn truth than by a peep into the principal parlor of the Hôtel d’Angleterre, where a travelling party had just arrived. An elderly gentleman stamped up and down the apartment, furiously gesticulating, and undoubtedly making use of rather forcible language, consigning hotels in general, and the Hôtel d’Angleterre in particular, to pretty uncomfortable quarters. At every approach to a small tête‐à‐tête placed near the window he fiercely glared upon a lady, evidently his wife, whose sweet, smiling face served to exasperate her husband beyond endurance. A large fan, plied industriously, stirred not only the black feathers of her own bonnet, but the scarlet ones jauntily stuck in a dark gray hat that persistently drooped, for no reason in the world but to conceal a very amused countenance which might have added fuel to the fire of the gentleman’s anger. Though for a time he is denied the gratification of a peep at so winning a face, we will take it ourselves, and see what is under that gray hat with the scarlet plumes: A pair of dark eyes sparkling with fun, which all those curling black lashes cannot hide, while a few saucy rings of hair, lying here and there on the forehead, cause a surmise as to whether they are the result of nature and warm weather or curl‐papers nightly twisted up. It would be difficult to form an estimate of a mouth whose under‐lip is being held in bondage by two rows of exceedingly white teeth, but we will imagine it a rose‐bud, and hasten to make the acquaintance of yonder thunder‐cloud, who pouts so abominably, and is still so like her of the mischievous aspect. Agathe Waring leaned on the back of her chair, and, when her father stamped his feet, she did likewise; when his frown deepened and voice waxed louder, her pout became more decided, and very beautiful hands doubled into fists that shook defiantly at invisible landlords. Mrs. Waring, observing this, remarked: “I think, Agathe, you have chosen a dangerous employment for hands so valued as yours. Do you not fear your vehemence will be the cause of a sprained wrist or finger? Then where will be our delightful evening music. A young lady who, at the faintest suspicion of danger ahead, generally clasps her hands behind her, is to be wondered at when seen bravely challenging our most dreaded enemies.”

“It may be very amusing to you and Kathleen, mamma; but I confess to not perceiving the joke,” replied Agathe, glancing complacently at her formidable weapons. “How you can see papa so worried, and be perfectly unconcerned, is more than I understand.”

“But, my dear, would it mend matters in the least were your sister to weep tears of vexation, and I to vociferate against the unfortunate people of this hotel, who were never less in fault than now? If your father had taken my advice, and telegraphed for rooms, this occasion for trouble would have been avoided; but, as he considered such a precaution unnecessary, we need not regard ourselves as dreadfully‐injured travellers.”

“Am I not sufficiently annoyed, madam, by this turn of affairs,” shouted the elderly gentleman, “that _you_ should consider it essential to remind me what your advice was in Florence? I have never yet met the woman who did not delight in being able to say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“Now, papa,” said Kathleen with a merry glance from her bright eyes, “I look upon that speech as a calumny and an injustice to Agathe. When all our luggage was left in Paris, simply because you would not heed her injunction to be very careful in looking after it, she did not gratify herself by any such malicious words as ‘I told you so.’ Indeed, her sympathy was far greater than ours, as we only felt indignant at having nothing to wear.”

This boldly‐uttered sentence proved quite soothing to Mr. Waring, who ceased his restless walk to twine an arm about his daughter’s waist, whose head leaned fondly against the dusty sleeve, and desired no sweeter resting‐place.

“Yes, whatever my faults, whatever my grievances, this little daughter is ready and willing to share them,” said he, gently patting Agathe’s cheek. “It has always been a wonder to me that a brute like myself should possess three treasures such as my wife and daughters. But the more valuable the treasure, the more difficult its keeping. If that atrocious landlord will only give us an apartment for this afternoon, I’ll go in quest of permanent quarters, and leave you to rest until my return.”

An immediate ringing of the bell brought the attendant, who was requested to inquire into the possibility of procuring at least a single room for the remainder of the day, during which time other accommodations might be sought. An answer, to the effect that there was a small chamber, engaged by a party who would arrive that night, which until then was at the service of the American gentleman, caused a gathering together of bags, boxes, and baskets, an ascent of several stairs, and a happy entrance into the nicely‐furnished and exceedingly pleasant apartment. The waiter, before his departing bow, made many apologies for the crowded condition of the house having rendered it impossible to receive monsieur, and hoped their inability to please would be forgiven. Mr. Waring’s wrath, until then on the wane, appeared gradually gaining ascendency, and a convenient lunch‐basket would certainly have made the acquaintance of the waiter’s head had not the latter prudently withdrawn. “The impudence of that dog in presuming to beg my pardon! What do I care how crowded the house may be or how impossible it is to accommodate us? I don’t suppose this hotel is the only habitable place in Rome; if so, I’ll just take up my abode in the Colosseum, and be done with it.”

Neither Mrs. Waring nor Agathe could resist smiling at this outburst, while Kathleen laughed outright.

“I shall consider it my first duty, on entering the Colosseum, to set you up as a statue of Perversity, surrounded by imps of contradiction. During the last half‐hour you have been in a towering passion because the Hôtel d’Angleterre could not contain you. Now the poor waiter humbly laments the numerous visitors and non‐elastic material of the house, and you are ready to annihilate him for supposing us anxious to remain in it.”

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Kathleen Waring?” cried Agathe. “Were I papa, you should not speak to me in that rude manner. You surely do not approve of it, mamma?”

“My dear Agathe,” said her mother, “I cannot disapprove when I so fully appreciate the spirit in which your sister thus addresses her father. Do not imagine you are alone in your affection for him, and that the sole mode of expressing that affection is by unvarying respectfulness in language and constant caressing. We all know you to be more dignified than Kathleen, and to possess much greater stability of character; then how can you expect her to be otherwise than more thoughtless and much saucier than yourself?”

This last sentence, accompanied by a meaning smile, brought a crimson flush to Agathe’s cheek and an angry retort to her lips, the utterance of which was stayed by a kiss from her sister, who whispered:

“Never mind, Aggie; just be as firm and stable and dignified as you choose. I’ll be your admiration‐point for ever, and I am sure mamma is as proud of her model of strength and her impersonation of sauciness as she can be; then why need we quarrel?”

“Well, it _would_ be a waste of ammunition, mavourneen,” replied Agathe; “so, instead of letting loose my tongue, I’ll exercise my arms. Be good enough to get me the clothes‐brush from your bag, that I may dust papa’s coat.”

By plentiful application of soap and vigorous use of towels Mr. Waring now appeared resplendent, and announced his intention of at once going in search of rooms. “In my absence,” said he, pausing at the door, “I desire the three treasures to repose, and hope to find them bright and sparkling this evening.”

The ladies did retire, and slept soundly several hours, while Mr. Waring made every effort to obtain a suite of rooms, first at the different hotels, which were all full, next at two or three _casas_ recommended by his banker. At last in a small house, opening on the Piazza di Spagna, he succeeded in engaging five bright, cheerful apartments, though at quite a high price, since the number of visitors at Rome increased rents far beyond their usual rate. Leaving orders with his _padrone_ to secure a man‐servant as soon as possible, he next made arrangements with the proprietor of the nearest restaurant to supply him with the necessary breakfast and dinner, which must be daily occurrences to sustain the vitality of even the most enthusiastic tourist. With a sigh of relief that his preparations were complete, Mr. Waring returned to the hotel, and found his wife and daughters radiant in their fresh toilets and expectant eagerness. There is nothing so destructive of beauty as fatigue added to the dust and soot of railway travelling; and an individual emerging from this double ordeal deserves the congratulation of friends. Mr. Waring bestowed a gaze of admiration upon each lady in turn, kissed his wife, pulled one of Agathe’s curls, and whirled Kathleen round and round to the tune of a cracked hand‐organ stationed beneath the window, which just then ground out a very fine waltz. Breathless and panting, Kathleen soon sank on the sofa, while her mother came to the rescue with a fan, and Agathe opened the window to throw the musician some coppers.

“There is little need to inform us of your success,” said Mrs. Waring, “as this emphatic greeting tells its own tale. I am really glad you were able to return before dark, as we feared you might be detained later.”

“Well, you cannot fail to like the rooms,” said Mr. Waring; “for they are five in number, quite handsomely furnished, and two overlook the Piazza di Spagna. I think, as it is a mere step from here, we had better walk, and have our luggage sent by these people. If you are half as tired riding as I am, you will infinitely prefer proceeding to our destination on foot.”

“We should like nothing better!” cried the three ladies, and immediately began to collect their scattered property. This being duly disposed of, the black bonnet and gray hats donned, our party set out. The Ave Maria was ringing, and the sweet sound of many bells penetrated the hearts of even these Protestants, who understood so imperfectly its beautiful significance. Dusk was fast changing into darkness, while black clouds chased each other over the sky, and the rising wind betokened the sure approach of a storm. Our travellers hastened their footsteps, and only reached their parlor when a terrific flash of lightning poured through the windows, and the rain fell in torrents. Mr. and Mrs. Waring at once went on a tour of investigation, in which neither of the girls could be induced to join. Agathe approached the window and gazed upon the outdoor fury, with only clasped hands and awe‐stricken countenance to betoken her feeling. Kathleen buried a miserably pale face in the cushions of her armchair, and sobbed most piteously; for the poor child dreaded nothing so much as thunder and lightning. After a short lapse of time, Agathe turned impatiently from her post of observation, and exclaimed:

“Without exception, Katy, you are the greatest goose I ever met, to be sitting there crying when you might have the benefit of yonder magnificent panorama. It is _too_ absurd that the least sign of a storm must send you into hysterics. Do you not suppose there is quite as much danger for me as for you? Yet let me sob as you are doing, and how foolish you would think me! Do control yourself this once, or your eyes will be red and ugly to‐ morrow, and you not presentable.”

