Chapter I. A Few Pages From Clide De Winton’s Note‐Book.

It was not the reception I ought to have had; but that was my own fault. The old house was not in the habit of giving such a cold welcome to the eldest son who brought home his young bride. On the contrary, fireworks and bonfires, and bells ringing, and flags flying, and universal rejoicing both inside and outside the house, had been the traditionary mode of proceeding, on such occasions, since the Conquest, when it first owned a master of the name of De Winton. My earliest recollections of a distinct kind are of my father bringing home my step‐mother to the old place, and of my peeping out from my nursery‐window, and vaguely connecting the strange lady, who came in the midst of us heralded by such noise and splendor, with the story of the Queen of Sheba that my nurse read to me very often on Sundays out of a pictured story‐book. This infantine delusion had long vanished before I quite lost the sense of childish bewilderment that accompanied the occasion. I was an odd child, I suppose; old‐fashioned, but not at all precocious; and the dreamy impressions of childhood held their grasp on me longer than usual, probably from my having no children to play with and keep me from dwelling so long and so exclusively on the fancies of my own hazy little mind. I can recall vividly even now how I hated all the noise and fuss that followed the wedding; how I shrank from being dressed in my scarlet cashmere frock, and being sent for to the drawing‐room, and introduced to strangers, by my stiff, stately step‐mother, as “my son, Master Clide de Winton.” There seemed no end to the strangers that came trooping in to shake hands with my father and to be introduced to his wife. And then the dinners that were given, and the noise of music afterwards, that used to wake me up in the nursery, and make me dream such noisy, confused dreams when I fell asleep again! How I detested it all! And when I expressed something of this to my nurse, and wondered why the house, that used to be so quiet when we had it to ourselves, had become so full of noise and strange people from the moment my new mamma came home, she found no better comfort than to tell me that that was always the way after a wedding, and that when I was grown up and married myself I should make just as much fuss, and a great deal more, because I should be younger, and my wife too. It may sound absurd, like so many other reminiscences of childhood that were once bitterly real to all of us; but this horoscopic view of life poisoned many an hour of those nursery‐days to me. The fact that the dreaded ordeal was yet distant gave me no consolation. I leaped over the gulf that separated six years old from five‐and‐twenty, and saw myself miserable in the midst of a pandemonium of noise, and strange people, and dinners, and pianoforte‐ playing. I was no doubt a morbid little boy, and no doubt my nurse discovered this, and with the unconscious cruelty of her race took pleasure in playing upon my idle terrors. I know she used to terrify me by graphic descriptions of the wedding ceremonial from first to last; and the more I showed that I was terrified, the more eloquent and inventive—as I afterwards discovered—she grew. She had been three times through the performance herself, and thus was peculiarly qualified to speak of it. I remember once when she told me I would have to stand up before all the company at a long table and make a speech. I could bear it no longer, and I began to cry. This did not soften her; she only laughed at me for a silly little goose, and assured me that, when the time came, I would enjoy it all as much as I now enjoyed flying my kite and other juvenile amusements. I ran out of the nursery and away up to a garret where I sometimes hid myself when I expected to be sent for to the drawing‐room. and flung myself on the floor, and literally bellowed with misery. I suppose I cried myself to sleep, for when 1 awoke I was still in the same place, tired and cold. I considered quietly what I might possibly do to avert the catastrophe that so appalled me in the distance. I could think only of one thing: that was to run away before the wedding‐day arrived. I had heard stories about boys running away from school when they were very naughty or very unhappy; why should they not run away from home, if driven to extremities? This resolution soothed me. I crept down from my solitude a happier child than I had entered it.

If this account of myself sounds unnatural, I can only answer that it is true. If my step‐mother had been a loving, motherly woman, she would probably have found out something of these sufferings, and have sought to modify them by moulding my character; but she was not a woman to win a child’s confidence, even if she had tried; and she did not try to win mine. She found me shy, reserved, ungracious, and she left me so. She did her duty by me as far as she knew how. I was conveyed every day regularly from the nursery to the dining‐room after dinner. I grew resigned to the daily punishment after a time, and in reply to the usual questions, “Had I been a good boy?” and “Would I like an apple?” I learned to answer boldly that I had and that I would, and to stand straight on both legs and without wriggling. My step‐mother patted me on the cheek, and observed to my father that I was improving in my manners. She seldom went further than this in motherly caresses for the first two years after her marriage. Then my father died, and I can remember that she kissed me often, and was altogether more gentle in her manner towards me, and that I felt it, and liked the change, though I could in no way account for it. I was still miserably shy, and I retained the same intense dread of notoriety and fuss of every description. Perhaps it was this that partly decided her on sending me to Eton when I was barely old enough to be in the school‐room. Other motives may have added weight to this one, but I shall say nothing of that now. If her object was to cure me of the painful timidity which still beset me, it was perhaps a justification for sending the fatherless and motherless boy away from the solitude and isolation of a gloomy home into the stir and life of a public school, where shyness, like so many other foolish weaknesses, is quickly rubbed off by contact with those intolerant pedagogues—companions of one’s own age and rank. I was happy enough at Eton, in spite of the dreaded future that still loomed in the distance. I had forgotten the spectre of a possible wedding‐breakfast and its accompanying horrors. I knew now that it was in my own hands to suffer or to avoid them. Meantime, my natural timidity still asserted itself in a way that was much deplored by my step‐mother. I was an intelligent boy, and might have distinguished myself over my fellows, had I chosen; but the same morbid folly that had embittered my childhood now paralyzed my ambition, and prevented me trying for prizes in any department of study. Public speaking comes into play very much with candidates for honors at school, and the finest gold medal that was ever awarded for a Greek and Latin essay would not have tempted me, if I foresaw the necessity of reading the essay aloud before that redoubtable array of critics, my assembled masters and companions. I passed for an oddity, and so I was. My step‐mother sighed over it in her calm, correct way; regretted I had not the honorable ambition to make a name for myself and conquer a position amongst my fellow‐men, and so on. To this I modestly replied that I was satisfied with the name my fathers had transmitted to me, and which I hoped to carry honorably at least through life, if not proudly. Pride of birth was one of the earliest lessons she had endeavored to instil into my mind, and in this respect I did not prove as stubborn as in others. I remember saying, in reply to some remarks of hers as to the advisability of my distinguishing myself in some public career, “When a man has the good luck to be born a De Winton he is distinguished enough”; and I remember the smile of approval that accompanied her demure shake of the head.

I left Eton in course of time, and went to the university. The change from the now familiar world of school was accomplished with immense reluctance, and perhaps would never have been accomplished at all without the combined influence of my step‐mother, my uncle, Admiral de Winton, and Sir Simon Harness, who was one of my guardians and my father’s oldest friend. I soon grew to like my new life, and to make friends with a few of my new companions. I was still too shy to form friendships easily, or to be what is called popular. Everything however, went smoothly with me till I was a little over twenty, and then a circumstance occurred which woke up the old terrors, and showed too plainly that much of the puerile folly of childhood clung to me still. I am almost ashamed to write it at this lapse of time; but I shall have more grievous follies to confess by‐and‐by, so there is no use passing over this one. It arose out of a proposal to give a farewell dinner to a fellow who was one of our set and extremely popular. I chimed in heartily with the scheme the moment it was broached, but when one of my chums, out of pure mischief as I afterwards found out, suggested that we should one of us make a farewell speech, expressing the regret and so forth of the rest, and that I should be the speaker, I got savage, and was for not appearing at all at the dinner, unless they gave me a solemn promise that I should not be asked to open my lips, even to propose a toast. We were near quarrelling over it; the others were so amused at my anger and fright that they kept up the joke, and bullied me until I was in a downright passion. When it was over, and I had joined in the laugh against myself, my tormentor said, quite hap‐hazard, and not with the least idea of rousing me again:

“I say, old boy, how will it be when you come of age? You’ll be giving a grand blow‐out at the Moat, of course, and we’ll all drink to your health with three times three; but you will have to return thanks, you know, and address the tenantry, and that sort of thing. It will be awful fun to see you stammering and haw‐hawing, and assuring us that the affecting occasion is really—aw—too much for you—aw—and so forth. When is it to be? About this time twelve‐month, eh?”

I don’t know what I said to him. I think I felt he was too great a brute to be spoken to, except in a language which it would not do for a De Winton to use. But could this be true? Was I making a fool’s paradise to myself, while every day hurried me on to this dismal catastrophe?

I feigned a sudden call home on family business that required my presence, and started by the six A.M. train next morning for the Moat.

My step‐mother was surprised to meet me on coming down to breakfast—surprised, not startled. She was not a woman to be startled.

“Madam,” I said, after greeting her ceremoniously, according to my step‐ filial habit, “have you any plan in view respecting the event of my majority?”

“You speak in enigmas, my dear Clide. Pray explain yourself,” replied Mrs. de Winton; and went on washing her hands in that deliberate way of hers that always exasperated me. Perhaps it was this trick of perpetually washing her hands that made me think her so uncommonly like the picture of Lady Macbeth hanging over the library mantel‐piece.

“To be explicit, then,” I replied, “do you intend making a Coming of Age of it? Do you purpose setting the tenantry into fits making a fuss over me? In a word do you purpose calling up the seven devils commonly catted rejoicings and loyal demonstrations? Do you mean to do these things, madam?”

Whether she thought I had gone suddenly mad, or that, notwithstanding the early hour, I had been indulging too freely in convivial libations, I could not tell; but she decidedly thought I was laboring under some sort of cerebral inflammation. Suspending abruptly the ablutionary movement, she joined her hands coldly, and looking at me with a severe countenance, not devoid altogether of pity, “Clide, you surprise me,” she said. “I hoped that you had sufficient respect for yourself and for your ancestors to understand....”

“Madam,” I broke in, trembling with excitement, “I respect you and I respect my ancestors; but as to making a fool of myself for the gratification of their ante‐diluvian crotchets, I won’t do it. No; if every De Winton from the Flood down were to stalk out of his coffin and bully me, I won’t.”

“Won’t what?” demanded my step‐mother, looking now rather alarmed.

“I won’t have those seven devils let loose over the place,” I said defiantly; “and unless you pledge me your word of honor that there will not be anything of the sort, as sure as I’m a living De Winton I’ll bolt from the country, and never set foot in it again!”

“You misapprehend our relative positions altogether, Clide,” resumed Mrs. de Winton. “When the time of your majority has arrived, you will, by the very fact of its advent, be master to deal with it as you choose, quite independent of my wishes. I should hope, however, that by that time you will have conceived a better notion of your duty to society in your own person, and to the traditions of the illustrious race from whom it is your privilege to descend, than you seem to possess at present. It has been from time immemorial the custom in the family to celebrate with pomp and festive gatherings the majority of the heir. I am at a loss to understand why this venerable custom should inspire you with such irrational fury; why you should anticipate the welcome that awaits every De Winton on his coming of age otherwise than with a sense of grateful and honorable pride.”

I had calmed down when I discovered that I was my own master in the matter. Otherwise I should not have listened so patiently to the end of her tirade. When it was over, I began to feel rather ashamed of myself. I had been making a storm in a butter‐boat.

“If I have forgotten in the least degree the deference I owe you, madam,” I observed, twisting my wide‐awake to give myself what the French call a countenance, “I apologize for it.”

“I trust you will learn to control yourself, in future, for your own sake,” observed Mrs. de Winton, washing her hands again. “Be assured of one thing: I shall take no steps towards the celebration of the event, which is looked forward to by the tenantry with very different feelings from yours, without having your consent. I would not expose them or you to such an exhibition as that I have just witnessed. But you have twelve months to wait, and to improve, I hope, before your coming of age makes it necessary to remind you what that circumstance involves.”

“If it involves a fuss, madam,” I said emphatically, and waxing wroth again, “once more, I won’t have it. I’d rather never come of age!” And having delivered myself of this decided opinion, I wished her good‐ morning.

I came of age in due time, and fearing that, in spite of my commands to the contrary, the tenantry might get up some insane rejoicings and caterwaulings, I feigned illness and waited in London till the anniversary was a week old.

That Rubicon was no sooner safely passed than the other, the fearful one that had been the nightmare of my childhood, threatened to overtake me. I had so constantly announced at school my determination never to marry that my views on that subject were known to all who knew me, and the reputation of a woman‐hater preceded me amongst my own people. Still, the Moat being a fine old place, with a clear rent‐roll of fifteen thousand pounds a year, and I being an only son and in all other respects what dowagers call an “eligible young man,” the female mind of ——shire resented such a resolve on my part as premature and absurd, and set to work diligently to bring me to a better way of thinking. I pass over the history of that merciless campaign of match‐making mothers and enterprising daughters. The very thought of it now is painful to me. Enough that I came out of it unscathed. After two years of comparative quiet—for I persistently refused to be lured to the sirens’ caves in the neighborhood, and forced them to beard the lion in his den, which gave me no inconsiderable vantage‐ground over the enemy—the fire slackened, and I was left in peace.

My step‐mother did not attempt to coerce me; on the contrary, she commiserated my position, and more than once expressed her disapproval of the way in which, as she said, I was hunted down by all the marriageable womanhood of the county. She insisted on giving one ball when I came home, to introduce me to her own and my father’s friends and such members of the family as I only knew by name or very slightly; but after that she subsided, and my life was as free from fuss as any life in this fussy world could be.

“Clide,” observed Mrs. de Winton one morning, as we sipped our tea over the breakfast‐table, “do you think it quite impossible you should ever marry?”