Agathe had intended simple expostulation; but anger got the better of her, and her last words were very commanding—so much so as to rouse Kathleen, who cried:

“I am sure I don’t care for eyes, or appearance, or anything else, and I wish you would let me alone. Because you have a reputation for courage and firmness, you imagine you are justified in persecuting me; but I tell you you are not. I cannot see any great courage and firmness in facing that lightning. If there should ever be a call upon me for such qualities, I will beg the good Lord to give them to me, but not for the purpose of staring at a storm.” With this the dark head again took refuge in the cushions, and Agathe returned to her former position. The scene was indeed magnificent, and fully compensated for any uneasy feeling she might have experienced in thus exposing herself. The entire sky within range of vision seemed one dense, black cloud, hanging but a few feet above the house‐tops, every moment sending forth flashes of light, at times sharp, forked, fearful, again soft, widespread, and of sufficient duration to illumine the entire piazza beneath. The pouring rain could not conceal surrounding objects, but rather served to enhance their beauty, since they appeared through a mist that served to screen the hard, substantial reality. High up, beyond the fine steps which are a prominent feature in this piazza, rose the church and convent of the Trinità di Monte, looking, in its elevation and noble strength, a fit emblem of a religion so true and sublime. Inclining from its height to the level beneath, the aforesaid steps were lonely and deserted, deprived of their lounging idlers, but nevertheless beautifully reflecting from their wet surface the brightness above. One might have imagined the piazza, with its brilliant shops, _caffes_, hotels, and booths, to be the noisy, bustling world, having in its midst those steps so numerous, so difficult of ascent, but in the end leading to rest, peace, heaven! How pitiful, then, to see no foot ascending! And if this little picture be one of sorrow, how much worse the great, real world, where so few mount the stairs within reach of all! Some walk round, others glance up and promise a beginning to‐morrow; but how many heed the warning? Now, _now_ is the time; to‐morrow may never come!

It is not probable, however, that such thoughts found favor with Agathe, whose Protestant mind was in no way addicted to pious musing, since her church furnishes such meagre food for heart and brain. Her eyes, roving restlessly about, suddenly became fixed upon the tall, muffled figure of a man hurrying through the rain with bent head and quickening speed. Devoid of fear, of suspicion, she watched until he neared the piazza’s centre, when, after one long, blinding streak of lightning, a fearful crash followed, and she distinguished the object of her curiosity lying prostrate on the ground. A sharp cry from her lips brought Mrs. Waring, to whom, with trembling limbs and horror‐stricken face, she pointed out the prostrate form. Kathleen, who had crept up behind her mother, no sooner beheld it than she ran from the room, and, meeting her father in the hall, breathlessly exclaimed: “O papa! do go quickly.... There is a poor man lying in the street who has been struck, ... and nobody seems to know it. Please go to him.... Bring him here. Get some one to help you; for he may not be quite dead.”

Before she had ceased speaking her father was down‐stairs ordering a servant to follow him; and from their position Mrs. Waring and Agathe saw the two rush into the driving rain, gently raise the body, and carefully bear it towards the entrance. Kathleen had hastily arranged pillows and blankets on the sofa; so there was no delay in fixing something on which to lay the poor fellow, and very soon the entire family were making a desperate effort to restore animation, as Mr. Waring declared there was life in the body. His assertion was verified when, after a while, the young man drew a long breath, and opened such bewildered, astonished eyes as made every one smile.

“Ah! my fine fellow,” cried Mr. Waring, “I’ll wager you you are on the road to life again, and we are spared the trouble of attending your funeral—a thing, I candidly assure you, I had expected to do not very long ago.”

“O papa!” whispered Kathleen, glancing timidly at the pale face, blue eyes, and curling brown hair, “don’t talk to the poor fellow about funerals when he has been so near the grave; it cannot be pleasant.”

“Never mind, Miss Puss, I will set him straight,” replied her father. “Now, my friend, I have always heard, and there is an indistinct idea of my having read it, that people struck by lightning never feel it. As you are a living witness to the truth or falsehood of this statement, I would like to have your views on the subject.”

This, delivered with the air of a man thirsting for knowledge, brought a smile to the patient’s mouth, and caused a general laugh.

“I am truly grieved,” replied the lightning‐struck, “that my knowledge is of questionable authority, because I cannot tell whether I felt a blow on the head or not, though there is a half‐defined recollection of some one pounding me there, and producing about five hundred simultaneous sensations; whether really so or the fruit of my active imagination I am unable to avow.”

“Well, for our own satisfaction, we will believe you _did_ have five hundred feelings jumbled together, and take it as a warning to avoid like strokes.”

“Such profanity shall not be allowed!” said Mrs. Waring; “and I really think, Mr. Waring, you should conduct our patient to a comfortable room where he may sleep away his weakness. Kathleen will share Agathe’s apartment, that he may occupy hers.”

All protestations to the effect that he could walk to his hotel being indignantly denied, the young man was immediately consigned to bed, and commanded to sleep as long as he could. For about half an hour the family sat up discussing the accident, and did not separate until its victim was unanimously pronounced handsome, elegant, charming!

The sun was many hours high next morning before our friends thought of stirring, and the two girls were yet sound asleep when their mother came tapping at the door. Her knock was so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, and, receiving no response, she entered. The change from bright sunshine to this darkened room at first made it impossible to distinguish clearly; but opening the blind a very little way, Mrs. Waring smiled to herself, as, glancing about the apartment, she murmured: “Those careless, careless girls! What is to be done with them?” Evidently, the careless girls had taken small trouble to arrange their things before retiring, and now a somewhat confused picture greeted the despairing mother’s eye. The bureau appeared the favorite receptacle for almost all articles. A colossal brush, instead of properly supporting the rightful partner of its joys and sorrows, made desperate love to an ink‐stand, a red bow, and a bottle of cologne, whose stopple had stepped over the way to consult an oracle of a watch about the probable comfort of the poor, deserted comb that patiently reposed on a prickly pin‐cushion. The oracle, unwound and unmoved, refused utterance, and sullenly stared at a crowd of rings, bracelets, belts, reticules, hair‐pins, false curls, and handkerchiefs indiscriminately gathered together. They were not interested in the watch, but bemoaned the sad fate of a coquettish gray hat with a scarlet plume, one string of which had caught in a tightly‐shut drawer, and cruelly hung its fair possessor. A grand civil war had transpired in other parts of the room; the washstand implements were horribly mutilated and dashed about; the four shoes and stockings had taken leave of each other, and angrily stationed themselves in different corners; and, last, a huge trunk had brutally emptied itself of its contents, that now lay limp and helpless, here, there, everywhere.

Had not Mrs. Waring been well accustomed to such a display, it is possible she might have been dismayed; but as nothing is equal to habit, she preserved her equanimity, and, approaching the nearest bed, her attention was at once arrested by a tiny pair of beads which she perceived dangling from Kathleen’s wrist. With a dark frown she retreated to the door, and cried:

“Girls! girls! it is time to get up. You have slept long enough even for weary travellers, and your patient has been waiting an hour to see the young ladies before taking leave. Do hurry and come at once to the parlor.”

“Yes, mamma, we will,” answered two very lazy voices.

“Yes, my dears, I do not doubt it,” said Mrs. Waring; “but let me see you well out of those two comfortable beds, as you cannot be trusted in my absence.”

In the midst of the commotion which followed Mrs. Waring escaped, and, slowly walking along the hall, murmured:

“Is it possible Kathleen still retains those absurd convent notions, and am I ever to regret having sent her to Mt. de C——? Surely, in three years she must have forgotten those ridiculous impressions; yet what does that rosary mean, and why should she sleep with it encircling her arm? Well, it will only make matters worse to discuss them, and, until I am certain what the poor child intends, I shall say nothing.”

By this time the drawing‐room was reached, and, entering, Mrs. Waring found her husband and their guest in hot dispute as to the best manner of sight‐seeing in Rome. Mr. Waring expressed abhorrence of guide‐books and his resolution never to use them. The stranger intimated such a resolve rash. Mr. Waring inquired why. The young man said guide‐books being absolutely essential in a place so filled with objects of interest as Rome, he was willing to wager Mr. Waring would have three or four in his possession by the end of the week. Mr. Waring indignantly repudiated this idea, and the argument might have continued indefinitely had not the girls made an opportune appearance. In their wake came a delicious breakfast, after partaking of which the young man rose to depart.

“I cannot,” said he, “pretend to thank you for such kindness to a stranger, for words are inadequate to express my gratitude. My obligations will be increased tenfold if you only permit me to continue an acquaintance so happily begun.”

“My dear fellow,” cried Mr. Waring, “don’t mention gratitude; and as for an acquaintance happily begun, if you choose to consider as such one brought on by lightning, we are at your disposal, and nothing will delight us more than receiving you as our friend. But friends should know what to call one another, and, though my name is Alexander Waring, yours is still a dead secret.”

“A thousand pardons!” exclaimed the stranger. “My negligence is truly shocking; but it is Mr. and Mrs. Waring, with their lovely daughters, who have charmed me into a forgetfulness of Howard Lee, and it is they who must forgive him.”

Of the two lovely daughters, Kathleen pouted bewitchingly at the foregoing speech, while Agathe gracefully inclined her head. The gentlemen shook hands most heartily, and Mrs. Waring cordially invited Mr. Lee to return often, assuring him of a sincere welcome. Thus, amidst compliments and acknowledgments on both sides, Howard Lee took leave of his friends, promising to see them very soon again.

It is scarcely necessary to add that the promise was observed, and during the next month or two he was almost constantly one of the gay little party which roved among the grand old ruins of Rome, wandered about its art‐ galleries and into its temples and churches, always consulting guide‐books with a faith in, and a dependence on them that undoubtedly made Mr. Lee winner of his wager. It is very remarkable what wonderful things can transpire in a little while, though we are not certain whether you consider it remarkable that Mr. Lee soon manifested extraordinary interest in the movements of Miss Kathleen. If that young person chose to stare an old statue out of countenance, she would not be long without the assistance of another pair of eyes that had suddenly remembered some never‐before‐known merit about the image, and were instantly intent on it. If Kathleen thought proper to sit among the ruins, he, completely overcome by fatigue, would rest by her side. We are much afraid this was not all that happened; for there were certainly some very ardent glances sent from his eyes to her sparkling black ones, that softened and glowed as they drank in the language of the blue ones. And at every new approach of the tall, manly figure didn’t the gray hat with the scarlet plume droop lower and lower; didn’t the round, dimpled cheeks beneath rival the feather in color; didn’t the little hands clasp each other tightly, that their trembling might not make too bold a confession of her happy agitation? You cannot be surprised that, standing together by the beautiful Trevi fountain one moonlight night, to her was told in eloquent tones the old, old story which every woman hears once in her life, be she ever so poor, so ugly, so disagreeable. But this woman was lovely, bewitching; and the tale seemed exquisite harmony when softly, beseechingly it fell upon such ears. Long after the low voice had ceased telling what was music to her soul Kathleen stood silent. The water dashed from and over rocks in playful sport, defying the peaceful glance of the moon, which bade it be quiet. The church‐bells rang out the hour of ten, and from the distance sounded Agathe’s laugh, with the accompanying expostulation from several ladies and gentlemen who were begging her to sing. At last clear and full to these lovers came the sweet old song, “Kathleen Mavourneen.” Howard waited till the music died away, then whispered,

“Why art thou silent, Thou voice of my heart? Oh! why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?”

“Oh! spare me, spare me,” cried Kathleen. “I cannot, cannot answer! If you but knew!”

“And do I not know you are what I love with all my heart, what I long to call my own? Have you not encouraged me? allowed me to believe you cared for me?”

“Oh! I never meant it. I would not have had you know that I cared for you. Have pity on me, Mr. Lee, and do not ask why! I can give no answer to your kind words. Believe me that it is best as it is.”

“Miss Waring, your friends are coming—will interrupt us in one minute; can you give me _no_ hope? Is there nothing you will say to comfort my yearning heart?”

“All I can say is, Wait; in a little while you will cease to wish for my affection when you have learned what it is essential you should know before I can give an answer to your question.”

“Nothing can change my desire,” pleaded Howard, gazing upon the tear‐laden eyelashes and trembling lips. “Only tell me now what you think I must know, and then see if it makes the slightest difference.”

“No, Mr. Howard,” said Kathleen, regaining composure, “wait a few days; then I will either send for you or write what I have to communicate. With you will rest the decision. Remember always that I have cared for you, and that now it is a sad good‐night I wish you, knowing it may be my last.”

Here they were joined by their party, and Kathleen flying to the protection of her mother’s arm, Mr. Lee took his place by Agathe’s side, and thus they returned home. Poor Kathleen passed a miserable night, and awoke next morning with head aching so badly as to prevent her appearance at breakfast. Towards noon she improved, and by three o’clock presented herself in the drawing‐room, where were her mother and sister. Telling them she was going out for a little fresh air, and to feel no uneasiness if she did not immediately return, she left the house, ran across the piazza, up the steps, and stood in front of the Trinità di Monte. Pausing a minute, “This is the 8th of December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so certainly there must be Benediction here this afternoon, as they tell me the church belongs to the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. I’ll try, anyhow.”

The little portress, in her very ugly cap, informed _la signorina_, “Yes, benediction would be given in one hour from that time. Would she walk into the chapel now and wait, or would she prefer going away to return?” _La signorina_ would wait; so she was shown into the church, and there left to her own reflections, which were one long struggle with feelings so contrary that to make them agree was impossible. The poor child had, ever since leaving the convent of Mt. de C——, been praying for courage to avow a faith which she knew would anger her father, distress that darling mother, and call forth words of bitter ridicule from Agathe. Now to these considerations was added the fear of losing Howard Lee’s affection.

“Ah! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she cried, “help me in this my agony. Send down upon me your blessing, that I may be strengthened in the path which has become so difficult to my faltering feet! Endow my heart with that courage I once boasted I would ask for when its need should be discovered. O my Father in heaven! look upon thy child with pity, and heed her earnest supplication.”

For an entire hour she wavered between the earthly devotion that awaited but a word to be hers, and the higher Love, that requires many crosses and sacrifices before it recompenses the heart. It will never desert, never wound. The sun sank lower in the heavens, and the light in the chapel took a soft, mysterious tone that lent supernatural quiet and stillness to the place, greatly soothing Kathleen’s restless mind. Her head leaning on the railing in front of her, her lips moving in unconscious prayer, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that was only disturbed when over her senses stole the faint sound of music, gradually, gradually unclosing those delighted eyes shining with blissful wonder, as she supposed it all must have been a dream, from which she waked to find herself safe in the dear old convent. Surely, there was the beautiful altar, the Blessed Sacrament exposed, many candles burning amid vases of exquisite flowers, the venerable priest kneeling at the altar’s foot; above all, the convent girls, in blue uniforms and white veils, entering two by two, making their genuflections, and standing in their places till all were ready, when tap! from the Sisters’ bench, and down they sat. From the organ‐loft the sweet litany she knew so well came pouring into her ears just as of yore; as of yore the priest, the Sisters, and convent girls sang in familiar tones:

“Mater Christi, Mater divinæ gratiæ, Mater purissima.”

With happy heart and tearful eyes she sang out the _Ora pro nobis_, while many looked to see from whence came the joyful notes, so splendidly swelling their chorus. Through the litany, the _O Salutaris!_ and the _Tantum Ergo_ her strong, young voice was clear and sweet, and none guessed that in the girl’s heart a fearful struggle had taken place, and that there the good Lord had come and left a gift which would never decay, never be worthless, but ever bright and glorious. A last prayer for strength was uttered during Benediction, and Kathleen felt half her difficulties were overcome when she stood up at the _Laudate Dominum_.

That night she confessed to her parents her intention of becoming a Catholic, and besought their permission to take the step. Mr. Waring was furious at first, and vowed she shouldn’t—not if he knew himself; but three days’ fussing and fuming brought him to the conclusion she might do as she chose, “but, for heaven’s sake, never expect him to love her as much again,” and enforced his resolution by hugging and kissing her on the spot. Mrs. Waring was very sad at the aspect of affairs, but had so long anticipated it as to be little surprised. Deeming a refusal of her sanction worse than useless, she also said her daughter might do as she pleased. Only Agathe was inexorable; for, having begun by condemning her sister’s course, she considered it incompatible with firmness ever to change.

“How you can have allowed yourself to be so wound about the little fingers of those priests and nuns I can’t divine,” she cried. “It indicates such contemptible weakness to turn from the religion in which you were born to that of a Papist—above all things, a Papist! Were I to live a hundred years, I could not do it.”

“No, my poor sister,” thought Kathleen; “with all your character, I fear you have not the daring courage required to combat the distress of parents, the anger of friends, the loss of a beloved object. No; it is a precious gift of God, and must be prayed for.”

Next Kathleen wrote to Mr. Lee, informing him of all that had taken place, of her intention to become a member of the Catholic Church in a few weeks, and renewed her request that he would forgive the pain she had caused him in remembering the grief she herself endured; with many wishes for his future prosperity, she remained his true friend. No answer came to this at all, and the Warings saw nothing more of Howard Lee. Delicacy prevented their asking an explanation from Kathleen, and, as she proffered none, his name was never mentioned among them.

The days passed on, and Kathleen, being at last considered sufficiently instructed, had prevailed on the Sisters of Trinità di Monte to allow her retreat to be made with them, and her baptism and first communion to take place in their church. Christmas was the time appointed for the consummation of Kathleen’s desire. The chapel had been beautifully decorated by the nuns and girls; and a little Bethlehem, removed some slight distance from the altar, was the emblem of the glorious feast. A new Mass had been learned, and, while the organ pealed forth its first tones, the white‐robed girls filed in, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Waring and Agathe, who, by dint of persuasion, had been induced to appear on the occasion. Last entered Kathleen, and knelt in front of the altar. She was faint and trembling, but did not lose a syllable of the words that made her a Christian, a Catholic, and soldier of heaven. She was baptized, of course, before the celebration of Mass, and during it received for the first time the Holy Communion. Mr. Waring seemed much moved, his wife cried outright, and Agathe’s flushed face and shining eyes belied the unconcern she tried so hard to assume.

No one noticed the tall, dark figure standing in the furthest corner of the church, nor saw the gaze riveted upon the fair, sweet girl at the altar. As everything here must have an end, so did the music, the lights, all that had brightened the chapel. The dark figure had hurried away, the girls in white had disappeared, the Warings were gone; only the little Babe of Bethlehem still lay in the manger, and one lamp shed its faint lustre in honor of that Blessed Sacrament which is for you, for me, for all who but seek it.