“Well,” I said reflectively, “as far as a man can answer for himself, I should say quite impossible.”

“But how far is that?” observed my step‐mother with a sceptical smile. “You have not yet been put to the test. You have not yet come across the woman who could persuade you that marriage is the Elysium of man here below. Supposing—I merely put it in the light of a remote supposition—that you should come across her some day...?”

“I should probably accept my fate as many a wiser man has done before me, and capitulate on reasonable terms—namely, that we should be executed at six o’clock in the morning, no wedding‐dress, no bridemaids, no speechifying—no fuss, in fact, and nobody present but a beggar‐woman and a policeman. Then, when we come home, no entertaining, giving and taking dinners, and that sort of fuss that comes like the farce after the tragedy. If I ever meet with a pretty girl willing to take me and the Moat on these conditions, then I will not answer for the consequences.”

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

One year after this conversation with my step‐mother I met that pretty girl; the result was what I tacitly foretold it would be. I married her. It happened in this way: I was seized with a desire to travel, and, instead of beginning with the stereotyped grand tour, I determined to go first to America. I had a hunger for grand, wild scenery. The vast primeval forests of the far West, the awful grandeur of Niagara, drew me powerfully; so off I set, accompanied by a confidential servant named Stanton. Shyness went for something in the choice. I felt attracted towards the new young continent as by a sense of homelikeness and kindred. I was not disappointed. Everything I saw there was at once novel and familiar. I could converse with the people in my own language, and was thus spared the mortification of stuttering out my inquiries in dubious French or German, or trumpeting them through an interpreter, as must have been the case on the grand tour.

Niagara appalled and fascinated me. Day after day I stood contemplating the torrents of foam that surged up to meet the great sheet of water that flung itself in a majestic arch of hard green crystal down into the boiling, creamy gulf. I gazed and gazed till sight was dim and sense was lost in a torpor of exquisite delight—neither trance nor vision, but a state that hovered between both. The thunder of the rushing waters, the sparkling of the prism that danced and flashed and faded with the changing lights, reflecting every tint in the sunset, until the cataract blazed before my dazzled eyes like a thousand rainbows melted into one, then fainted and died, leaving a uniform sheen of emerald in its place—all this was like some magnificent apotheosis that kept me spell‐bound, fascinated, entranced. I had come intending to remain three days; but a week slipped away and found me still at Niagara. At last I determined to break the spell. I must tear myself from the spectacle before it overmastered my reason; for there were moments when, after standing for hours looking down into the seething abyss of foam, I felt as if an invisible chord were drawing me on and on, nearer and nearer, luring me in a dreamy way towards the water. Then I would rouse myself and rush away; but it would not do to go on playing with a danger that was sweet and potent as a magician’s spell. I came out one morning to take my last look. It was just after sunrise. The falls had never looked so beautiful, the booming of the water had never sounded so solemn, the light had never evolved such a fairy tracery of jewelled glory on the silvery vapor and the green crystal. The effect was overpowering. For one moment it seemed to me that I heard the voice of Jehovah speaking in the roar of many waters; that I stood within the sanctuary, separated by an impenetrable and mysterious wall of thunder from the outer, visible world. A spontaneous and almost unconscious impulse made me uncover myself and stand bareheaded, as in the presence of the Unseen and Omnipresent. How long I stood thus I cannot say; I know that I was roused from my revery by a sound that struck in upon my dreamy deafness with strange and thrilling effect. It was the singing of a human voice; the words were inarticulate, but I knew the music well. It was a wild, weird Highland melody; the rhythm was barely distinguishable, as the notes rose and fell through the roar and boom of the waterfall, sounding nevertheless preternaturally clear and sweet, like the wail of a spirit or some sweet sea‐bird’s cry. What was it? Some Undine risen from the spray, and pouring out her lament to the wave? I dared not look round, so fearful was I to banish the songster. When the voice ceased, I turned my head and looked. Was I dreaming, or was it indeed a spirit that I beheld? I doubted at first. But as I kept my eyes steadily fixed on the figure, it moved towards me, and I knew that it was neither sprite nor shadow, but a woman, a young girl rather—for she seemed barely emerged from childhood to maidenhood—more beautiful than any picture I had ever seen or that my imagination had ever painted. She was small, below the middle height. Her hair fell in profuse ringlets or coils—it seemed an accidental arrangement—down her back; it was black and glossy as jet. Her eyes were lustrous and dark as a gazelle’s; her complexion almost colorless. She was dressed in dark green, a loose, unconventional sort of garment that draped her something after the fashion of a Roman stola; her straw hat had either fallen off or she had taken it off, and held it dangling from her arm; her hands were clasped, and her eyes fixed on the fall, as it plunged from the rocky ledge down, down into the eternity of waters.

She had come within a few yards of me before she seemed conscious of my presence—of anything but the majestic spectacle that was riveting her whole soul through her eyes. She walked on like a somnambulist. A sudden dread seized me. Was she asleep, or was she experiencing in its uttermost degree the terrible attraction that I had felt more than once, and walking on unconsciously to death? I advanced a few steps, so as to stand in her path as she drew near. The effect was instantaneous. She started as if some one had struck her. I thought she would have fallen, and rushed to prevent it by stretching out my arm. The movement apparently recalled her to the sense of where she was. With a slight acknowledgment of my courtesy, she turned quickly away, and hurried on out of sight. I followed her, and it was with an unreasonable thrill of delight that I saw her enter the hotel where I was staying. Who was this siren, or how did one so young and so beautiful come to be alone in this lonely place? Before the day was over I met her again. Chance brought us together once more in the same spot. This time she was not alone. An elderly man, whom she addressed as uncle, accompanied her. He was not prepossessing in his appearance, and I doubt whether I should have overcome my natural shyness so far as to address him, if he had not himself broken the ice by asking me if I had ventured to walk under the fall, and whether the experience was worth the risk. I assured him that it amply compensated for any imaginary danger that might exist, and volunteered to accompany him if he decided on trying it. This brought us into communication, if not into sympathy. I did not like him, consequently he did not like me. We both felt this instinctively, no doubt; there was an opposing element of some sort between us that made friendship impossible, though it did not prevent that kind of superficial intimacy which is almost inevitable amongst people of the same country who find themselves thrown close together under the same roof in a foreign land. He was Scotch, as I knew at once by his name, Prendergast, and by his accent. He was a thin, medium‐sized man, and could not have been more than forty, though his silver hair gave him a prematurely old look, which was perhaps increased by a settled expression of ill‐temper about the mouth, arising, so his niece affectionately alleged, from chronic tooth‐ache. He seemed indeed a martyr to that trying complaint, and wore his head tied up in a woollen comforter, which must have been miserably uncomfortable; for the days were hot and the nights as balmy as June. I fancied that his beautiful niece disliked him, or at least feared him considerably more than she loved him. I noticed how the merry, bright little creature started at the sound of his voice when he called to her sharply, and how she quailed when his cold, hard eye lighted on her in the midst of one of her childish peals of laughter, checking it as by a cold bath. It struck me even more than once that she cast a glance towards me, as if claiming my protection—against whom or what I could not imagine; but I was resolved to ascertain, and, if my assistance or sympathy could avail her, to let her have them at any cost. We happened to be alone on the third day after our first meeting. Isabel—so I heard Mr. Prendergast call her—was apparently as pleased at the opportunity as I was. She talked to me with the frank, artless _abandon_ of a child; and, without in the least intending it, she told me enough of her antecedents and position to satisfy me that I was right in supposing her not very happy with her uncle. She told me he was her guardian, and had brought her up since she was quite a child, her parents having died when she was five years old. Her mother was his sister; her father’s name was Cameron. He held a large tract of land in Canada, and had a great deal of money—“heaps of money,” was her childish estimate of it—in banks and things in England; and she, being the only child, was heiress to all this wealth. Mr. Prendergast had had the management of it up to the present, and continued to treat her as an infant, though she was now of age, she said. He had by nature a tyrannical temper, and it was increased and rendered irritable and fierce by years of tooth‐ache. He had been away in hot climates to seek relief for his exasperated nerves, and it was only on her account that he had returned to England of late. He had come out to America to look after her property, and also for the benefit of her health, which had required change and a long sea‐voyage. I felt grateful to him for this at least, as the sacrifice had evidently been crowned with success. Miss Cameron looked the very picture of health, and she said the voyage had made her stronger than she had ever been in her life. It had, however, proved very disastrous to Mr. Prendergast, whose teeth had not given him a day’s rest since they left England; “and of course this makes him very cross,” his niece observed deprecatingly, with a little sigh.

After this conversation we became perfectly at ease with each other, and tacitly watched for opportunities of renewing it. I need not say that I relinquished my plan of leaving the falls, which day after day grew more beautiful, more irresistibly attractive, to me. A week passed in a dreamy state of blissfulness, and then a crisis came. Mr. Prendergast, who had been howling all night in the room next to me with the tooth‐ache, set off after breakfast, in spite of his swelled face, with a party that were being taken to walk under the arch of the fall. He wound a quarter of a mile of Shetland shawls round his head, and, thus fortified, donned the leathern costume of the occasion, and down he went. Everything went well enough until he was emerging from the tremendous roar that had covered him in like a curtain, and was setting his foot on dry land above, when he was seized with a rush of blood to the head, and fell insensible to the ground. He was carried to his room, and lay there dangerously ill for several days. Isabel was not allowed to see him. The doctor enjoined absolute quiet as of the first necessity; no one entered the sick‐room but the medical man and a nurse whom he sent for to the nearest town. This catastrophe naturally threw Miss Cameron and me a good deal together. We wandered out to admire the falls by sunrise; we were to be seen there again at sunset, when the clouds rolled in golden cascades over the western sky, and made a spectacle of rival glory above and beyond the everlasting glory of Niagara. What could come of all this but what came of it? We loved each other, and we confessed it. It was a wild act on my part. I knew nothing of Isabel’s family and antecedents but what she had accidentally told me; but to a man in love, first love, what more was wanted? She bore a name that was ancient as my own. As to her fortune, I cared nothing for that. She told me it was already legally in her own power; that she was twenty‐one. I believed this, since she said it, but it required a strong effort of faith to credit that beaming young face with more than seventeen years in this cold world. Those were blissful days while we walked arm‐in‐arm through the yellowing forest, and alongside the river beyond the falls, cooing our young loves to one another, as foolish and as tender as any two Babes in the Wood. But Mr. Prendergast was getting well now, and called Isabel constantly to his side, and sternly catechised her as to what she did when she left him. He was to be down‐ stairs to‐morrow, and they were to leave Niagara in a few days, and sail for England by the next boat that left Quebec. She whispered this to me with white lips one morning, and then rushed up‐stairs to answer the call of the dragon, who was shouting to her from his open window. I waited till she came down again, and then drew her out into a favorite spot of ours at a little distance from the house.

“Isabel,” I said, “does your uncle know that we love each other?”

“Oh! no, no; he would kill me if he knew it,” she replied, speaking in a whisper, and looking up at me with an expression of terror and trust that nerved me to anything.

“What, then, are we to do? Shall I speak to him at once?” I asked.

“There is no use speaking to him; he will never let me marry you, Clide. Forgive me for making you unhappy,” she said, clasping her hands on my arm, while the big tears ran down her face. “I never ought to have let you care for me. I never ought to have let myself love you, but I could not help it; I could not help it.”

Her head fell on my shoulder, and the sobs shook the frail little figure that leaned against me with the artless confidence of a child.

“You _shall_ marry me, darling,” I cried; “no uncle that ever lived shall separate us. I swear it! We shall be married before we leave this. Trust to me to do everything; we will arrange it all before that old Turk knows or suspects anything. Promise only to trust to me entirely and to do as I ask you. Promise me, Isabel.”

She promised, placing her hand confidingly in mine.

Next morning, soon after sunrise, while Mr. Prendergast was still asleep, we two stole out to the little church where a few stray worshippers sang their hymns to the music of the waterfall, and were married by the old clergyman of the place. My man, Stanton, and the sexton were the only witnesses. It was indeed a wedding after my own heart, all done as quietly as if marrying a wife were as much an every‐day accident in life as taking a walk before breakfast. Isabel was, if possible, more delighted with the mode of proceeding than I was. I forget how she came to make the avowal, but I know it was quite spontaneous, that she hated the fuss and paraphernalia of a wedding in England as she hated a thunder‐storm; and that if she had been given her choice, she would infinitely have preferred this quiet little marriage of ours to the most magnificent display that could have been got up for her in Scotland. We were as happy as two children as we walked home together. But then came the business of telling Mr. Prendergast. Isabel declared she would rather die than enter his presence now alone; he would read her rebellious act on her face, and he would kill her. He was capable of anything when he was roused. I was not going to risk my treasure within his reach. I sat down and wrote a respectful letter, informing him that I had become the husband of his niece, and requesting his forgiveness for what might seem a violation of good faith, but which his own conscience would, I felt sure, find an excuse for in my behalf. I stated my fortune and position more accurately than I had been able to do to Isabel, who put her hand to my mouth when I attempted to speak of settlements and so forth, saying she wanted to hear nothing about my money. I now begged of Mr. Prendergast to let me know what his wishes were concerning his niece’s fortune, and pledged myself beforehand to conform to them, and prove by my conduct in this respect that money was the last consideration that had actuated me in marrying an heiress. In answer to this I received a curt line informing me that I had behaved like a scoundrel, and that, as a gentleman, Mr. Prendergast declined to meet me, and that I had better take myself off with my wife before chance threw me in his way again. Isabel was overjoyed at this unexpected issue. I was stung by the man’s insolence and his unjust accusations, but, on the whole, it was the easiest way of getting rid of him and securing myself and Isabel from his brutal temper and ungovernable violence.