On the evening of the same day Kathleen was playing soft chords on the piano, and indulging in waking dreams, when she was greatly disturbed by the entrance of a man bearing in his arms a huge package of something very delicate, to judge from the care with which said package was deposited on the table. Before Kathleen could frame a question concerning the matter the man was gone. Approaching the very remarkable bundle, she perceived a card suspended bearing these words:

“A Christmas gift for Miss K. Waring.”

Still wondering, she gently detached the paper cover, and there, delighting her eyes, was a tiny Christmas‐tree literally filled with bon‐ bons, colored candles, and children’s toys, while two or three small papers concealed some more valuable presents no doubt. In perfect amazement she ran to the door and called father, mother, and sister, who, hastening to the room, uttered exclamations of pleasure at the sight. The candles were instantly lighted, and the tree admired from every point, though a thorough mystification ensued as to the donor. Each surmise only seemed to make the matter worse; so they instituted a search among the separate parcels. The first opened displayed a gold locket with the initials A. W. in pinheads of pearls; the next contained a handsome silver tobacco‐box for Mr. Waring; the next, a musical work‐box with Mrs. Waring’s name; yet still there was nothing for Kathleen. More astonished than ever, they examined once again; and right on the very top of the tree, buried deep in its branches, was a round pasteboard box about the size of a lady’s watch. Being opened, it disclosed a knot of hard‐twisted note‐paper, which Kathleen unwrapped and unfolded until she came upon an old, worn medal of the Immaculate Conception, from which hung a blue ribbon. As the paper in her hand had something written on it, she made haste to read, and here is the secret:

“Will my dear one take for a Christmas gift the little medal herein enclosed, which was put around my neck by my mother when I made my first communion eighteen years ago? I have kept away from you, that you might have a pleasant surprise for this Christmas day, though I went to communion for you this morning, and also saw the triumph of your brave spirit in the Church of the Trinità di Monte. If, when I come to you this evening, my little medal is about your neck, I shall know you accept me as your devoted HOWARD LEE.”

Kathleen stood looking at the words through gathering tears, and was not conscious of the quiet withdrawal of her parents and sister until the door opened gently to admit Howard, who, glancing quickly at the blue ribbon on her bosom, advanced eagerly, and, bending low, exultantly murmured:

“Why art thou silent, Thou voice of my heart? Oh! why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?”

New Publications.

THOMAS GRANT, FIRST BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK. By Grace Ramsay. With two portraits. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The late Bishop Grant was remarkable for learning, ability, and sanctity. The events of his life, both before and after the period of his ordination, are interesting. As rector of the English College in Rome, and as bishop, his administration was successful and filled with great services to the Catholic Church in England, particularly in respect to the re‐establishment of the regular hierarchy. The story of his life is told in a lively and pleasing manner, and the publisher has issued the volume in a style which makes it attractive, though somewhat costly. The author, whose _nom de plume_ is Grace Ramsay, is one of the best of our English Catholic writers. We have been indebted to her graceful pen for some of the most agreeable articles in our magazine, and we are pleased to learn that some remarks in THE CATHOLIC WORLD on the character of the late illustrious Bishop of Southwark first suggested to her the idea of writing his biography.

BLESSED MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE. A brief account of her life. To which are added a selection from her sayings and the Decree of her Beatification. By the Rev. Charles B. Garside, M.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This tiny and pretty little book costs only fifty cents. We make its small size and price thus prominent, in order to encourage those who have not money or time to bestow on large books to buy this one and to help its circulation. It contains the substance of the larger biographies of a saint who has done one of the most wonderful works of modern times, and has become justly the object of an extraordinary devotion among the faithful.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of our Lord has become the great devotion of our day, to the incalculable benefit of the church and the promotion of the most solid piety among the faithful. Pius IX. has constituted himself the Superior‐General of the Congregation of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, and has expressed to several of its members his desire to consecrate the universal church to the Adorable Heart of our Lord, if he is asked to do it. We trust that the petition to the Holy See will not long be delayed, and that it will be made in such a way as to show most conclusively how ardent is the sympathy of the members of the church with their august head in his pious sentiments. It is most natural that all who love this devotion should desire to know something of the favored recluse of Paray‐le‐Monial who was chosen by our Lord as the medium of his revelation, making known his will that it should be universally promulgated and cherished. There can be no doubt of the real, supernatural, and divine character of the extraordinary graces conferred upon her for this intention. The Sovereign Pontiff, in his Decree of Beatification, declares that “whilst she devoted herself day and night to continuous prayer, being often rapt in ecstasy, the gifts of divine grace were most plenteously showered upon her” (p. 89). Again, that “it was now, as she was praying before the august Sacrament of the Eucharist, that Christ our Lord intimated to her that it would be most pleasing to him if the worship of his most Sacred Heart, burning with love for mankind, were established, and that he wished the charge of this to be consigned to her” (p. 90). When the Pope speaks in this manner, and the most learned and holy bishops, theologians, and other sound and judicious Catholic writers everywhere re‐echo, amplify, and confirm by solid reasoning and evidence the calm and cautious statements of the supreme authority, hesitation, criticism, and doubt are out of place. Infidels and heretics may scoff; we expect them to do it. But devout Catholics do not need to wait for a positive command under pain of sin in order to believe readily and joyously; and to let their hearts take fire with the devotion that burns everywhere among the faithful, kindled by a spark from heaven which fell into a virgin bosom, and has been communicated from her, under the fanning of the wings of the divine Dove, until it has enkindled the whole world. We trust the time may soon come when the canonization of the Blessed Margaret Mary will give to the whole church the privilege of celebrating Mass in her honor, and make her day a universal feast.

In the meantime, we welcome and most earnestly recommend the little book of F. Garside, and wish for it the widest possible circulation.

THE SPIRITUAL CONFLICT AND CONQUEST. By Dom J. Castaniza, O. S. B. Edited with Preface and Notes by Canon Vaughan, Monk of the English Benedictine Congregation. Reprinted from the Old‐English translation of 1652. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Vast numbers of Catholics have read the treatise which in English has been known by the title of _The Spiritual Combat_, and has been widely circulated in many other languages besides the Italian, from which the English translation was made. It has been always attributed to F. Scupoli, a Theatine, who in reality only translated and adapted it, with alterations and additions, from the Spanish of Dom Castaniza, a Benedictine who lived at the same time with S. Teresa. In this altered form it has been generally esteemed as second only to the _Imitation of Christ_, which, by the bye, has lately been conclusively proved not to be the work of Thomas à Kempis, Gerson, or any other writer to whom its authorship has been ascribed. The complete work of Dom Castaniza, which was translated into English in 1652, is now once more brought to light, and republished in the most perfect manner, with a preface and notes, increasing its value very considerably, by a member of the remarkable Vaughan family, a brother, we presume, of our illustrious and highly‐ honored friend, the Bishop of Salford. We are disposed to regard this treatise in its present complete form as decidedly the best spiritual guide in the English language for the great majority of devout Catholics. This is very high praise, but it is, in our opinion, not exaggerated. Let our readers examine for themselves, and we are inclined to think they will find our judgment correct.

We ought to say that even now, as it stands, a considerable portion of the first part of the book is made up of Scupoli’s additions. In the main, we have no fault to find with the translation. We like that old‐fashioned, terse, strong English which is found in Old English writers. But it is sometimes rude and even coarse, and in the present work there are a few passages which are revolting to the more correct modern taste, and which therefore become really irreverent.

The _Month_ has a very severe, though, as is always the case in that periodical, a courteous and polite, _critique_ on the preface and notes of Canon Vaughan. It accuses him of boasting too much of his order, and of “girding” at other people. We have looked through the book with this criticism in our hand, and we must say that we find it overstrained. We cannot see any evidence that Canon Vaughan is disposed to undervalue other orders different from his own, or that his remarks upon methods of direction used in other societies are intended to censure anything except indiscretion and exclusiveness in their application.

GRAPES AND THORNS. By M. A. T., Author of _The House of Yorke_. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

Another story from the pen of the author of _The House of Yorke_. Turning as the interest of the tale does on the discovery of a criminal in whose stead an innocent man is imprisoned and actually condemned, it is yet so skilfully conducted that none of the disgusting realistic details of what is known as the sensational school are brought in to mar the work. It really is a case of touching pitch, and yet not being, in a literary sense, defiled. The circumstantial evidence on which the supposed murderer is condemned is very well managed, and, until the facts are thrust upon the reader, there is no chance of his discovering the real criminal. This is a very great attainment in novel‐writing, and, in this day of hackneyed “situations,” one very seldom reached. It is difficult nowadays to take up any book, especially one referring to such events as are treated in _Grapes and Thorns_, without at once seeing through the conventional skeleton of the story, and picking out the main points in it beforehand. As to style, we can only say of this book what all the literary world said of _The House of Yorke_—that it alone would recommend even the flimsiest web of story. The author has, in addition to this rare charm of style, a faculty, so far as we know peculiar to herself among current novelists, of investing with poetical grace the most commonplace things of every‐day life, even such hopelessly prosaic subjects as the engine and engine‐ driver of a night‐train, and, worse still, a grocer’s shop and a palette full of syrups! The descriptions of Rome are a feature of the book, but so are the delineations of New England scenery, in snow‐storm and autumn glories as well as in its summer dress of fresh greenery and moistness, which is so delicately sketched in the picture of the Pond farm, the water‐lilies, and the strong, beautiful young boat‐woman.

But to come to the chief point, the characters; for of the story itself we say nothing, hoping that every reader of this notice has either read the book or will immediately do so. Annette is unquestionably the only heroine of the tale, although in the beginning one may be induced to consider the beautiful, conscientious, high‐principled Honora Pembroke as entitled to that place of honor.

Mrs. Gerald is another well‐drawn female character in the story. The most touching thought in the whole story is contained in her gentle words after she has found her son’s footsteps on the fresh mould of the violet‐bed under her window: “I mean to sow little pink quill daisies in those two foot‐prints.... When they come back, the tracks will be green.” Anita, the little convent‐flower, is a very beautiful conception; she is like one of the ethereal angels of Fra Angelico, not a common mortal. Mrs. Ferrier is the very reverse, but her generous championship of Max Schöninger goes far to redeem the vulgarity that shocks one in the early part of the book, where she constitutes herself spy over Lawrence’s actions, and lectures him to the verge of insanity.

We have now mentioned the name of the hero of the story, Schöninger, the Jewish musician, on whom falls the false accusation of murder. His character is all but faultless, the only exceptions, perhaps, being his rather uncontrolled and fierce burst of joy when released from his seven months’ imprisonment, and his general attitude towards F. Chevreuse. The latter is more excusable than the former; but if the hero of a book were faultless, he would be unnatural as a man. Schöninger is a wonderful conception; so self‐reliant, self‐contained, and yet not harsh, not repulsive even, in his defiance. The opinion of the world is nothing to him; he has his own standard of right and wrong, and he lives up to it; he would think martyrdom a trifle, if endured for the truth; he sees straight to the core of things, and will be as uncompromising a Christian after his conversion as he was an earnest Jew before it. We think, however, that the author has made a mistake in making him a Reformed Jew. Doubtless it was meant to enable him to parade the superior spirituality which was the only form of religion possible for such a man; but the _Reformed_ Jews are no nearer to a high spiritual standard, as contrasted with the orthodox Jews, than the Lutheran or Calvinist sects are as contrasted with the true Church. They are mere secessionists from the old faith, and, like all branches divided from the parent trunk, are more or less withering into atheism and infidelity. An orthodox Jew is much more likely to be converted to Catholicity than a Reformed Jew.

F. Chevreuse is a very beautiful character, especially after the scene in Lawrence’s room, where the priest and his penitent are alone with their solemn secret, and face to face with God. Some one once said of _The House of Yorke_ that there was an undefinable “something” wanting in the character of the priest of that story, and that doubtless it was not given to any one to be able to delineate truly a perfect priest. Perhaps it is so, for it is most difficult to portray a life in which the supernatural mingles with and effaces the natural to such an extent as it does in the life of a true priest; but in F. Chevreuse the author has gone as near to the ideal as any one could well go. Lawrence Gerald is a very difficult character to analyze—a peculiar product of American civilization (this assertion would be very hard to prove categorically, but every one who has read the book will understand what we mean); a man for whom our feelings change, during the progress of the tale, to a degree that almost gives him at the last the moral pre‐eminence which at the beginning would have been difficult to award even to saintly F. Chevreuse. Truly, in his case, as he himself says, “Nothing but utter ruin could have brought him to his senses.” There are souls whose salvation God works in this way, and Lawrence’s penance certainly reads like some biography of a mediæval sinner gradually turning into the life of a grand saint. The human element is not absent, either, in this picture, of a most unusual expiation, and no scene in the book will be read with more emotion than that of the artist sketching the sleeping Lawrence, and adding, at the eager suggestion of the “woman under the arch,” the “cluster of yellow flowers which touched his head in the form of a crown.” We venture to say that nothing short of the influence of a sojourn at Rome and the personal contact with a life of exuberant, all‐pervading Catholicity, such as that of the Italians, could have suggested such a remarkable ending to Lawrence’s career. Of the subordinate characters of _Grapes and Thorns_—John, the shrewd, hard, honest footman; Jane, the faithful but exasperating housekeeper of F. Chevreuse; Dr. Porson, the Crichton cynic and man of the world; F. O’Donovan, the fast friend at need of his brother‐priest; Mother Chevreuse, the bright, tender, brave woman, of whom we get but a glimpse; Sister Cecilia, a counterpart of Honora—we can only say that they show the varied acquaintance of the author with many and widely different types of mankind. The pettiness and prejudice of “liberal” Crichton are well defined in the hue‐and‐cry which soon follows Schöninger’s arrest, and the equally intemperate revulsion in his favor when he is proved innocent. It is remarkable that no one but F. Chevreuse and Mrs. Ferrier believed firmly in his innocence while circumstances all pointed so suspiciously to him as the murderer, except, of course, those who already knew the miserable secret.

In spite of the great merits of this story, it has, nevertheless, like _The House of Yorke_, one great defect which mars its excellence, not perhaps as a work of art, but as a specimen of the Catholic ideal in art. Annette, the heroine, acts foolishly, unreasonably, and against the sense of personal dignity and worth which the perfect Christian maiden must cherish, as next to her faith and honor, in marrying the unhappy Lawrence Gerald. This shows that the author’s ideal woman is not the highest type of her sex, and that she fails to appreciate the lofty, Christian idea of conjugal love and of marriage. Honora Pembroke ought to have been the heroine, and although she has not been fortunate enough to win the sympathy of critics and readers generally, especially of the fair sex, we are glad to see that the author has given us at least one specimen of a woman who is governed by conscience and reason, and not by sentiment.

Another fault, against which we beg leave here to caution all our writers of light articles and stories for the magazine, is the introduction of the writer’s private and personal opinions on matters connected with religion and the church. We request, once for all, that such matters may be left to the editor of the magazine and those whom he judges competent to treat of them expressly.

AN ESSAY CONTRIBUTING TO A PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. By B. A. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger. 1874.

The aim of this essay is to give such principles as are calculated to counteract the false and baneful ideas proposed in our text‐books on English literature. The author, one of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who modestly conceals his name, is a worthy _confrère_ of Gerald Griffin. Evidently, his reading is extensive, his taste fine and accurate, and his mind truly philosophical. The unassuming book he has put forth is one which teachers in the department of English literature and intelligent students of the same will find to be of great service.

AMELIA; OR, THE TRIUMPH OF PIETY. Translated from the French. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham & Son. 1874.

This is a story quite romantic and sensational in its character, but withal very pious, and showing very dramatically high virtue in contrast with great wickedness, and triumphing over it. In one part of it Amelia makes a promise which a Catholic could not make without grievous sin. She promises, namely, her supposed parents, who were Protestants, that if they will listen to a discussion between a priest and a minister, she will embrace their religion, provided they declare their conviction that the minister has the best of it. The use of the word “Catholicism” to express the Catholic religion, though sometimes allowable, is awkward and unsuitable as it occurs in the story. Critically speaking, this story is not much, but it may amuse children, who are generally not very critical if there are plenty of remarkable incidents to excite their emotions. There are hosts of stories like this in the French language, many of which are much better. It is a pity that more care and taste are not sometimes shown in selecting among them for translation.

THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRES, HISTORICAL PERIODS. By Henry William Wilberforce. Preceded by a Memoir of the Author by J. H. Newman, D.D. With a portrait. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The essays contained in this volume are reprints of articles from the _Dublin Review_. The memoir, by the dear friend of the author, Dr. Newman, though brief, is a complete little biography of a justly distinguished and most estimable man, who honored the illustrious name of Wilberforce by his sacrifices, his virtues, and his valuable literary labors.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. A DRAMATIC POEM. By Aubrey de Vere, Author of “Legends of S. Patrick.” London: Henry S. King & Co. 1874. (New York: For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.).

A dramatic poem by Aubrey de Vere could not be other than noble in theme and thoughtful and delicate in execution. Almost alone among the poets of the day, not many of whom equal, and not one of whom surpasses, him in the higher qualities of insight and subtle imagination, he seems never to have felt the debasing touch of that materialism which in one department of letters seeks to elevate science at the expense of faith, and in another to degrade poetry to be the beautiful but shameless minister to all that is lowest in man’s nature. Religion, which he has served so faithfully, has rewarded his devotion by lifting him into a clearer atmosphere than can be breathed by men devoid of faith, and has made him worthy to be ranked with those true poets who sing not alone for the busy, itching ears of their contemporaries, but for a wider, because a more enduring, audience.

Nevertheless, Mr. de Vere’s lyric poetry, subtle and delicate as it is, could hardly, we should say, have prepared his readers for the power shown in his conception and delineation of the hero of his drama, Alexander, the greatest of the great conquerors whom the world has seen. His poem is absolutely simple in aim and in detail, and gains interest, if not solely, yet almost solely, from the manner in which he has strongly though briefly expressed his idea of what a great conqueror, a man with aims truly imperial, swayed by no mean passion, and filled with the idea of welding into one all peoples, and informing them by the highest purely human intelligence, should be. What literal truth there is in the picture—how nearly the Alexander of the play resembles him who died at thirty‐three, the master of half the world—is not a question of any special interest. It is enough that Mr. de Vere’s hero is a noble and intrinsically true conception, and a fit measure by which to estimate the true proportions of those lesser men whom the world once in an age sees filled with the lust of empire, but void of the skill and quick insight which should make them avoid its perils. In his play, indeed, Mr. de Vere, who follows the tradition of Josephus, and makes Alexander visit once the temple at Jerusalem, and pay to its high‐priest such reverence as he had never shown to mortal man, makes him listen there to the warning that his power must have its “term and limit,” and that he who would indeed wear the world’s crown “should be the Prince of Peace.” And yet the errors and mistakes by which great men seem blindly to throw away at last the fruits of their long toil seem to the on‐looker as if they might have been so easily avoided that it is always necessary to remind one’s self how little is truly in the power of man, and how surely God controls even the crimes and follies of those who seem to rule the world.