We left Niagara that day. I wrote to my step‐mother, acquainting her that I was a married man, and announcing the day she might expect to see us at the Moat. I wrote for places in the next steamer, and we were fortunate enough to find two vacant ones at nearly the last moment in a splendid vessel that sailed from New York. It had occurred to me that before leaving America it would have been prudent and rational to make some inquiries concerning the landed property which my wife held in Canada; but as she did not propose this, I feared it might strike her unfavorably if I did, and suggest that her uncle’s insulting insinuations were not as unfounded as I wished her to believe. I therefore abandoned the idea, and we left the United States without my asking a single question on the subject.

The voyage homeward was delightful. Isabel formed plans for the future that sounded like songs from Arcadia, and drew a picture of our life at the Moat that looked like a vision of the Elysian fields. We stopped a week in London to extemporize a trousseau and purchase some trinkets, and then I took my wife to her Welsh home. My step‐mother gave her a gracious, if not a hearty, welcome. It was a very quiet home‐coming; nothing, indeed, could have been tamer. There were no tenantry to meet us, no rejoicings either in the village or at the house. I thought this strange, though it was strictly in accordance with the desires I had always expressed on the subject to my step‐mother. Isabel, however, was entirely satisfied, and confessed to me that she had been in a nervous flutter all the way home, fearing to find some horror in the shape of a deputation from the tenants or something awaiting us at our journey’s end.

A few days after our arrival, when I came down to breakfast alone, my step‐mother said to me, “Clide, it is time that you thought a little of business now. I think you told me that your wife’s fortune is in her own right; this is very desirable to begin with, but of course it cannot remain so. Your rights as a husband must be properly protected.”

“My wife’s affection and my confidence in her are the only security I require on that, madam,” I replied stiffly.

“The sentiment does honor to you both,” observed Mrs. de Winton, with an undertone of sarcasm that did not escape me; “but you do not expect Admiral de Winton or Sir Simon Harness to be satisfied with such a sentimental guarantee.”

“I understand you, and I respect your motives,” was my cold rejoinder; “but as I am not responsible to any one but myself for the good or bad management of myself and my property, I do not recognize any one’s right, trustee or relation, to interfere with me, and still less to interfere with my wife.”

“Who talks of interfering with your wife? You tell me she is an heiress with forty thousand pounds in the Funds and an estate in Canada. Your father’s widow and your late guardian and trustee have certainly a right to ask the whereabouts of the money and the land. Admitting that your wife be as devoted and as disinterested as you believe, is she entirely her own mistress? This tyrannical old uncle who has kept her in such bondage—how far did he or does he hold control over her fortune? For her sake as much as for your own you should put yourself in possession of these facts.”

This view of the case had not occurred to me. I saw the justice of it, and frankly said so.

“Isabel will put no obstacle in the way of a just and prudent arrangement; I am quite sure of that,” I said emphatically. “My only fear is that she should see in this horrid investigation a desire on my part to count my prize, and perhaps suspect me of having had a base, ulterior motive in marrying her; and rather than wrong myself or wound her by such a suspicion, I would sooner never see a penny of her money or an acre of her land.”

“And does your wife share these sentiments? Is she quite as indifferent about the matter as you are?” inquired my step‐mother.

“Every bit!” I answered vehemently.

“Did she tell you so?”

“Do you suppose I would ask her?”

“Ridiculous boy!” sneered my step‐mother. “But taking for granted that just at present she does share your juvenile folly and poetical want of common sense, how long will it last, do you think? A bride in her honeymoon is a very different being from a wife of a few years’ standing. She knows nothing of the value of money now; but when she finds herself the mother of a family, with daughters growing up to be married and portioned, she will awake to the value of it in a way that will astonish you. And when a few years hence she asks you for an account of her own splendid fortune, what answer will you make to her? You were too delicate to hurt her feelings by any inquiries about so insignificant a matter, so you left it to her uncle to see to it!”

“I said I was prepared to do what was necessary to protect her interests,” I replied. “I will speak to her on the subject this afternoon. What am I to do next?”

“Write to Sir Simon Harness, and beg him to fix a day to come down here; and when he has done so, you will write to the family lawyer, and request him to be here to meet him. Of course you will write to Admiral de Winton, as your father’s executor and your nearest relative now.”

“What a confounded fuss it will be!” I exclaimed impatiently, and, kicking over a footstool, I started up and began to walk up and down the room. “I wish I had married a milkmaid!”

“Don’t talk like a fool, Clide!” said my step‐mother. “I do believe your pretended delicacy and fear of hurting Isabel’s feelings are nothing but a cloak to cover your dread of a fuss!”

I was going to protest, but the door opened, and Isabel walked in.

She looked so beautiful in her pink cashmere drapery, breaking into the brown old wainscoted room like a sunbeam, that even my step‐mother was surprised into an involuntary tribute of admiration; and when my wife, coming up to her in that pretty, kitten‐like way that was so bewitching, stooped down to be kissed, my step‐mother responded quite warmly, and actually put up her hand to caress the sunny face after she had kissed it.

I felt so proud of my lovely Isabel, and so grateful to my step‐mother for this unfeigned recognition of her loveliness, that I was seized with a strong impulse to embrace them both on the spot. I restrained it, however, and we sat down to breakfast; my wife, as mistress of the house, presiding over the cups and saucers.

“Clide,” began my step‐mother (she prefaced every remark by my Christian name), as soon as Isabel had provided us respectively with tea and coffee, “what are we going to do to make Mrs. de Winton welcome amongst us? Now, don’t answer me with your usual lazy outcry about fuss. My dear,” she said, turning to Isabel, “you will have a great deal to do in the way of reforming him; and if you succeed, it will be little short of a miracle.”

“Isabel will find out my vices soon enough, without your enlightening her beforehand,” I protested. “It’s not fair to take away a man’s character without giving him a chance of redeeming it.”

“Then begin and redeem it in time,” said my step‐mother. “Here is a good opportunity. Have some people down from London to put the house in order, and then give a series of proper entertainments to introduce your wife to her new family and friends.”

“Oh! please ...” cried Isabel, pursing up her rosebud of a mouth, and joining her hands with a delicious little pantomime of fright.

“What! are you as silly as himself? Or has he spoilt you already?”

“I was ready spoilt for him, dear Mrs. de Winton. I hate being introduced; and as to refurnishing anything, I wouldn’t have it for the world. I adore old furniture!” declared Isabel.

“Old furniture is one thing, and shabby furniture is another,” observed my step‐mother, resuming the chronic rigidity of manner which Isabel’s beauty and sweetness had thawed for a moment. “If Clide had done me the honor of confiding his intentions to me in time, I certainly would have taken upon myself to make the house decently clean to receive you. I had for some time past urged on him the necessity of getting new carpets and curtains; it was not surprising he shrank from the annoyance of a few days’ hammering merely to make it habitable for _me_, but I fancied for his wife he might have undergone as much.”

“I shall be delighted to hear the hammers going for a month, if Isabel likes it,” I replied evasively.

“But I don’t like it; I hate it, Clide!” exclaimed my wife passionately.

“Well, then, you sha’n’t have it, my darling,” I said. My step‐mother sat back in her chair and washed her hands. She said nothing, but this was sufficiently suggestive.

“Have you announced your marriage to Sir Simon Harness?” she resumed after a pause.

“Not yet. I mean to write to him to‐day.”

“Who is Sir Simon Harness?” inquired Isabel.

“He was my father’s particular friend and the trustee during my minority,” I explained.

“You had better ask him to come down here for a few days to make your wife’s acquaintance,” suggested Mrs. de Winton.

“No, he sha’n’t!” broke in the angel in pink. “I don’t want to make his acquaintance. He’s a mean, disagreeable old man. Trustees always are. I hate them!”

I thought this charmingly innocent and childlike, though, it must be confessed, she put more vehemence into her manner than the case warranted; but remembering the type of trustee on which she had built her opinion of the class, I could not resent her prejudice against my old friends. My step‐mother took a less indulgent view of the _sortie_. Seeing me cast a smile of tender indulgence on the culprit, she looked at me very sternly.

“Do you mean to requite years of faithful kindness and interest in your concerns by such a gross breach of respect and common courtesy as not to invite Sir Simon Harness to your house on such an occasion as this?” she demanded.

“Isabel is mistress of her own house. I cannot insist upon her receiving any one against her will,” I replied; “but when I have explained to her what kind of man Sir Simon is, I think she will consent to make his acquaintance.”

Isabel peeped at me from behind the urn, and made a face indicative of anything but consent.

Luckily, my step‐mother did not see the little by‐play, and, taking her silence for acquiescence, she said, addressing me:

“And Admiral de Winton—of course you mean to ask him down?”

“Is that another trustee?” asked Isabel.

“Not exactly, though he often acted with Sir Simon in my affairs, being next of kin,” I said. “He was my father’s executor.”

“Executor! Why, that’s worse than a trustee! I won’t have him come here, Clide! You’re going to fill the house with horrid old men who will worry me to death. I know they will. But I won’t submit to it!”

She pushed away her cup with a sudden gesture that made the china rattle, and, flushing up scarlet, walked away from the table, and flung herself into a chair near the fire. If she had flung the tea‐pot at my head, I could not have been more taken aback. It was impossible to deny that the burst of temper was very becoming to her complexion, but ... I was conscious of a very distinct sense of disappointment. Yes, disappointment; there was no other word for it. As to my step‐mother, she looked from me to my wife, and from my wife to me. Isabel, meantime, sat trembling and excited, her eyes sparkling, her face glowing like an angry rose.

“Dearest....” I began, “really....”

“Oh! don’t,” she shrieked, and burst into a torrent of tears.

Mrs. de Winton, prompted either by delicacy or by disgust, got up and left the room, leaving me to conjure as best I could the storm that had suddenly broken out in my conjugal paradise. I was utterly at a loss to understand Isabel. She said she was inconsolable at having vexed me, but to all my entreaties and arguments would answer nothing except that she was frightened at strangers, and above all at horrid old men; and that if I loved her, I was not to introduce her to anybody, but to let us live all our lives alone in the dear old Moat. She wanted no society but mine, and surely, if I loved her, I ought not to want any but hers! This was irresistible logic to my heart; but my reason, being less infatuated, perversely refused to abide by it. There was no use at this crisis in broaching prudential arrangements as an excuse for inviting down my two friends. Such an insinuation would only have added fuel to the fire. Yet the new aspect in which my heiress‐wife was revealing herself made it clear that some such measures as my step‐mother had suggested were absolutely necessary to protect Isabel against her own folly and deplorable ignorance of life.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The storm of sobs and tears subsided by degrees. Isabel declared she was ready to make any sacrifice of her own feelings to mine; that if I liked to invite all the trustees in Lincoln’s Inn and Chancery Lane down to the Moat, she would do her best to receive them properly, so that I should not be ashamed of my wife; but of course there was an end to her happiness. Arcadia was gone. All her dreams of romantic bliss had vanished into thin air. She was after all to be nothing more than a humdrum wife with a house to look after and guests to entertain.

“O Clide, Clide! is this what you promised me?” she cried, her voice still broken with sobs. “Is this my dream? or was it only a dream, nothing but the baseless fabric of a vision?”

She clasped her hands, and, throwing back her head, fixed her eyes on the ceiling, as if the vision were disappearing in that direction, and she were straining for a last glimpse of it.

I was so spell‐bound by the extraordinary beauty that borrowed a new charm from her emotions and from the despairing tenderness of her voice and manner that I entirely lost sight of every other point in the picture. In fact, I lost my head. I was after all no more than a man, and the wisest of us is but a fool in the hands of a woman. What could I do but what I did do? Fall upon my knees and swear that she should have Arcadia back again, adjure her to build up a new vision, and, if she loved me, never to talk about baseless fabrics and such like again; and as to her sinking down into a humdrum wife, it was preposterous nonsense. She could never be anything but an archangel to me, and that.... But why do I bear witness in this wanton way to my own folly? We made up our quarrel, as all such quarrels are intended to be made up. Isabel went to her room, and I went round to the stables. I had no fancy for meeting my step‐mother just now, and I had a vague sense of something having gone wrong with me which a gallop over the downs would set right.

It was a cold February morning—bitterly cold, but bright and bracing, just the sort of day to enjoy a ride across country; so as soon as I was out of the park I set spurs to my horse and galloped away, taking flying leaps over everything, hurdle, and ditch, and brook, as if the hounds were ahead, and my life staked on being in at the death. After five miles of this going‐in‐for‐the‐Derby pace I drew rein at the foot of a hill, and walked my horse to the top. The hard riding had made him so hot that his flanks smoked like a steam‐engine, and sent up clouds of vapor that enveloped me in a tepid bath; but I did not feel that the violent exercise had produced any effect on myself. I was not clear as to the nature of the effect I had expected, and still less could I analyze the cause that demanded it. Something was wrong somewhere. I looked about me vacantly, persistently, as men do when they feel they ought to look within themselves for the object of their search, and dare not.

I cast my eyes to the sky. It was as blue as liquid sapphire, and as cloudless. But it said nothing to me. The river winding round the foot of the wooded hill was ice‐bound and silent as death. The trees stood up naked and grim against the blue, like skeleton giants, and whispered nothing. There was no rustle of leafy tongues. They were dead and gone down into the dumb sod. There was no ripple of tiny cascades; no buzzing of insects holding council in the grass that grew high and free on the hill‐side; no song amongst the birds. Nothing spoke to me. Everything was dumb. Everything was cold. Everything was a disappointment. I began to whistle. The sound of my own voice echoed merrily through the wood, but it woke no responsive note from linnet or blackbird or robin. Silence everywhere.