Aside, however, from the fine scenes in which Mr. de Vere brings out his idea of his hero, the play has many subsidiary beauties of a different kind.

What poet but himself could have written the two lovely scenes between Hephestion and Arsinoë, and made his readers see so well the love which either felt, but of whose return neither was aware? The minor characters, indeed, are drawn throughout with the hand of a master who never wastes a stroke, and who has the art of showing his readers what he wills by lifting them and not by lowering himself. Who has painted in our day a lovelier picture than that in which Hephestion shows us Arsinoë’s mother?

“Who knew your mother Till death shall reverence woman’s race! In her, Though doubly‐dower’d, a mother and a queen, There lived a soft, perpetual maidenhood, An inexperienced trust, timid, yet frank, Shy, yet through guilelessness forgetting shyness. She seem’d a flower‐like creature come to fruit; She moved among her babes an elder sister; Then, wakened by an infant cry or laugh, Full motherhood returned.”

Some qualities of Mr. de Vere’s work, which are more generally known than the virile force displayed in his grasp of the characters of his play, are shown at their best in the two or three lyrics which occur in it. Let us end an inadequate notice, which may send our readers to the poem itself, by quoting his exquisite paraphrase of one of the most beautiful of the Psalms:

“We sate beside the Babylonian river: Within the conqueror’s bound, weeping we sate; We hung our harps upon the trees that quiver Above the rushing waters desolate.

“A song they claimed—the men our tasks who meted— ‘A song of Sion sing us, exile band!’ For song they sued, in pride around us seated; How can we sing it in the stranger’s land?

“If I forget thee, Salem, in thy sadness, May this right hand forget the harper’s art! If I forget thee, Salem, in my gladness, My tongue dry up, and wither, like my heart!

“Daughter of Babylon, with misery wasted, Blest shall he be, the man who hears thy moans; Who gives thee back the cup that we have tasted; Who lifts thy babes, and hurls them on the stones!”

ADELINE DE CHAZAL; OR, FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD AFTER LEAVING SCHOOL. Translated from the French by a Sister of S. Joseph. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1874.

A great number of young graduates are just now beginning this “first experience,” after receiving their medals, crowns, and premiums, and listening to the valedictories with which good‐by is said to academic halls and groves. Miss Adeline de Chazal’s experience, and her remarks upon the same, will probably come home to this class of young ladies with more interest than to any other set of readers. They will find it edifying and instructive, and, if they act upon the advice it contains, they will certainly take a safe course. The list of books for reading is good, so far as it goes, but might receive a considerable increase.

THE HELPERS OF THE HOLY SOULS. By the Rev. C. B. Garside. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The Helpers of the Holy Souls are a religious congregation of women in France, whose special devotion is to aid the souls of the faithful departed in purgatory by their prayers, good works, and other suffrages. F. Garside gives an account of their foundress and a history of their institution, with suitable reflections on the great utility of the special object which they have undertaken to promote.

ROSEMARY. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

SHORT STORIES. By the same.

THE NEPTUNE OUTWARD BOUND. By Winnie. New York: P. O’Shea. 1874.

The first two of these pretty books for children are reprints from the English editions already noticed in this magazine; the third is a lively, wholesome story imitating Oliver Optic.

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

FOOTNOTES

1 “Essentialis ratio substantiæ ut sic non consistit in _esse per se_, quatenus per hæc verba describitur ipsum subsistere in actu, sed in hoc quod habeat talem essentiam, cui debeatur subsistentia, seu quæ ex se sit sufficiens principium illius.”—Suarez, _Metaph. Disp._ 34, sect. 8, n. 11.

2 Τὸ ἐν ἑατῷ ὃν, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχον τὴν ὔωαρξιν.—_Dialect._, c. 4.

3 Ἐπὶ πάντων τῶν ὄντων, τὸ ἐν ἑαυτῷ, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχον τὸ εἶναι, οὐσία ἐστί.—_Dialect._, c. 4.

4 Ὀυσία ἐστι πᾶν ὄτιπερ αὐθυπόστατόν ἐστὶ, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχει τὸ εἶναι.—_Dialect._, c. 39.

5 “Quod in suo maneat, nec ope subsistat aliena (Deus), appellatur substantia.”—_De Incarn._, c. 10.

6 This absence is a real negation—a negation of imperfection, so long as we speak of God, who cannot admit of an inferior nature being inserted in the plenitude of his reality; but a negation of further perfection when we speak of created things, which are potential, and can be raised supernaturally above their natural condition.

7 _Contra Gent._, lib. 1, c. 25.

8 “Substantia non addit supra ens aliquam differentiam, quæ significet aliquam naturam superadditam enti: sed nomine substantiæ exprimitur specialis modus essendi” (_De Verit._, q. 1, a. 1). Hence this special mode does not constitute the nature or essence of the thing itself, and for this reason it is not mentioned in its definition, as S. Thomas says, _Quodlib._ 9, q. 3.

9 “Prima substantia est quædam natura sensibilis, quæ nec de subjecto dicitur, nec in subjecto aliquo est.”—_In Logic. Arist._, c. 5, _De Substantia_.

10 “Non est de essentia eius subsistentia, sed modus substantiæ.”—In 3 part, q. 77, a. 1.

11 Lib. xi. c. 14.

12 Vol. 2, q. 1, _de accident_.

13 “In substantiæ rationem redeuntes, tria quoad ipsam considerare possumus: primum, quod existat, et quidem in se; alterum, quod tali potius quam alia realitate constat, seu essentia, ex qua determinatæ vires operandi dimanant; tertium, quod se possideat, sitque sui juris in existendo. Primum proprie et præcise constituit notionem substantiæ; alterum conceptum offert naturæ; postremum denique, ... ideam suppositi præbet.”—_Metaph. Gen._, n. 64.

14 “Ex duobus, nempe ex re prædicamenti, et ratione essendi ejus, quæ est ratio prædicamenti, constituitur ipsum prædicamentum, et diversificatur unum prædicamentum ab alio.”

15 _De Verit._, q. 1, a. 1.

16 “Non propter defectum alicujus quod ad perfectionem humanæ naturæ pertineat, sed propter additionem alicujus quod est supra humanam naturam, quod est unio ad divinam Personam.”—_Summa Theol._, p. 3, q. 4, a. 2.

17 “Persona divina sua unione impedivit, ne humana natura propriam personalitatem haberet.”—_Ibid._

18 “Existere ex se solum dicit habere entitatem extra causas, seu in rerum natura; unde de se indifferens est ad modum existendi innitendo alteri ut sustentanti, et ad modum existendi per se sine aliquo sustentante.”—_Metaph. Disp._ 33, sect. 4, n. 24.

19 It is known that this analogy has been erroneously interpreted by some old and modern heretics, who taught that Christ’s body is in the Holy Eucharist by _impanation_ or by _consubstantiation_, and not by transubstantiation. The heresy of impanation asserts that the Eternal Word in the Holy Eucharist _becomes bread by assuming hypostatically the substance of bread_. The heresy of consubstantiation assumes that in the Holy Eucharist the substance of Christ’s body is _united with the substance of the bread_, and that therefore the Eucharist contains both substances. These heresies are, of course, mere corruptions of the traditional doctrine. The first corrupts it by confounding the substantive sustentation with the personal assumption, and by substituting the latter in the place of the former. The second corrupts it by supposing that a thing substantively supported by an underlying substance continues to exist as a substance; which is against the traditional definition of substance, and against the very analogy of which it pretends to be the interpretation; for, in virtue of such an analogy, it is as impossible for a thing _thus supported_ to be a substance as it is impossible for the human nature _assumed_ to be a human person. Hence what logically follows from the analogy of the two mysteries is neither impanation nor consubstantiation, but real and proper transubstantiation—that is, a real substitution of one substance for another under the remaining sensible species.

20 “Subsistere dicit determinatum modum existendi per se et sine dependentia a sustentante; unde illi opponitur inesse vel inexistere; dicitque determinatum modum existendi in alio.”—_Disp. Metaph._ 33, sect. 4, n. 24.

21 At the consecration of a church to the Sacred Heart.

22 What, sir! you bring us all those pretty ladies! You will revolutionize our poor curate.

23 According to Gov. Dix’s report for 1874, our “evangelical” state church will have to draw the sum of $8,600,000 (eight million, six hundred thousand dollars!) out of the public treasury to erect two “evangelical” asylums, one “evangelical” hospital, and one “evangelical” non‐sectarian state reformatory! From the same report we learn that our “evangelical” system of public education cost the state for the year ending September 30, 1873, the sum of $20,355,341 (twenty million, three hundred and fifty‐five thousand, three hundred and forty‐one dollars!); and that our “evangelical” state church owns twenty‐seven millions, seventy thousand, three hundred and ten dollars’ worth of school property! Remember that Catholics pay their proportion of the taxes, and that most of the public schools are not only “evangelical” in their religion, but some even formally Methodist by the “hymns” and prayers taught in them!

24 How little publicity the “Evangelical” press have given to this letter, because it favored the Catholics!

25 One of our judges—an ex‐Methodist minister—lately in open court violated the parental right over offspring by sending a Catholic child to a Protestant establishment in spite of the respectable father’s opposition.

26 The following are the words of our State constitution in regard to religion:

“The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever be allowed in this State to all mankind.”—Art. 1, sec. 3.

Now, it is known that the “free exercise” of the Catholic religion is not “free” in most of our state institutions; and in most of them there is “preference and discrimination” in favor of “Evangelical” clergymen and against the Catholic Church. The writer could prove by affidavits that in the very city of New York there is religious persecution in some of the state institutions, if the general scope of his remarks permitted him to go into many details. Where is the Catholic priest living near a state institution but knows that there is “discrimination” made against him?

27 Will Gov. Dix, therefore, tell us by what right of “eminent domain” Victor Emanuel robbed the Pope and confiscated the church property? Does Gov. Dix forget that he was one of those who approved this confiscation at the great “Italian unity” meeting?

28 S. Leonides was also a bishop. See Euseb., _Hist._ 6, c. 12; also S. Jerome, _Catal._, c. 54.

29 _Catal. et Ep. ad Magn._

30 _Hæret. Fab._, l. 1, c. 8.

31 _Stromata_, 1, 1.

32 S. Jerome, _Catal._, c. 54.

33 _Ibidem._

34 _Hist. Univ. Douzième Epoque._

35 _Tertullian._

36 _General History of the Catholic Church_, Darras. American translation, vol. i. p. 218.

37 _Monks of the West_, vol. ii. p. 33.

38 _Hæres._, 64.

39 _Orig. Defens._, l. 4, note p. 35.

40 Preface, Bellamy’s Translation of Origen’s _Apology_.

41 Ps. cxviii.

42 Preface to Vulgate.

43 Pref. _ad Ephes._

44 Pref. _in Pentateuch_.

45 Pref. _in Job_.

46 Introd. _in Cantica_, etc., translated by Jerome from Origen.

47 Lib. 2 _adv. Rufinus et passim_.

48 In c. 6 _Ep. ad Rom._

49 Tract. _in Matt._

50 _Apud Euseb._, l. 6, hist. c. 19.

51 _Life of S. Cecilia_, pp. 9 and 10.

52 _Cel._, l. 3.

53 Butler’s _Saints_, vol. ii. p. 141.

54 _Leviticus_, hom. 9.

55 See _Acts of the Council of Nice_ for proof of this line of reasoning—“Apostolic Canons.”

56 _Can. de Hierarchia Ecclesiæ Con. Nicenem._

57 _Apud Hieron., adv. Theophilus._

58 _Apud Hieron._, 2 lib. “adv. Rufinus,” et opera S. Gregory Nyssen.

59 _De Principiis_, lib. i. 4.

60 See Life in Butler, note vol. iii.

61 Lib. 2. _adv. Rufinus_.

62 _Apud Hier._, lib. 2. _adv. Ruf._ p. 217.

63 The question of Origen’s orthodoxy turns principally on the _Periarchon_. The violently heretical character of that book, as it now stands, contradicting the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, is the best defence of Origen. It is altogether contrary to the teaching of his undoubted works, and, if it had been acknowledged and defended by him, there would never have been any controversy at all about his orthodoxy. He would have been at once and universally condemned as the grossest of heretics.—ED. C. W.

64 _Christine._ Par Louis Enault.

65 _Following of Christ_, b. i. c. xix. v. 7.

66 Wisdom xi. 21.

67 Little girl.

68 _Attribute_ and _property_ mean the same in reality; but we usually call them _attributes_ with respect to the thing absolutely considered as a being, and _properties_ with respect to the thing considered as a principle of operation.

69 A paper read before the Xavier Union, of this city.

70 S. Thomas says (_Summa Contra Gentiles_, l. 4, c. xi.): “Nam viventia sunt quæ seipsa movent ad agendum; illa vero quæ non nisi exteriora movere possunt omnino sunt vita carentia.” This, however, is rather a description of a vital phenomenon than a definition of life itself. Fichte says: “Life is the tendency to individuation;” which, like most of the phrases of the German pantheists, means nothing or anything you please.

According to Richerand, “Life is a collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body”; but this applies equally to the succession of phenomena which takes place in the body after death. Herbert Spencer defines life to be “the co‐ordination of actions”; but what is anything but a co‐ ordination of acting forces, consequently of actions? This definition is as applicable to sulphuric acid as to life.

71 Kant defined truth to be the harmony of thought with thought, not of thought with things.

72 It may be well to quote the testimony of two Englishmen on this subject.

Buckle, in his _History of Civilization_, vol. i. page 158, says: “Thus, for instance, the miserable and impudent falsehoods which a large class of English writers formerly directed against the morals and private character of the French and—to their shame be it said—even against the chastity of Frenchwomen, tended not a little to embitter the angry feelings then existing between the two first countries of Europe: irritating the English against French vices, irritating the French against English calumnies. In the same way, there was a time when every honest Englishman firmly believed that he could beat ten Frenchmen—a class of beings whom he held in sovereign contempt, as a lean and stunted race, who drank claret instead of brandy, who lived entirely off frogs; miserable infidels, who heard Mass every Sunday, who bowed down before idols, and who even worshipped the Pope.”

“I did not know,” says John Stuart Mill, in his _Autobiography_, “the way in which, among the ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of an unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here and there, and the habit of not speaking to others, nor much even to themselves, about the things in which they do feel interest, cause both their feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain undeveloped, or to develop themselves only in some single and very limited direction, reducing them, considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence.”

73 _The Old Faith and the New_, p. 120.

74 “My name is Monaco, A rock my seat: I neither reap nor sow, And yet I eat.”

75 “O thou, whom chance or will brings to the soil, Where fair Armida doth the sceptre guide, Thou canst not fly; of arms thyself despoil, And let thy hands with iron chains be tied.”

—_Fairfax’s Translation._

76 A street‐lane.

77 The above passage is really in the Prayers for the Dead. The Dominican ritual differs in some respects from the ordinary ritual; whether it includes any difference in the Prayers for the Dying I have been unable to ascertain. The above account is taken from some passages in Lacordaire’s life of the saint. Lacordaire was himself a Dominican.

78 The _Baldacchino_ at S. Peter’s is by Bernini.

79 “I have found that Rome is the place where one can enjoy the most happiness.”

80 Ah! poor fellow. Why, he is weeping!

81 Throughout this poem the lover’s songs are in the longer metre; the lady’s in the shorter. In the 1st and 3d parts, the songs are all his; in the 2d and 4th, all hers; in the 5th and 6th, the two classes are mixed.

82 _A Course of Philosophy; embracing Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics._ Designed as a text‐book for the use of schools. By Rev. A. Louage, C.S.C., Professor in the University of Notre Dame. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.

83 The principal work of this author is in Latin. We believe that some of his treatises are in Italian. There are similar works noticed in the _Civilta Cattolica_.

84 _Poems._ By Dante Gabriel Rosetti. London. 1871.

85 These expressions are frequently employed in philosophy, but are not applied in a uniform manner by several writers. It is known that “first matter,” or _materia prima_, usually means matter without form, or potency without act; and nevertheless it is not rare to find the denomination of _materia prima_ applied to the matter which is in the bodies, and which is certainly not without a form. We cannot enter here into a discussion about this subject; but it is obvious that, if we wish to be consistent and avoid equivocation, we must carefully guard against applying to anything actual the very epithet we employ to characterize its contrary.

86 See CATHOLIC WORLD, July, 1873, page 471.

87 The general definition of relation is, _Id. cuius totum esse est ad aliud se habere_.

88 There are philosophers who do not admit any real distinction between a thing and its mode. Thus Tongiorgi (_Ontol._, n. 148) says that “the mode of any being is really nothing else than the being itself considered in a different manner.” This view deserves no discussion, as it is evidently false. If the mode of a thing were the thing itself, then the sphericity of the wax would be the wax, the joy of the soul would be the soul, and every affection would be the subject of the affection. The author seems to have confounded _being_, the participle, with _being_, the substantive.

89 It is well known that the people of Southern Italy think they can, by this gesture, avert the effects of the _jettatura_, or evil eye, which they attribute to some persons.

90 See Naples, and then die.

91 Vine‐dressers.

92 It was a fit of rage.

93 This chapter is taken from a work published soon after the date of the occurrences narrated, as was the previous one (CATHOLIC WORLD, Dec., 1873), on account of the interest which recent events impart to it.—ED. C. W.

94 Afterwards Comte de Chambord.

95 In fact, _Stultorum infinitus est numerus_.

96 _Force and Matter: Empirico‐philosophical studies intelligibly rendered by Dr. Louis Büchner, President of the Medical Association of Hessen‐Darmstadt, etc., etc._ Edited by J. Frederick Collingwood. Second English edition. London: Trübner & Co. 1870.

97 Of these two unseen spirits, the first voice is that of Cain; the second, that of Aglauros, changed to stone for envy of her sister Herse, as told by Ovid.

98 The meaning of this _bit_ or _bridle_ is explained in the preliminary note.

99 Holy Madonna, assist me.

100 _The Question of Anglican Orders Discussed._ By E. E. Estcourt, Canon of S. Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. 1873.

_On the Decision of the Holy Office on Abyssinian Orders._ By the Rev. J. Jones. Letter to the _Month_, November‐December, 1873.

101 See the pamphlet, _A Few Remarks on the Recent Work of Canon Estcourt_, and the letter, signed “English Catholic,” to the _Tablet_ of May 3, 1873.