“What can it mean?” I said aloud, the apostrophe not being addressed to the birds that could sing, and would not sing, but to my own perplexity concerning the scene at the breakfast‐table. There was something out of all reason in the passionate energy Isabel had displayed. Excuse it as my heart and my vanity would on the ground of a jealous love that shrank from any intrusion on our solitude capable of distracting my thoughts from her, which she chiefly urged as her motive of dislike to my two friends’ visit, I could not see it in a satisfactory light. Again, it was simply preposterous that a girl of one‐and‐twenty, who had seen even as little of the world as Isabel had, could be so morbidly shy as to cry herself into hysterics at the mere idea of being introduced to two old gentlemen in her own house. There was some motive in the background which it behooved me for my own peace of mind to discover.

Removed from the magnetic influence of her beauty, and her distress, and her pretty, endearing ways, I was able to look back dispassionately at the morning’s entertainment; and the more I looked at it, the less I liked it. The undisciplined outburst of temper which revealed to me the painful fact that Socrates was henceforth to be my model, and patience under an inevitable evil the sustained effort of my life, was in itself no small matter for regret. But this, though the most tangible of my cares, was not the one that chiefly possessed me. No; I could have signed away every penny of my wife’s fortune on the spot to feel sure that it had been a genuine outbreak of mere temper; but it was borne in on me, not by circumstantial, but by strong internal evidence that she was actuated by _fear_. Fear of whom? Of what? What could her young life have done, or suffered, or known, that she should be afraid? Her uncle had been very tyrannical, and was now very much incensed with her on account of her marriage. But she had nothing to fear from him now. He might storm and fume, but she was out of his reach; he could not hurt her. Besides, she had not hinted at any fear of malice or vengeance on his part as a reason for shunning the society or acquaintance of other men. Who or what was she afraid of? “She hated fuss, and I promised her this and that and the other.”

Nonsense! Two old friends of my father’s sleeping a night or two in the house did not constitute a fuss. “She hated trustees; they were always....” Stop! No; I’m a fool and a brute to wrong the child by such a thought. Besides, I never hinted, even indirectly, at anything like inquiries and settlements. I avoided the subject scrupulously. No; there could be nothing in that.

The fact is, the dear child is in love with me, and wants to play at Romeo and Juliet for the rest of her life; and here am I, like a born idiot, making a mountain out of a mole‐hill, instead of blessing my stars for my luck. This, by a natural train of thought, led me to picture her standing on the balcony by moonlight, and myself in the garden below looking up and worshipping.

“What a distracting Juliet she would have made!” I exclaimed aloud, carried away by my imagination. Then—I can’t for the life of me tell why—but I remembered how she had looked a while ago with her hands clasped and her head thrown back, and how she had suddenly checked her passionate complaint to assume the rapt attitude, the _pose_ of picturesque despair, and how very melodramatic the effect had been. If it had not been the purest nature, it would have been the most finished piece of acting that ever drew down the house to a Siddons or a Kemble. But it _was_ pure nature. Then why do I start, and why does my heart begin to thump against my coat in this inexplicable way? Pshaw! Because I am a fool. I set spurs to my horse, and galloped home, whistling defiantly all the way.

My wife was watching for me, Juliet fashion, from the window of her turret chamber, and, as soon as she caught sight of my horse entering the park, flew down to meet me in the hall.

“Why did you stay away so long, Clide? Mrs. de Winton ‘sent me her compliments to know if I wouldn’t like to go and see the dairy’; but I didn’t like. I was afraid it was just an excuse to get me all to herself and scold me. I knew I was naughty this morning, and you may scold me as much as you like; but I won’t be scolded by anybody else.” And nestling up to me in her childlike way, Isabel laid her cheek on my shoulder, and looked up at me with two eyes that would have melted a judge and won from any twelve men in England an unhesitating verdict of—innocent as a babe unborn. Linking her arm in mine, and whispering all the way as if we were a pair of lovers stealing a clandestine interview, she carried me off to her boudoir. Then, when we were safe in the room, she turned the key in the door, and began to skip and dance about like an emancipated kitten, giving me chase round the room, clapping hands and laughing and singing in frantic merriment. We kept up this impromptu game of puss‐in‐the‐corner till she was fairly tired out and allowed herself to be taken prisoner and held in durance vile on my knee, while she panted for breath, and shook back her hair, that had slipped from its imprisoning pins, and fell in long, black ripples down her shoulders. Thinking the moment opportune, “Now, my darling,” I said, “let us have a quiet little talk together. How are we to make it straight with the dowager? It won’t do to have her suspect my dear little dove of not being as good and as sweet‐tempered as I know her to be, and I’m afraid that silly pout at breakfast has put you in a false light with her.”

Isabel said nothing for a moment, but went on shaking her curls.

“Do you wish me to go and beg her pardon?” she said at last. “I will, if you like, Clide.”

“My angel! no. I doubt the wisdom of that,” I replied, laughing at the _naïveté_ of the proposal. “It would be better if we took some more practical means of pacifying her. Suppose we give in about asking down these two old friends of mine?”

“Very well. I will do anything you like, Clide,” she answered indifferently, rolling a curl on her two fingers, and not looking up at me.

“The admiral is the jolliest old tar in the world,” I continued, “and will never talk a word of politics or business, or anything you don’t care about; and as to Sir Simon, my only fear is that you will fall in love with him, and some fine morning elope after him, or with him if he stays long enough. He’s the most unmerciful lady‐killer in the three kingdoms.”

“Is he?”

This was said in a sort of absent way, as if she had been only listening with one ear to what I was saying; all her thoughts were intent on the curling operation, that was again recommenced and completed for the tenth time.

“Then shall I tell Mrs. de Winton that we will ask them both for Wednesday—till Saturday, say? If you like them, it s very easy to renew the invitation.”

“Of course,” assented Isabel, and began a fresh curl.

“How proud I shall be introducing my wife!” I said, pushing back the heavy veil of hair that partly hid her face from me.

She shook it down again, not roughly, but there was a touch of impatience in the movement that surprised me. I thought it best, however, not to seem to notice it. Suddenly she started from my knee, flew to the piano—I had ordered a Cottage Pleyel for her private use—and broke out into a gush of song that made the air literally thrill with melody. Passionate, tender, angry, and entreating by turns, her voice poured out the florid Italian music with the full‐throated carol of a thrush. Singing was as natural to her as speaking. In fact, she appeared to find it an easier medium of emotion, whether of pain or pleasure, than speech; and when she was excited, her first impulse was to break out in thrills and cadences just as a bird might do. Once started, she could go on for ever. I sat a full hour this morning listening to her running through a _repertoire_ of varied power and beauty. Schubert, Rossini, Beethoven, Verdi—she was at home in every school, and her rich soprano voice adapted itself to each as if that one had been her sole and special study. But while I sat there drinking in the intense delight, my mind divided between it and the beauty of her face, some sudden expression of the latter every now and then startled me. The wonderful mobility of her features reflected every changing emotion of the music with a responsive fidelity which it is impossible to describe. I suppose it was the absence of the artistic instinct in me, combined with a total ignorance of the emotional law of music, that made this appear to me unnatural, and filled me with a sudden and painful misgiving as to the genuine truthfulness of Isabel’s nature. Was it possible to feign so perfectly, and to be at the same time thoroughly truthful?

But I was cut short in my perplexing reflections by the luncheon‐bell, that sounded a vigorous carillon at the foot of the stairs leading up to my wife’s boudoir. She shut the piano quickly, and, passing her arm through mine, marshalled me down to the dining‐room, humming the “Valse de Venzano” all the way.

I observed casually during lunch that we had fixed on Wednesday to have Sir Simon and the admiral down to the Moat. Mrs. de Winton slowly elevated her eyebrows, but gave no articulate indication of surprise.

I did not look at Isabel while I made this announcement, but when, a moment after, I stole a glance at her, she was as pale as the table‐cloth. Instantaneously I grew a shade paler. I felt I did. My heart stood still. What in the name of wonder was behind this dislike of hers to see these two men? There was a mystery somewhere. She was afraid of somebody or something. At any and every cost I must find it out.

To Be Continued.

Religion And State In Our Republic.

The great questions which concern the relation of the state to the church have already been partially treated of in this magazine. The vast importance of the subject, however, demands that we should return to it once more, and will serve as a sufficient excuse if we even repeat many things which have already been said in previous articles. The relation which the state ought to have to the church according to sound principles of philosophy, the relation which it is intended to have according to the principles of the Constitution of this republic, the relation which it ought to have according to the principles of the canon law and theology of the Catholic Church, and the bearing of these various questions severally toward each other, both in their theoretical and practical import, make up together a complex topic which is under a perpetual and ardent discussion, and which is felt by all parties to involve momentous issues. We have no unwillingness to express fully and unreservedly all our convictions and opinions upon any of the several parts of this question. It is undoubtedly much desired by many who are hostile to the Catholic religion or suspicious of it, on account of its bearing upon the science of politics, that competent persons should make such full explanations of the real and genuine principles by which all sound and thoroughly‐instructed Catholics of the present time in our own country, as well as elsewhere, are and will be guided. We see no reason why their desire should not be gratified, but, on the contrary, every motive and reason worthy of having any weight with a sincere and courageous advocate of the Catholic cause, why the discussion should be brought as speedily and directly as possible upon the merits of the case fully exposed.

The leaders of the Catholic body, and, in due measure, the great body itself, are credited by many persons with certain views and intentions concerning the institutions, laws, and political destinies of this republic which necessarily cause them to regard the increase of our numbers and the extension of our influence in the nation with alarm. Such persons would like to know what we would really undertake to do with this republic, if we had the power to do what we pleased. We are willing to let them know precisely what our opinion about the matter is, and to use our best endeavors to explain what those principles of the Catholic Church are which must form the conviction of every one of her devoted and instructed members upon the right and just method of applying the divine law to the various conditions in which a state may exist; from that in which the church is at her lowest point of depression, to that in which she is at the summit of her influence. In our own case, as citizens of the United States, the manner in which Catholic principles require us to act, as voters, judges, legislators, with that degree of influence we now have, and in which the same principles would require us to act if we were equal or superior in number and influence to non‐Catholics, if we were in the majority, or if we were practically the whole people, is a topic upon which we think it desirable that all should be enlightened, as well those who are members of the church as those who are aliens from her fold. Stated in an abstract form, the question is, What is the ideal Christian state when actualized in its perfection, and what is the difference between that state and the one which is the best practically in our real circumstances?

In discussing this theme we must beg the indulgence of our readers if we begin at a considerable apparent distance from the practical point we intend to come at eventually. We have to lay down some general principles about government, and to make some explanations about the American Constitution, before we can grapple with the main difficulty. In our opinion, many maxims usually taken for granted by speakers, writers, and by their blind followers, in treating of political constitutions, and specially of our own, are sheer assumptions which will not bear examination. Such are, that in general, the spiritual and temporal orders are in their nature and ought to be kept separate from each other, and are really separated in our own political constitution. Those sophistical maxims have been combated by Dr. Brownson so frequently and victoriously that we can scarcely hope to produce any new arguments or more lucid expositions to convince those whom he has not been able to satisfy. Sometimes, however, a sound from an unexpected quarter startles the attention which has remained sluggishly insensible to a louder and more continuous booming to which it has been accustomed for a long time. We trust, therefore, that the authority of a great foreign writer, who is a Protestant withal, and one of the most celebrated historians of the age, will claim some little deference from those who may refuse it to any one of ourselves. And we accordingly resort to Prof. Leo, of Halle, rather than to any Catholic author, for an exposition of the general relation of the state to the church, and of the particular form of that relationship in the United States.

In the introduction to his great work, _Lehrbuch der Universalgeschichte_, Leo develops with masterly force of reasoning the fundamental principle upon which his entire work is constructed, and which is, in truth, the architectonic law of the history of the human race. The history of mankind is the evolution in successive and progressive stages of the grand plan of God to conduct the human race to its prefixed supernatural end of beatitude in God through the incarnation of the Word. The organization of the various portions of the human race in distinct nations, with their laws, political institutions, and governments, is subordinated to this end, and therefore subordinated to that higher and more universal organization in which all are included, and which dominates over all—the church. The nations which have been broken off from the church which God established from the foundation of the world for all mankind, have been broken off through sin, revolt against God, defection from the movement of the human race on the line marked out by the Creator towards its end and destiny. Yet, even in this defection, they derive all their constitutive and organic principles and forces from their previous union with the divine society or church, and are formed by religious ideas which are merely perverted, corrupted, travestied imitations of the revealed dogmas which their forefathers had received. All true reform, restoration, renovation, and improvement must be effected by a return to unity, a reincorporation into the church, and a reflux of organic life from the centre into the chilled and deadened members.

“No religion can unfold itself among men, extend itself, or maintain its existence, without social relations existing between men themselves. Every religion presupposes a state originating together with itself or already previously formed; but it is equally true that no state is conceivable without a religion, for every state includes a system of moral conceptions, and is itself a system and manifestation of moral conceptions; and a system of moral conceptions without a religious force underlying it is something unthinkable.”

Here we have the statement of the universal principle that the religious and political orders, the spiritual and the temporal, or, otherwise, church and state, are, like soul and body, though distinct, inseparable in living, organized humanity. The author then goes on to prove the truth of his assertion by the example of our own republic, apparently the most notable exception to his rule, and an instance sufficient to disprove to most men of modern habits of thought the universality of the rule as an organic principle of society.

“In appearance, some particular religion may leave the state free to shift for itself or make itself free from it, and some particular state act in the same way toward religion; but this is only in appearance, for when, for example, the North American state proclaims that the religious confession is a matter of indifference in respect to its existence, it proceeds on the assumption that there could not be any religious confession, except such an one as should _include in itself that which constitutes its own proper religious force_. Just suppose that a religion like that of the Assassins or Robber sects of the East should make its appearance in North America, and you would speedily see how the entire body politic would be violently agitated by efforts to cast out this foreign religious force, and to annihilate it within its own precinct. You would see then at once that the North American state, in spite of all its contrary assurances, has its own religion, and a state religion at that, as the collision of some of the North American states with the Mormons has already amply proved. This North American religion of state only avoids assuming the name and aspect of a religion or an ecclesiastical organization, and manifests itself rather altogether in the ethical institutions of the state as they are for the time being, and consequently permits a most extraordinary variety of religious doctrines and churches to exist alongside of the state, yet only under the tacit condition that they all acknowledge that which is the religious force of the state as their own. If, therefore, the North American state proclaims that religion is an indifferent matter, it proceeds from an absurd imagination that there cannot be any religion which does not include in itself that particular religious force which its own moral subsistence has need of. In point of fact, religion and the state form _one_ ethical whole, precisely as in individual men the soul remains an inseparable whole, although we separately consider particular faces of its exterior surface as special faculties—understanding, will, etc. Religion and state are one single ethical whole, which, although divided into distinct members, and apparently separated in these, must always be united in one germinating point and a common vital root.”(151)

A singular corroboration of the doctrine of Leo in its application to the United States is furnished by the following extract from the _New York Herald_. If it seem to any one singular that we cite the _Herald_ on such a question, it will cease to appear so when we explain our reason for doing it. This well‐known paper is remarkable for a certain tact and sagacity in divining and expressing the instinctive dictates of American common‐sense upon questions which concern practical, temporal interests. We cite it, therefore, in this instance, as a proof of the fact that the public sensibility is stirred by any practical collision of a foreign and hostile religious force with the latent religious force underlying our own legislation, just as Leo says it must be. Theories and phrases are disregarded; and the mouth‐piece of popular opinion strikes at once, promptly and surely, upon the very head of the nail, and drives it home. It is very singular to see, in the extract we are about to cite, how the instinct of self‐interest and self‐preservation evolves by a short process the same conclusion which the philosopher establishes as the result of long study and thought. Here is the extract in full, with some passages marked in italics by our own hand, to which we wish to call special attention, as containing the nucleus of the whole matter, and agreeing almost verbally with the language we have quoted from Dr. Leo:

“Brigham Young And Polygamy—Will The Prophet Take Sensible Advice?

“Judge Trumbull, United States senator from Illinois, has just had a conversation with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, which, as reported, is of more than ordinary significance and importance. It seems that as the judge was taking leave of Young, the latter remarked that on returning to Congress he (the judge) might hear of some persons—obnoxious federal officials—being put out of the Territory, and, if done, he might be sure it would be for just and good reasons. Judge Trumbull replied by requesting Young, before he took any step of that kind, to make known his grievances to President Grant, remarking that the President was a just man, intending to do justice to all, but that he would not permit a violation of law to go unpunished, and adding that it would ‘not be safe to molest public officers in the discharge of their duties.’ The judge then asked Young if he promised obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the Union. The latter replied that he would adhere to the Union, but that there was ‘one enactment of Congress which the Mormons would not obey,’ namely, the one forbidding polygamy.

“Here, then, is the whole Mormon question in a nutshell—the positive declaration on the part of the Mormon leader that federal officers, sent to Utah, unless acceptable to himself, should be banished the Territory, and that there was at least one law of Congress he positively refuses to acknowledge or obey. Now, what is the plain duty of the national government in the face of these revolutionary averments? It is to see that the enactments of Congress are enforced _without respect to persons or religions_, and that the representatives of the federal government legally appointed for that purpose shall be upheld and protected, if it be necessary to employ the whole power of the nation. This Mormon matter demands decisive action on the part of the administration. President Grant has already declared his purpose of enforcing the laws impartially, even the most obnoxious, and there is no good reason why the Mormons should be exempted from the operations of this policy. The fact is, Brigham Young and his satellites have been treated with too much leniency and good‐nature by the United States government ever since they settled upon the national domain, and whatever they have done for the improvement of the wilderness in which they settled they have done for their own benefit, and have reaped the rewards of their industry and frugality. Among the many other settlements that have sprung up in the great West and grown into populous cities and States since the Mormon hegira from Nauvoo, where can one be shown to have defied the United States government, and to have treated its laws and its public officials with the contempt and insolence the Mormons have? On the contrary, among the most loyal States in the Union, and among those which sent into the field the greatest armies during the struggle for our national existence, are States in which the earlier pioneers had to undergo as many perils, hardships, and privations in organizing their communities, in subduing the forests and the savage, and in implanting the seeds of civil and religious liberty and constitutional law, as ever the Mormons did in erecting their Salt Lake empire, and in establishing in the heart of the nation’s public domain _a religious organization the corner‐stone of which is a dogma abhorrent to modern civilisation and in violation of all the received rules of decent social and domestic life and society_. Therefore the claims of these impertinent and rebellious Mormon squatters for immunity from the operations of the general laws of the country, on account of the service they have rendered in improving a barren waste, but more properly in making fortunes for themselves out of the Gentiles and the government, are idle and ridiculous. Greater hardships and more personal sacrifices, we repeat, have been undergone by settlers in other tracts of territory, now become great and prosperous States, respecting the laws and fighting for the national flag, than ever these Mormon adventurers encountered from the time when old Joe Smith went into the tablet business, after the manner of Moses, and founded the Mormon sect, up to the moment of the conversation Brigham Young held with Senator Trumbull, as related above. They have no claims for political sympathy, for immunity from legal responsibilities, nor for hardly the consideration paid to other religious communities; for the odor of their sanctity is foul, and _their moral practices are unlike those of all modern Christians_. We say, therefore, to Brigham Young and his deluded followers, that they had better accept the sensible advice of Judge Trumbull, consult with President Grant before they proceed to extremities, _accept the laws of Congress in regard to polygamy, as well as in regard to everything else they are required to, and either haul in their rebellious horns or prepare to pack up their baggage for a tramp to some distant country outside the boundaries of the United States_. _You must obey the law, Prophet Brigham, or you must march. Uncle Sam has stood your nonsense long enough. He will tolerate it no longer._”

What is it which is thus asserted by a paper always considered as advocating the most extreme modern notions respecting religious liberty? It is that there is something in our civilization, our received rules of morality, our lawful principles and acts of administration, intolerant of certain religious dogmas and tending to exclude them. This latent something is what Leo calls our state religion, the religious basis of our institutions and laws, of our whole political and social fabric.

The first point we wish to come at, in our evolution of the whole question under discussion, is, what is this religious basis or fundamental religious law, essentially and precisely? According to Leo and excellent authors of our own, it is the moral law, so far as that law governs political and social relations. Whatever is _contra bonos mores_ is prohibited and excluded by it, and nothing more. But this is too general. We are obliged to ask what moral law, what standard or criterion of good or bad morals, is tacitly understood? To this we reply that, in our opinion, it is the Christian law, as embodied in the common and statute laws under which we have been living since the origin of our nation. If we ask, further, what fixes and determines this Christian law—that is, what criterion determines that which is really prescribed or forbidden by this law—we can assign nothing more definite and precise than the common and general conscience of the sovereign people, as this exercises its controlling power through legislative and judicial enactments and decisions. It is therefore not an unchangeable quantity, but variable and varying in the different laws of the distinct States, and in the different laws of separate epochs which are the result of the change for better or worse which takes place in the moral sense of the community. We cannot enumerate a definite number of moral canons forming our state religion in every part of the country during every period of its history. But we can, at any one time, designate a certain number of things required, permitted, or forbidden by our state code of morals, without respect to the doctrines of any particular religious body. Whatever religious doctrine professed by any set of men contradicts any part of this code, although it may be maintained and advocated theoretically with impunity so long as this can be allowed without immediate danger of inciting to an open violation of the laws, cannot be reduced to practice without bringing the offending parties within the coercive jurisdiction of the courts of justice. A Mahometan or a Mormon will be allowed to advocate in speech or writing the claims of Mahomet or Joe Smith as the great prophet of God, and to defend polygamy as a divine institution; but if he attempts to keep a harem, the law will condemn the act, and will punish it, at least to a certain extent, by inflicting legal disabilities on every one of his wives and children who is not regarded as legitimate by the statutes of the State where he lives. Any enthusiast may give himself out as an inspired prophet; but if he is directed by his fancied revelations to kill some one, to set up a kingdom for himself, or to undertake anything else against the laws, the laws will avenge themselves without regard to his liberty of conscience or his interior conviction that he is executing the commands of God. A very piquant and characteristic expression of this principle was once given by General Jackson. After the capture of the Indian chief Black Hawk and his adviser, the Prophet, an interview took place between the warlike president and these dusky potentates of the forest. The president demanded of the chief an account of the reasons and motives which had led him to make war on the United States. The crestfallen warrior laid all the blame on the Prophet, who was in turn subjected to the stern glance and imperious demand of the formidable old general. Quailing and abject beneath the superior moral force of the great white chief, the trembling Prophet excused himself by saying that he had been deceived by what he thought was the voice of the Great Spirit, but which was only the whispering of his own mind. Upon this the old general, gathering up all the dignity and force of his character into his brow and attitude, and raising his voice to a tone of thunder, turned upon the poor Prophet, and anathematized him with this terrible dogmatic decree: “If you ever again mistake the hallucinations of your disordered imagination for the inspirations of the Divine Spirit, by the Eternal! I will send you where it will be for ever impossible for you to repeat the mistake!” Our chief magistrate spoke according to the written and unwritten law of our constitutions and our traditions. There is a certain point beyond which the practical carrying out of opinions or beliefs, whatever claim they may make to be derived from a superhuman source, will be resisted by the entire coercive and penal force of the law. There are and must be certain inherent principles in our laws, whether these are vague or definite, variable or fixed, which determine this point of physical resistance to liberty of conscience or liberty of religion. These constitute our state religion, which claims for itself a legal infallibility, as exacting and unyielding as that of the Holy See, so far as outward submission and obedience are concerned.

We come now at our immediate question, namely, the attitude of the Catholic religion towards this state religion; and if we are able to designate and define this accurately, we are able by logical consequence to conclude precisely what degree of agreement or opposition is contained in the essence of Catholic and of American principles respectively to each other. We intend to meet this question fairly and squarely, without trying to twist either the one or the other set of principles, or to invent a medium of compromise between them. We take the Catholic principles as they are authoritatively promulgated by the supreme authority in the church, the Roman Pontiff, particularly as contained in the encyclical _Quanta Cura_, with its appended Syllabus, and as they are taught and explained by the most approved authors in canon law. These definitions and expositions alone have authority in the church, and these alone have any weight or significance in the minds of thinking men who are not members of the church, but are more or less positively hostile to her extension in our country. Private versions or modifications of Catholicity count for nothing, for they are merely the theories of individuals, and will have no influence over the real development of the church, in so far as they disagree by excess or defect with her authoritative teaching. For ourselves, we are purely and simply Catholic, and profess an unreserved allegiance to the church which takes precedence of, and gives the rule to, our allegiance to the state. If allegiance to the church demanded of us opposition to political principles adopted by our civil government, or disobedience to any laws which were impious and immoral, we should not hesitate to obey the church and God. We should either keep silence and avoid all discussion of the subject, or else speak out frankly in condemnation of our laws and institutions, if we believed them to be anti‐ Christian or, which is the same thing, anti‐Catholic in their principles.

We do not try and judge Catholic principles and laws by the criterion of the American idea, as it is called, nor do we justify and vindicate these principles on the ground that they are in harmony with, or reconcilable to, the maxims and ideas upon which our political fabric is based. We aim at making an exposition of the case as it really is; and if we take a view of it favorable to our American political order, it is for the sake of justifying that order, and proving both to our own adherents and to our opponents that our duty to God does not require us to make war on it, so that all the arguments and motives for creating a conflict on the political arena may fall to the ground, and the battle‐field be restricted to the fair, open ground of theological polemics.

What is it, then, which furnishes to a certain set of violent enemies of the Catholic Church in this country a pretext for making the issue between Catholic and Protestant principles a political one, and inclines a great number of the mass of the people to believe or suspect that this pretext is valid? The newspapers, publications, and speeches which have been giving utterance to the sentiments of those who dread and oppose the spread of our religion, ever since it began to show signs of vitality and growth in this country, furnish the answer. The pretext is that all Catholics who thoroughly understand and are loyal to the principles of their religion wish to change or overthrow the republic, and substitute for it a political order fundamentally different; and that, if they ever become strong enough, they will do what they can to carry out their design. Is there any truth in this pretext? We will express our own convictions on the matter as fully and clearly as possible, and leave them to exert what influence they may upon those really sincere and intelligent persons who may honor us with their attention.