102 This is true of F. Kellison’s _Survey of the New Religion_, 1603, to whom Canon Estcourt attributes the first publication of the Nag’s Head story.

103 _De Illust. Angliæ Script._, p. 770. Paris, 1619.

104 See Kenrick’s _Anglican Ordinations_, p. 81, and Tiernay’s _Dodd_, append. No. xlii.

105 _De Antiq. Eccles. Rit._, lib. 1, pt. iii. c. viii. art. 10, § 16.

106 _Estcourt_, p. 62.

107 Note to Haddan’s Preface to Bramhall.

108 Haddan, Pref. to Bramhall.

109 See Pref. to Bramhall; but in _Apost. Succession_, p. 209, Mr. Haddan says nine out of forty‐nine.

110 _Estcourt_, p. 76.

111 _Actes de la Captivité et de la Morte des R.R. P. P. P. Olivaint, L. Ducoudray, J. Caubert, A. Clerc, A. de Bengy, de la Compagnie de Jésus._ Par le P. Armand de Ponlevoy de la même Compagnie. Paris: G. Tegui. 1871.

112 “They went forth rejoicing.”

113 P. 46.

114 “But in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, ... in prisons, in seditions, ... through honor and dishonor, through infamy and good name.”—2 Cor. vi. 4‐8.

115 “It is a great, a very great virtue to know how to lack all consolation, human as well as divine, and to endure willingly for the glory of God the exile of the heart.”—_Imit._, i. 2, c. ix.

116 “In many more labors, in prisons more frequently.”—2 Cor. xi. 23.

117 “And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake.”—Matt. x. 22.

118 From hatred of the faith, hatred of the name of Jesus Christ.

119 French proverb: From thread to needle.

120 The pleasure of doing nothing.

121 Peasants.

122 Mistress.

123 The keepers of the vineyards.

124 Peasantry.

125 Literal translation of an Italian term meaning without narrow prejudice.

126 The past is absent, but not dead.

127 See Zschokke’s _History of Switzerland_, page 45, for all these characters in the uprising against Austria in 1307.

128 CATHOLIC WORLD for February, 1874, p. 584.

129 A lecture _On Molecules_, delivered before the British Association at Bradford, by Prof. Clerk‐Maxwell, F.R.S. _Nature_, September 25, 1873.

130 It is competent, however, to furnish the philosopher with all the materials of such a reasoning, as this very passage clearly shows.

131 Book 10, ch. 15.

132 See CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1874, p. 827.

133 CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1874, page 759.

134 See _A Speculation touching Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter_.

135 _Theoria Philosophiæ Naturalis_ p. 1, n. 18.

136 CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1874, page 766.

137 “Long live the spouses! Long live the duke! Long live the duchess!”

138 “Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her.”

139 The appetite comes with eating.

140 _Ex Chron. Mauriniac. ap. Harduin Concil._, tom. 6, p. 1214.

141 Wilberforce, _Holy Euchar._, p. 438.

142 See M. Le Grand, _Dissert. de Ord. Abyss._, p. 361, translated by S. Johnson.

143 _Godigno_, 1 c. p. 327.

144 Assemani, _Controv. Copt._, p. 185.

145 _Estcourt_, Append. xxxiv.

146 See Le Brun, _Explic. Miss._ (Venice, 1770 tom. ii. p. 273).

147 _Act. Sanct. Junii_., tom. v. p. 128.

148 _Montesquiou._

149 As unhappy as the stones.

150 My daughter.

151 Dear daughter.

152 Such forms are usually said to be produced “out of the potency of matter”; but this makes no difference. For what is only in potency to exist is still nothing: hence what is to be drawn out of the potency of matter is still nothing. Its production, however, is not a creation, because it implies a real subject.

153 This has been shown in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for March, 1874, pp. 764, 765.

154 We are not unfrequently imposed upon by the infidel phraseology and the bold assertions of modern scientists. We should remember that bold assertions in science may be as false as they are bold. The theory of the indestructibility of force is one of such assertions; and yet it is trumpeted about as a demonstrated truth. It is time for us to awake. The seed of atheism is sown everywhere under cover of positive science; but the fraud may be easily detected. Infidel theories are usually mere trash; and if we were to look into them a little more sharply, we would find that they bear no examination. It is the duty of our Catholic professors of physics and mechanics to raise their voices in earnest, and expose the fraud instead of gobbling it down. We have only pointed out some of the reasons why the new mechanical theory must be rejected; but its pretensions may be more effectually crushed by thorough scientific and mathematical analysis, as pure philosophical arguments are unfortunately above the comprehension of most modern students.

155 A paper read before the CATHOLIC UNION of Boston, Mass., June 4, 1874.

156 _A Few Words on Church Choirs and Church Music._

157 Apud Bellasis, _Memorial of Cherubini_.

158 Cf. _Bellasis_, loco cit.

159 The only _efficient_ actions of our soul are those by which the will carries its desires into execution. This is done by the will, not as the faculty of willing, but as a moving power, and consequently by means of a truly efficient action. The immanent operations of the soul are, on the contrary, formal acts, not efficient actions. The intellect and the will are moved by their objects in a manner analogous to that in which a material element is moved by physical agents. If an element could treasure up all the momenta it receives from different agents, and were not under the necessity of following their resultant, but had the faculty of yielding at pleasure now to this and now to that determination, then such an element would give us a true image of what our soul is competent to do by immanent operation. The soul treasures up the _species_ impressed by intelligible objects, that is, its intellectual momenta, and fields or not to the attraction of any of them as it chooses. And the like occurs with regard to the object of the will. To think and to will is therefore nothing more than to let one’s self be carried by an object or in the direction of an object. Accordingly, the soul, when understanding or willing, is indeed actuated by the object, and therefore is in act; but this act is _resultant_, not _efficient_. In other terms, immanent acts are not efficient actions, but formal attitudes formally resulting from either spontaneous or free movements of the appetitive potency.

160 On this subject see THE CATHOLIC WORLD for March, 1874, p. 768.

161 Boscovich’s _Theoria Philosophiæ Naturalis_, part i. n. 108.

162 Cavendish in 1798 made his celebrated experiments concerning terrestrial attraction, in order to determine the density of the earth; but his calculations were grounded on the assumption that all the material particles of the earth were equally attractive; and therefore the result of such calculation cannot be implicitly relied on. M. Reich in 1837, and M. Bayly in 1842, repeated the same experiments, and calculated the density of the earth according to the same assumption. It did not occur to either of them that the assumption itself might have been subjected to a crucial test by successively substituting spheres of zinc, iron, copper, silver, etc., instead of the leaden ones which they uniformly employed. Had they tried these substances in a proper manner—that is, with a suitable modification of the apparatus—we have little doubt that they would have discovered a difference of action for equal masses of different substances. The experiment may yet be made, and we hope it will, as it is of great scientific importance; but it should be encouraged by the help of some powerful scientific body, as the cost of the new apparatus would probably exceed the ordinary means at the command of unaided individuals.

163 A Lecture on Mental Education, London, 1855.

164 In the _O Salutaris Hostia!_

165 Marie Antonette.

166 Words of Monsignor Nardi to Mrs. Peter.

167 A paper read before the Catholic Union of Boston, Mass. June 4, 1874.

168 _Third Prov. Council N. Y._

169 _Second Plenary Council of Baltimore_, No. 361.

170 _Third Provincial Council of New York_, decree the third. Since this latter decree has been issued many organists have acted in the most senseless manner. Instead of composing or arranging music to which the words of the _Sanctus_ might easily be sung within the prescribed time, they have retained what they had, and thus are frequently obliged to interrupt the _Sanctus_ in the middle of a movement, and before half the words have been pronounced. Sometimes they continue the movement, and resume the same words after the Elevation, and then they find it impossible to sing the _Benedictus_, which should, as is evident, immediately follow the consecration. It is true that at the High Mass the celebrant is expected to make a longer _memento_ than usual, both for the living before the consecration and for the dead after it, to give the singers time to sing all the words, but not that they may indulge in useless and tiresome repetitions.

171 _Histoire Générale de la Musique Religieuse._

172 _Musica Sacra._ Boston: Carl Prüfer.

173 _Ave Verum, and other Pieces._ Boston: Oliver Ditson.

174 _History of Music._ Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co.

175 From the introduction to the foundation‐charter of the Abbey of S. Mary at Furness.

176 A country‐house.

177 “Sea‐fruit.” The name given at Naples to star‐fish, etc., which they eat fried.

178 Tomatoes, called apples of gold.

179 We will have him safe.

180 Dearest.

181 Little cares.

182 There are some exceptions, such as the beautiful candelabra of the Villa Diomed.

183 Bed‐chamber.

184 Court.

185 Reception‐room.

186 Room for guests.

187 Signor Palmier.

188 The above doctrine concerning the reality of absolute space is taken from Lessius’ magnificent work, _De Perfectionibus Moribusque Divinis_ (lib. ii. c. 2), where he shows that absolute space is the virtuality of God’s immensity. We cannot here develop this doctrine, nor discuss the objections of those who hold a different opinion. This would lead us too far from our present object, and give to our dialogue with Dr. Büchner a higher metaphysical character than his arguments deserve.

189 J. D. Dana’s _Manual of Geology_. See also Pianciani’s _Cosmogonia Naturale Comparata col Genesi_, Rev. Gerald Molloy’s _Geology and Revelation_, and Card. Wiseman’s _Twelve Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_.