In the first place, as to the republican form and constitution of our government. There is no doubt a difference of opinion among our clergy and intelligent laymen in regard to the abstract question what form of government is the most excellent and perfect. In regard to this subject, it is a part of our American liberty that we should be free to form and express our own opinions, and there is undoubtedly a diversity of opinions regarding it among non‐Catholics, as well as among ourselves. It is certain that many of our bishops, clergy, and educated laymen have a very decided preference for the republican form of government, where it can be established under conditions favorable to order, stability, and success. And as to the mass of our people, they have suffered so much from tyranny and oppression that they are inclined to go to the extreme left rather than the extreme right in all questions of political authority and liberty. If we look at the question closely, we shall see that the difference of opinion which may exist in regard to the form of government among those who hold to the divine institution of the state, and the divine sanction to political authority and law, is really not concerning essentials. S. Thomas teaches that the best form of government is one which combines the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements in just proportions. Bellarmine maintains that absolute monarchy is ideally the most perfect form of government, but that, considering the actual state of men, the mixed form is the best in practice. It is our opinion that very few men among the leading classes in the Catholic Church could be found, either in this country or in Europe, who would not agree with the second member of Cardinal Bellarmine’s proposition. This is quite enough for the justification of the governmental order established by our constitutions and laws in our United States. We have the monarchical principle in our president, and governors, and the mayors of cities. We have the aristocratic in the legislators, judges, and magistrates. The existence of the democratic element need not be proved. The difference between our monarchy and aristocracy and those which are hereditary is only that ours is elective, and the difference between them and certain others which are elective is that our election is only for a certain term and by a popular vote. The Pope is an elective monarch. The governing aristocracy of Belgium is elective. The essential principle of the mixed government is simply a stable and legitimate order, under which the monarchy, aristocracy and democracy are created and sustained in the regular exercise of certain functions of government. Catholics are therefore bound by their own principles to recognize the political order in the country as lawful, and to give it their allegiance. Moreover, without any question, apart from singular and individual opinions which Catholics as well as Protestants may entertain, the Catholics of this country are agreed in the conviction that the republican institutions of the United States are the best and the only possible ones for our own country. They have no desire to subvert them, and there has never been any conspiracy against them, except in the malicious or deluded brains of fanatical anti‐Catholic writers and speakers and of the crowd which they have duped. Genuine Catholics will never conspire against our government and laws, but will always be true and loyal American citizens. If the majority of the people or the whole people were to become Catholics, they would not use their power to subvert our American institutions, or substitute for them those of any European nation. On the contrary, nothing could happen which would secure the perpetuity of the republic and promote its political prosperity and glory with anything like the influence which the Catholic religion would exercise in producing such desirable results. The dangers we have to apprehend come from the sectarian divisions which waste and neutralize the religious sentiment and force of the country, from infidelity and radicalism, from vice and immorality, from secret societies, from public and private corruption and profligacy, from swindling and maladministration in high quarters, from principles akin to those of the conspirators of Europe, from detestable books like _Lothair_, atheistical magazines and unprincipled newspapers—evils for which the Catholic Church alone can furnish a remedy.

Another part of the subject is worthy of much more serious consideration, and requires far more elucidation in order to be presented in its true light. This relates, not to the outward form of the government, but to its inward spirit; to the scope and quality of the legislation, and not to the manner of designating the legislators or judges. All forms of government are lawful before the church, whether absolute monarchies or republics. It is evident that a republic may be governed in perfect accordance with Catholic principles, and that an empire may be governed in complete discordance with the same. A sensible man would not, therefore, be likely to consider the form of our government as the object which demands his particular solicitude in view of the progress of the Catholic religion. He would consider, rather, that the gist of the matter lay in the relation of Catholic principles to that which we have called, after Leo, the state religion. If we are correct in our preliminary statements, the Catholic religion always tends to infuse itself into the state in which it exists, and succeeds as soon as it has become the governing moral force which constitutes the soul of the body politic. Now, what is the relation of the Catholic religion to the actual state religion in our country, and, when they come strongly in contact, what degree of struggle will ensue between them, and what amount of change would be produced by the predominance of the Catholic force?

In the first place, let us consider the case in reference to those things which the Catholic conscience positively enjoins or positively prohibits. In every case of this kind a Catholic must obey his conscience; and if he is subject to a civil law which requires him to violate it, he must die rather than submit. Formerly we have had to make this passive resistance to laws existing in the American colonies; and in some cases—as, for instance, in regard to certain oppressive laws passed in the State of Missouri, it has been necessary to resist some state laws. On the whole, however, we may say that our laws do not put the Catholic citizen into the alternative of incurring a penalty from either the human or the divine law. This part of the case can be therefore dismissed as not practical.

In the second place, we have to consider those things which are the rights and privileges of the Catholic conscience, but which do not concern its indispensable obligations. In regard to these things, a Catholic must obey the law, and he must refrain from all violent and seditious conduct. He must submit to the abridgment of his rights and liberties so long as he cannot obtain their free possession and use by lawful means. But, under our free institutions, it is the right of the Catholic citizen, by argument, influence, and voting, to secure as much as possible of his just religious liberty without prejudice to the natural or civil rights of others. Therefore, as a matter of course, whenever Catholics obtain sufficient power to command a majority of votes, they will, if they act on Catholic principles, demand and obtain all their rights and full equality before the law with other citizens. For instance, in regard to schools, prisons, hospitals, ships of war, fortresses, etc., they will secure the complete right of Catholics in these places to practise their religion and to be free from the interference of non‐Catholic religious teachers appointed by the state.

But what would be the action of Catholics, if they should ever become the majority, in regard to requiring or prohibiting by law those things in which the Catholic conscience differs from the Protestant and non‐Catholic standard of right and wrong? It is always necessary in such a case for all parties to exercise the greatest forbearance, moderation, and fairness toward one another, in order that these questions should have a peaceable solution. Therefore those violent and fanatical or selfish demagogues, both clerical and lay, who seek to exasperate the non‐Catholic citizens of this country against their Catholic fellow‐citizens, are the most dangerous enemies of the public peace. We appeal to all candid, impartial, intelligent American citizens to say who are they who seek to fan the embers of strife into a flame; are they Catholic leaders, or are they the chiefs and orators of a violent, sectarian, anti‐Catholic party? Our Catholic citizens, if fairly treated, will always respect the rights of their fellow‐citizens. They will never take part in despoiling churches, societies, colleges, or other institutions of their property or chartered privileges, as radicals and infidels most assuredly will, so far as they have any power. Catholics will not do anything of this sort, even in case they should in certain States become an overwhelming majority. They will never seek to tyrannize over their fellow‐citizens, to establish their religion by force, or to compel any one to do those things which are required only by the Catholic conscience. The difficulty lies chiefly in respect to those laws which forbid certain things as contrary to the divine law. The civil code consists chiefly of laws prohibiting crimes against the moral law, and annexing penalties to the commission of them. The law must therefore have some ethical standard of right and wrong, and must be based on some interpretation of the divine law, or, in a Christian state, of the Christian law. Now, if the interpretation of the Christian law of morals held by one large portion of the community differs from that of another large portion, what is to be done? This is the precise question which we are seeking to answer in reference to the Catholic and non‐ Catholic portions of the community in any State where the former should be in the preponderance. The case of divorce and marriage is one precisely in point, and the most important and practical of all others which could be mentioned. Let us suppose, then, that the reformation of the marriage code were to come up before a legislature in which the majority were Catholics, under the leadership of sound jurists who were also strictly conscientious in fulfilling their duty of obedience to the church. Would they make the canon law also civil law _in globo_, without regard to the opinions or wishes of the minority? We think not. In our view of the case, the right and the wise thing to do would be to bring the law back to the condition in which it was during the earlier and better period of our existence as a people, in so far as the assent of the whole people could be secured with a moral unanimity. As for the rest, it would be altogether in accordance with Catholic precedents and Catholic principles not to legislate at all, but to leave the church and the other religious bodies to exert their moral influence over their own members.(152)

If we suppose the entire people of the United States to become a Catholic people, we must suppose, as a matter of course, that the entire law of the Catholic Church, in so far as it is an ethical code, becomes _per se_ the sovereign law of the collective people. This follows by a rigorous deduction from the principles we have laid down respecting the religion of the state. The religion of the state, as we have seen, is its body of ethical principles. This body of principles came by tradition from the Christian teaching which created European civilization. It is, in a vague and general sense, the Christian law. It is good so far as it goes, and in harmony with Catholic principles. But it is imperfect and liable to change, for the want of a competent tribunal to pronounce upon its true, genuine sense in disputed cases. This is seen in the instance of marriage, there being in courts and legislatures no right or power to decide from the New Testament or any other source what the divine or Christian law really prescribes. Let the collective conscience of the country become Catholic, and it at once, without changing the fundamental principle of our organic law, obtains an infallible and supreme interpretation of that law which raises it to the standard of ideal perfection. It becomes a perfect Christian republic, passing under the control of a higher law in all that is comprised within the sphere of ethical obligation, but retaining political, civil, and individual liberty in all other respects, guarded by more powerful sanctions than it ever before possessed.

Do our fellow‐citizens who are not Catholics think it possible that this will ever take place? We suppose not. Nor have Catholics any certain grounds for expecting it, whatever they may hope from the power and grace of Almighty God. There is no reason, therefore, for making a controversy about what the Catholic Church would do in the United States if the whole people were her docile children. The question of real importance relates to the action which Catholics ought to take, and probably will take, as one factor of greater or less power in the political community. Our aim in discussing topics of this kind is, first, to animate Catholics to a manly and honorable determination to secure their own equal rights, and to obey strictly their conscience in all their political and civil relations. It is, in the next place, to persuade our fellow‐citizens that conscience and obedience to the teaching of the Catholic Church do not require or permit Catholics to make an aggressive party, to disturb the peace of the commonwealth, to subvert our laws or liberties, or to invade the rights of our fellow‐citizens, and seek the opportunity of establishing the supremacy of the Catholic religion by violent and forcible means. We have no expectation of convincing, conciliating, or silencing the greater portion of our active opponents. We have not the slightest hope of seeing them desist from their utterly unfair and fallacious method of conducting the controversy between us. Their only chance of success lies in sophistry, artifice, appeals to prejudice, ignorance, and passion, and the evasion of all serious argument. We have, however, great hopes of gaining more and more the hearing, the attention, and the confidence of that vast body of thinking and reading Americans who, if not convinced of the divine origin of the Catholic religion, are certainly devoid of all respect for every form of fanatical sectarianism. They know well that these violent parties, however loud in the assertion of liberal sentiments, are invariably tyrannical when they have power; and we hope to convince them that the Catholic Church, while condemning a false liberalism, is ever the guardian angel of true right and liberty.

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All the foregoing portion of this article was written four years ago, and has been waiting until the present moment for a suitable occasion of publication. The controversy aroused by Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet in November of the last year has furnished a better occasion than we could have hoped for, and we have therefore offered this contribution to the discussion now going on. The statements we have made in regard to the essential relation between religion and the state with reference to our own republic are equally applicable to the European nations. They cover the whole ground of allegiance due from Catholics to an infallible authority, in respect to the domain of political ethics. This infallible authority is the proximate rule of faith in regard to what must be done or omitted in order to obey the law of God. It is the higher law, the objective rule, directing the subjective conscience, or practical judgment respecting right or wrong, in the individual. It is of course, supreme; for it is an unerring promulgation of the divine law. The definition of the infallibility of the Pope has not made the slightest practical change in respect to his authority of defining and proclaiming this infallible Catholic rule of conscience. All Catholics, bishops included, even when assembled in general council, were always required to assent to and obey his judgments in matters of faith and morals, as final and without right of appeal. The assent of the church could never be wanting, since it was obligatory on every bishop, priest, and layman to give it at once, under pain of excommunication. If some were illogical enough to maintain that the infallibility of his judgments depended on this assent, the erroneous opinion which they held did not subject them to excommunication as formal heretics before the solemn definition of the Vatican Council had condemned and anathematized their error as a heresy. Yet the Roman Pontiff always exercised his infallible prerogative without hesitation, and was always obeyed, except by heretics and rebels. In respect to the promulgation of the divine law to the consciences of all men, the Pope has always been, by divine right, just what he now is—the supreme teacher and judge of the whole earth, as the Vicar of Christ. His power is spiritual, and its executive is the conscience of each individual. Infallibility is obeyed only by interior assent, which is a free act of volition not subject to any coercive force. It is utterly silly, therefore, to say that this submission is a surrender of freedom, or that obedience to a rule of conscience subsisting in an infallible tribunal interferes with allegiance to civil authority one whit more than obedience to any kind of rule whatever. In fact, what Prince Bismarck denounces and wishes to crush is the resistance of _subjective_ conscience to the absolute mandates of the state, for which we have his own plain and express words. His doctrine is the very quintessence of the basest and most degrading slavishness—the slavishness of intelligence and conscience crouching abjectly before pure physical force—_la force prime le droit_.

Legislative and governing authority in the church is something quite distinct from infallibility. It proceeds from the power delegated by Jesus Christ to his Vicar to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over all bishops and all the members of their flocks, and in general over all the faithful. No direct temporal jurisdiction is joined with it by divine right. The direct temporal jurisdiction of the Pope in his kingdom is from human right, and his ancient jurisdiction as suzerain over sovereign princes was also a mere human right. The indirect jurisdiction which springs from the divine right is only an application of spiritual jurisdiction, varying in its exercise as the civil laws are more or less conformed to the divine law, and depending on the concurrence of the civil power. Suppose, for instance, that a bishop revolts against the Holy See. The Pope judges and deposes him. This act deprives him of spiritual rights and privileges. If he is to be violently expelled from his cathedral, his palace, and the possession of his revenues, the civil magistrate must do this in virtue of a civil law. If he were one of the prince‐bishops of a former age, and were deprived of his principality, the civil law would deprive him. If he married, and incurred temporal penalties thereby, it would be through the civil law. The judgment which pronounces him guilty, deposed, excommunicated, invalidly married, and therefore liable to all the temporal penalties incurred under the civil code, is an act of spiritual jurisdiction. The temporal effect of this judgment is indirect, varies with the variation in civil jurisprudence, and depends on an executive clothed with a direct temporal and civil authority.

Nothing is more certain than that the church has always recognized the immediate derivation of the civil power in the state from God, its distinction from the spiritual power, and its sovereign independence in its own sphere of any direct temporal jurisdiction of the Pope. The statements made above show how the immutable rights of the Pope as Christ’s Vicar in respect to indirect jurisdiction in temporal matters have a variable application in practice, according to the variation of times, laws, and circumstances. It is futile, therefore, to attribute to the Holy See or to Catholics in general, on account of the doctrine of Papal infallibility and supremacy, the intention of striving after a restoration of all that actual exercise of ecclesiastical power in political affairs which was formerly wielded by popes and bishops. Much more futile is it to suppose that a claim to revive ancient political rights derived purely from human laws and voluntary concessions is always kept in abeyance, and to be ever dreaded and guarded against by states.

Catholics ought to beware, nevertheless, of regarding the ancient constitution of Western Christendom under the headship of the Pope as something needing an apology, or as a state less perfect than the one which has supplanted it. We do not share in or sympathize with this view or with the political doctrines of those who hold it, however estimable they may be, in the slightest degree. Although convinced that the mediæval system has passed away for ever, and that the present and coming age needs a régime suited to its real condition, and not to one which is ideal only, we glory in the past which partly realized that Christian ideal.

France was _par excellence_ the Christian nation, as even Duruy, advocate though he be of the principles of ’89, proclaims with a Frenchman’s just pride in the _Gesta Dei per Francos_. Her golden age was the period between Louis le Gros and Philippe le Bel. Her decadence and disasters began with the contest of the latter sovereign and the infamous Nogaret, precursor of the Cavours and Bismarcks, against Boniface VIII. Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the dismemberment of France, the conquests of Edward III. and Henry V., the apparition of Etienne Marcel, the father of Parisian revolutionists and communists, were in logical sequence from Philippe’s rebellion, and the logical antecedents of the modern French Revolution and the disasters of 1870. In that olden time France was rescued only by the miraculous mission of Joan of Arc, a kind of living personification of the Catholic Church, in her three characters as virgin, warrior, and victim. So, at a later period, S. Pius V., that pontiff whom Lord Acton has so vilely calumniated, saved Europe from the Turkish invasion to which the recreant sovereigns had exposed it by basely abandoning the Crusades to despoil each other. It needs but small knowledge of history to see through the sophisms of second‐class writers like Buckle and Draper, who seek to despoil the Catholic Church of her glory as the sole author and preserver of civilization in Western Christendom. The history of Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to this moment is only the record of an effort of the popes to lead the nations in the path of true glory and happiness, and of the ever‐recurring struggle of the civil power, of sophists, and of revolutionists to drag them aside into the path of degradation and misery, for their own base and selfish purposes. Faithless priests, unworthy heirs of noble names, men who have perverted the highest gifts of nature and grace, have, during this long, eventful course of time, been mixed up with the arrogant tyrants, cunning politicians, bold blasphemers, shameless sensualists, and their common herd of followers, in the war against the vicegerent of God and the spouse of Christ. What is now, has been in the time past, and will be until the curtain drops after the finished drama. There are similar actors on both sides now, and a similar struggle, to those recorded in the history of the past. We may expect a similar result. La Pucelle was falsely accused, unjustly condemned, suffered death by fire, and triumphed. The Catholic religion is La Pucelle. Abandoned, falsely accused, doomed to the flames, by an ungrateful world, recreant or cowardly adherents, and open enemies, it will be hailed in the age to come by all mankind as the saviour of the world.

Release.

I sometimes wish that hour were come When, lying patient on my bed, My soul should view her future home With eager, trembling wings outspread And earnest faith; that age and pain Should pass at death’s divine behest, As the freed captive leaves his chain When he has ceased to be the guest Of prisons—on the dungeon floor A burden dropped for evermore.

Eternal joy, eternal youth, Await beyond that portal gray— Which all must pass that hope for truth— The lonely spirit freed from clay; But suffering only bids us yearn For that mysterious, strange release Which through the grave, the funeral urn, Brings such infinitude of peace. Oh! in that dread, ecstatic hour Uphold me, Saviour, with thy power.

The Veil Withdrawn.

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

XXXIV.

I pretended to be very much surprised the next morning when Lando informed me Gilbert was obliged to take his departure the following day in order to join an English friend of his who was to accompany him to Egypt and had sent a despatch he should be at Malta by the end of the week.

I recollect nothing more concerning that morning except my depression, which only increased as the day advanced. Towards night this sadness assumed a new character, and became still deeper in consequence of a letter from Lorenzo, announcing his return the following day.

He had left Milan, and was now at Bologna. He was really there this time, and not pretending to be, as when he went to Sorrento to see Donna Faustina! Oh! what bitter thoughts, what feelings of indignation, were awakened by the perusal of this letter, at once devoid of affection and sincerity! He doubtless supposed a scandal published in so many newspapers, though only the initials of the persons concerned were given, had come to my knowledge, but he was in that sort of humor in which the wrongs one has to endure produce an irritation against those who have the most to suffer in consequence. It was evident he felt some regret for the past, but there was not a symptom of repentance; and though he did not say so directly, his letter seemed intended to warn me, as he had once done, with regard to questions, advice, and promises, that he was not disposed to endure the slightest reproach. Not a word that appealed to my generosity, not one that could touch my heart! I could see nothing to cheer and console me in that direction. All was dark and cold. Such was my conviction on reading this letter. But I did not appear the less cheerful when evening came to remind me that my interior struggle would be over in a few hours, and the next day I should feel at liberty to yield without restraint to thoughts I should no longer be afraid to betray.

The large drawing‐room on the ground floor which opened into the small garden after the fashion of Pompeii, with its pillared portico, had been arranged for the occasion by Lando, who had constructed a platform, ornamented with lights and flowers, where the concert he had improvised was to take place, varied by speeches.

Gilbert was to explain its object at the commencement, and at the end, Angiolina, for whom Lando had begged this exceptionally long evening, was to go around with a basket to collect the money intended for the poor people whose lives had been saved by her mother.

Lando excelled in such arrangements, and, to tell the truth, he had left nothing here to be desired. I must also add that all of our little coterie, except Gilbert, Stella, and myself, eagerly participated in the work.

My aunt, in particular, looked with a favorable eye on this mixture of charity and amusement, which at once satisfied her kind heart and gratified her dominant passion. It seemed to her a more delightful invention had never been brought from beyond the Alps. Besides, she had that very day made a discovery which put an end to her maternal indecision with regard to her daughter’s fate. This indecision, in consequence of Lando’s intentions, which became more and more evident, was caused neither by the frivolity for which he might have been reproached, nor by the extravagance with which he had squandered his modest patrimony, nor by any other motive dictated by prudence, but solely by a difficulty which vanished in the twinkling of an eye as soon as my aunt discovered a fact she was before ignorant of, to wit, that Lando Landini, like a great many younger sons of good family in Italy, had a right to assume, on marrying, a title he had not heretofore borne. Oh! from that instant nothing more was wanting. She had always found Don Landolfo nearly faultless, but now he could offer her daughter the charming title of the Countess _del Fiore_, he was perfection itself. After such a revelation, her consent was not deferred for an instant. Lando, in the midst of the preparations he was making, had taken time to come in haste to communicate the news. This explained the air of triumph, as well as joy, with which my aunt made her appearance in the evening, and the unusual brilliancy of Teresina’s black eyes, greatly set off by the white dress and coral ornaments she wore. Her sister had also something in her manner that evening that differed a little from the unmeaning placidity which usually characterized her. She was not as pretty as Teresina, but she had a more agreeable expression, and a better right to the epithet of _simpatica_ which was sometimes given her. Their faces were both flushed with the excitement produced in advance by the pleasure of singing in company when it could be done without fear and without any doubt of success. And my cousins had voices of superior quality, such as are often met with in Italy, and harmonized wonderfully together. They were, moreover, very good musicians, and though their style was not perfect, every one listened to them with pleasure, more especially the young amateur of music who had been appointed to accompany them that evening. For some time, the Baron von Brunnenberg had regarded Mariuccia in a most sentimental manner; but hitherto the handsome young Englishman, Harry Leslie, seemed to please her more than the baron, and consequently she had always treated the latter with more or less coldness. It was evident, however, that Leslie, since the evening on Mt. Vesuvius, had not a thought or look, or scarcely a word, for any body but Stella. I often wondered if this had any effect on her, as I observed her occasionally pensive air so unlike her usual self. However the case might be, Mariuccia had drawn therefrom a practical conclusion for her own personal benefit: Leslie did not care for her; she must therefore resign herself and turn to some one else. This resignation led her to favor the baron with such smiles as he had never obtained before, so that he also was radiant, and the group around the piano presented an appearance of the utmost satisfaction. I felt a sensation of surprise as I looked at their smiling faces and heard their merry voices. I seemed to be separated from them by an impassable grate that permitted me to see and hear them, but absolutely prevented me from approaching to participate in their liveliness and joy. “Happiness ... gaiety ... hope ... all these are at an end for me!” said I to myself. Nevertheless, I fulfilled all it was incumbent on me to do, and succeeded in appearing nearly the same as usual.

At length, all the company arrived, and when they had taken their places and every eye was turned towards the platform, I took Angiolina, and, going to the embrasure of a window, I sat down where I was half concealed, and took the child on my knee. The company of this angelic little creature was not only always delightful and soothing, but she had a singularly precocious instinct of the beautiful which excited my wonder and made me keep my eyes on her while she was listening to music, and even to poetry whose rhythm delighted her ear even when the words were beyond her comprehension, especially when it was her mother who was repeating it. At such times nothing was more touching than to behold the animated expression of her sparkling blue eyes and the tremulous movement of her childish mouth!... I now clasped her in my arms, and it seemed as if the agitation of my heart subsided as I embraced her!

The baron first played, by way of overture, a piece of Mendelssohn’s which disposed the audience to be attentive: then, after a moment’s silence, Gilbert made his appearance. He was extremely pale, and seemed to be making a great effort to rise above some great moral or physical suffering. This was so evident that he might have claimed the indulgence of the audience and excused himself on the plea of a real or pretended indisposition. But presently his voice grew stronger, the orator was roused, and his manner, usually so unpretending, became what it always was when he spoke in public—imposing, brilliant, and impressive. What he said at first I cannot tell. Too many recollections crowded on my mind at once as he made his appearance, reminding me of the day when I first heard him at the Hôtel de Kergy. I remembered what I was then, what my feelings, what my hopes were. I thought of all the changes that had since taken place, and what a singular coincidence it was that he should appear before me on the day of our separation in the same way as when we met for the first time! My attention was soon drawn to the words of the speaker by the murmur of approbation, that soon increased to enthusiastic applause, with which they were received. To speak of Vesuvius at Naples, and to Neapolitans, in a way to excite their interest, requires a _tour de force_, and this feat he was able to accomplish. With the ready appreciation of ability which characterized his audience, the difficulty he had to surmount was felt, and lively spontaneous applause interrupted him at every instant, as he mingled poetry, art, and history with an originality and grace that did not permit the least appearance of pedantry to diminish the charm of his profound, unstudied erudition. But when he finally came to the account he was appointed to give of our recent excursion, and began by describing the spot where we had witnessed the eruption together, I could not repress a thrill of emotion. I fancied, his eyes had detected me in the corner where I was concealed, and when he added _that he felt in the presence of that spectacle a profound emotion the remembrance of which could never be effaced, however long the duration of his life_! I leaned my forehead against Angiolina’s fair head as if everybody could understand the double meaning of his words, and for some minutes I heard nothing but the rapid beating of my heart....

All at once the child looked eagerly up, and touching my cheek with her little hand to attract my attention, she said in a joyful tone:

“Listen, listen to what he is saying about mamma!”

Then everything else was forgotten for an instant but the pleasure of hearing Stella’s courageous deed related in the noble, incomparable language peculiar to Gilbert. There was a burst of applause on all sides, and I was about to add mine when my attention was suddenly attracted and concentrated in an unexpected direction, as if dazzled by one of those repeated flashes of lightning that set the heavens aflame, and which is distinguished from the others by a more terrible brilliancy.

It had occurred to Lando to ornament the platform with shrubs and flowers, in order to conceal from the spectators those who were to take part in the performance till it was their turn to appear. Stella was in this way concealed from everybody but me. From the place to which I had betaken myself I could see her distinctly, and follow every movement she made, without her being aware of it. I was soon surprised and struck with the effect of the address she was listening to. It was not merely attention; it was not interest; it was a breathless emotion which contracted her features, and to such a degree that I thought she was going to faint. I had already risen to go to her assistance, when I was struck with a sudden idea which nailed me to the spot—an idea that no sooner crossed my mind than it became a certainty, and caused me such terrible anguish that I was frightened. I looked at her steadily, trying to imagine and read her thoughts, and while penetrating to the depths of her heart, I felt mine sink within me. Alas! Why should the discovery I thought I had made thus cause me to tremble and shudder? Why did it seem as if I had been struck by an arrow that pierced me to the heart?

I endeavored to overcome the repugnance I was so weak as to feel in my soul. Yes, I tried to regard Stella in the new light that had just dawned on me, and to consider him in this same light—him!... I tried to say to myself without shrinking that before me was the very one of whom I had spoken the evening before; who was at once beautiful, good, noble‐hearted, and worthy of him—and one whom he could love without fear, without scruple, without remorse. I tried to do all this, and like every effort to rise above self, this did me good, perhaps, and rendered me stronger; but I did not gain the victory.

As soon as Gilbert finished speaking, I watched him, in spite of myself, while Stella’s name was mingled with his in the enthusiastic acclamations of the audience, and—shall I avow it?—I noticed with pleasure that he left the platform without the least thought of approaching her. He slipped away as quickly as he could through a little door that opened on the portico, and from the shadowy recess where I was sitting, I could see him in the moonlight leaning against a pillar in the attitude of one who is reposing after some great effort or long constraint.

I was for some time incapable of giving the least attention to what was going on around me. I vaguely listened to _A te sacrai Regina_, to which Mariuccia’s fine contralto voice gave wonderful expression; and after this duet from _Semiramis_, various other pieces were played by the baron. One of these gave me a thrill, and brought me back to a sense not only of the present but of the past. It was the air of Chopin’s which Diana de Kergy played at Paris on that other farewell occasion! Everything to‐night seemed combined to overwhelm me with recollections and emotion! I could hardly bear to listen to this music, it so overpowered me with its heartrending, passionate character. My eyes, in spite of my efforts, were already filled with tears when the young amateur abruptly stopped and struck up a waltz from Strauss, with so much spirit and _brio_ that Angiolina jumped down, as if drawn by some irresistible impulse, and began to whirl around, holding her little dress up with both hands. All those in the assembly who were still in their teens seemed strongly tempted to follow her example; but the waltz soon ended, silence was restored, and Angiolina returned to my side as Stella, in her turn, made her appearance.

The object of the _soirée_ sufficiently accounted for the acclamations with which she was received—a marked homage to the noble deed that had just been eulogized in such eloquent terms. When these subsided, the silence became profound.

Stella remained motionless while all these demonstrations were going on around her in her honor, and did not seem to be aware of them. I can see her still in her white dress, the flowing sleeves of which displayed her hands and arms. Her only ornament was a circlet of gold, which confined the waving masses of her thick, brown hair. She did not look paler than usual, for her complexion, of dazzling whiteness, rarely had any color; her eyelashes and eyebrows were as dark as her hair, and her eyes, when nothing animated her, were of a rather dull gray; but at the least emotion the pupils seemed to dilate, and deepen in hue, and then nothing could surpass their brilliancy! This change was especially remarkable when she exercised the natural talent for declamation which she possessed without having ever cultivated it. Her sense of the poetic was profound and accurate, and her voice, full and sonorous, was precisely adapted to express what she felt at the moment in her heart. To this were added simple, natural gestures, which the mere movement of her beautiful hands and arms always rendered noble and graceful. There was no affectation about her, and yet her face, usually animated by extreme gaiety, possessed a strange tragical power. Such was Stella’s talent—a sufficiently faithful reflection of the character of her soul.

During the noisy manifestations that greeted her appearance, she was apparently very calm, as I have just described her; but her hands were clasped nervously together, and an almost imperceptible movement of her lips indicated more agitation than she manifested outwardly. But this repressed emotion added to the very charm of her voice when she began with incomparable grace a sonnet from Zappi; and when, striking another chord, she repeated a scene from one of Manzoni’s finest tragedies, there was a genuine thrill of admiration in the audience. I noticed poor Harry Leslie, in particular, who was touched, excited, amazed. I looked around for Gilbert—and (pardon me, O my God!—forgive me, Stella!) I was glad to see he was not present. The very power which each of them possessed in a different way of moving an audience seemed to establish a relationship between them, the bare thought of which made me suffer, and this suffering was as harrowing as remorse!

Finally, Stella began the canto at the end of the _Divina Commedia_, which commences with this prayer—certainly the most beautiful ever inspired by genius and piety: “_O Vergin Madre! figlia del tuo Figlio!_”(153) At that moment Gilbert reappeared. He did not enter the room, but remained leaning against the door. Nevertheless, I saw a slight flush pass over Stella’s brow; I heard her voice tremble; and I knew she was aware of his presence and had lost some of her self‐control. As for him, I saw he was surprised and astonished. He added his applause to that of the whole assembly. But when they all rose at the end to crowd around Stella, his eyes turned in a different direction, and it was evident he thought of her no longer.

At that instant, little Angiolina, who was leaning against my shoulder, mutely contemplating her mother, and only saying from time to time in a low voice, “How beautiful! Isn’t it beautiful?” as if she were listening to some musical strain, was borne away by Harry Leslie, who, as was appropriate, had been appointed to accompany the little _quêteuse_. There was now a bustle and general confusion, as is often the case after prolonged silence and attention, and everybody seemed wild with gaiety. To this merriment was added the noise of a deafening march which the baron played, as he said, by way of accompaniment to the triumphant progress of the child borne around the room on Leslie’s shoulder to receive the contributions that were to end the _soirée_.

The contrast between the state of my mind and all this tumult, animation, and gaiety, only served to heighten the agitation of my soul to the utmost. All the doors and windows of the room were open, and I mechanically went out and leaned for a moment against the same pillar where I had seen Gilbert only a short time before. While standing there, I suddenly heard his voice beside me:

“Adieu! madame,” said he in a low, trembling tone.

“Adieu, Gilbert! May heaven protect you!” I replied, extending my hand. He took it, pressed it to his lips, gave it a slight pressure, and that was all.... He was gone! I followed him with my eyes, by the bright moonlight, till he disappeared under the trees of the avenue.

I remained motionless in the place where I was, looking alternately at the garden around me bathed in the light of the moon, and at the brilliantly illuminated _salon_ within. And while my eyes wandered from one to the other, it seemed as if everything before me disappeared never to return, that these bright lights were about to be extinguished never to be relighted again, this numerous assembly dispersed never to be reunited, and it was the last time I was to mingle in the gay world surrounded by all the display that wealth could afford. The impression was singular; but what is certain, I felt at that very moment all my happiness was over, that which was dangerous as well as that which was legitimate, pleasure as well as repose, joy as well as peace, memory as well as hope! It was a moment of agony, but the sufferings of such agony, however terrible they may be, are they not, like a mother’s throes, the signs and prelude of life?

XXXV.

When I returned to the drawing‐room, I found scarcely any one left. Leslie came to tell me Stella had gone away without bidding me good night, because she was in a hurry to take Angiolina home as soon as the collection was ended. Presently nobody remained. Silence once more reigned, and I found myself alone, face to face with myself!

But I by no means experienced the happiness that so often results from the accomplishment of a duty, or the consummation of a sacrifice. On the contrary, I felt a desolation which was the prelude of a state of mind which was to render the following days gloomy beyond any I ever spent in my life—gloomy! yes, as the profound darkness of night just before the dawn!

While Gilbert remained, I did not allow myself to analyze my feelings for fear of shaking my resolution. I was able to maintain it to the end; but as soon as he was gone, I gave free course to every thought that could aggravate my sufferings. I now experienced that isolation which, from childhood, I had dreaded more than death! Lorenzo no longer cared for me, I should never behold Gilbert again, and the friendship of Stella, the only one who comprehended and pitied me, I was not sure of preserving!

I now began to recall, and study, so to speak, all that had taken place during the evening just at an end, but this only seemed to increase the conviction that had taken such strong possession of my mind. I felt determined, however, to ascertain the truth. I would satisfy my mind. I would question her till she told me exactly all that was passing in her heart.

But Stella, with all her gaiety, was not a person who could readily be induced to make a confidential disclosure of her most secret thoughts. Without the least dissimulation, she was impenetrable. She knew how to enter fully into the feelings of others—their joys and, above all, their sufferings. But if, on the other hand, any one sought to participate in hers, a smile, the opening of her large eyes, or a slight movement of her lips and shoulders, seemed to forbid looking beneath the serene expression of her smiling face. The truth was, she thought very little about herself. There was no duplicity in the habit she had acquired of never lifting the veil that concealed the inner workings of her heart, for she did not try to raise it herself, and was by no means curious to fathom all that was passing there.

When I saw her again, I found her, therefore, nearly the same as usual—a little graver, perhaps, and somewhat more quiet, but that was all. As to questioning her, I did not dare to, and the query soon rose in my mind: Have I read her heart aright? And to this immediately succeeded another: Has she read mine? I dwelt on these questions a long time without being able to answer them to my satisfaction.

What inclined me to decide in the affirmative was the care we both took to avoid mentioning Gilbert’s name, the tacit agreement we made not to prolong our interview, and the facility with which, under some trifling pretext, she excused herself from driving out with me, though she consented to let me take her little Angiolina.

I set off, therefore, with the child, and drove beyond Posilippo where the road descends to the water’s edge. There I left the carriage, and taking the child, I went down to the shore and seated myself so near the sea that the waves died softly away at my feet. I had a particular fancy for this spot. Seated there in full view of Nisita, with Ischia, Procida, Capo Miseno, and Baja in the distance, Pozzuoli at the right, and the heights of Posilippo and Camaldoli at the left and behind, I seemed to be a thousand leagues from the inhabited world, in a spot where it was easier than anywhere else to forget all the rest of the universe.

While I sat there silently gazing around me, Angiolina was running about gathering sea‐shells to fill the little basket she had brought for the purpose. Occasionally she stopped and clapped her hands with delight as she looked around. More than ever did I at that moment envy Stella the happiness that prevented her from feeling the isolation and intolerable void in which I was plunged! I envied her, and forgot to pity her! I forgot, moreover, to tremble for her! One would have thought the saying: “_Aux légers plaisirs les souffrances légères; aux grands bonheurs les maux inouis_,” or, at least, the evident truth they contain, had never struck my mind!

At that time I only dreamed of human happiness under every conceivable form—a happiness that seemed to be accorded and permitted to others, but of which I was for ever deprived. And while Angiolina continued to ramble about, not far off, I ceased admiring the spectacle before me, and suddenly burying my face in my hands, I burst into tears. At the same instant I felt Angiolina’s little arms around my neck.

“Zia Gina!” she exclaimed (she had heard her mother call me Gina, as well as sister, and composed therefrom the name she always gave me). “Zia Gina, what makes you cry?”

“I am sad, Lina,” said I, my tears falling on her beautiful fair curls.

“Why?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Can you tell the good God?”

What a singular question!... She made me blush, and, after a moment’s reflection, I replied somewhat evasively:

“One can tell him everything, Lina, for he is our Father.”

“Yes, I know he is our Father; I call him so every day.”

Her attention was diverted an instant by a butterfly she saw floating by. She watched it till it flew away, and then resumed:

“Then, my dear Zia Gina, you must pray God to console you.”

“Pray for me, _carina_.”

After some reflection, she said: “I only know two prayers—the Our Father and Ave Maria: which shall I say for you?”

“Say both of them.”

“Yes, certainly: Our Father first; I like it so much.”

And there on the shore she folded her hands, raised her eyes, as blue as the heavens to which she raised them, and with her clear, silvery voice softly repeated the divine words. If ever there were lips on earth worthy of being the echo of that voice which once uttered this prayer that we might learn it, they were certainly the innocent lips now repeating it beside me! I too clasped my hands and joined in her prayer.

When it was ended, she stopped a moment with a thoughtful air, and then repeated: “Deliver us from all evil.”

“But, as I am praying for you, ought not I to say to Our Father: Deliver Zia Gina from all evil?”

“Yes, my darling,” exclaimed I, embracing her: “yes, pray always in this way for me, and may God hear and bless you!”

Her angelic face, her piety and innocence, completely diverted my mind from my sorrows. I only felt an infinite joy at not having rendered myself unworthy to hear the words she had just uttered. I had suffered; I still suffered, of course; but I had prayed, and still prayed, to be delivered from temptation and sin, and it seemed to me a ray from heaven had fallen on me in answer to this angel’s prayer!

But this impression, though lively and consoling, was only momentary, I had to return to the reality of life, and this reality was painful. It became much more so the following day when Lorenzo at last returned.

He did not, of course, appear like a man who returns to the fireside he loves and respects. Nor could he be expected to present himself in the attitude of a penitent. I was far from being prepared, however, for the stand he took and the complete change I found in him, but Lorenzo had been endowed by Divine Providence with such rare gifts that, in giving himself up to evil instead of good impulses, he had to suffer from the law which condemns those to stray further away and fall lower who would perhaps have become guides to others had they not erred from the right way. The serious errors into which he had fallen, less excusable than they would have been at any other epoch of his life, were this time accompanied by a shamelessness and indifference to scandal that at once wounded and disgusted me. The consciousness of faults he would not acknowledge caused him insupportable uneasiness, and this produced a complete change in the expression of his face, his language, and even in his manners, formerly so dignified and courteous, but now haughty and not unfrequently rude. But what was specially evident was, the fatal fascination he did not cease to feel. The fact was, he had not been driven from her by disgust: repentance and duty had not led him to return to me. She who had forsaken him still reigned in his heart, and the influence I had over him so short a time before, was now utterly destroyed!

All this was clearly perceptible from the first day of his return. I saw he was even rather irritated than pleased at having no reproach to make me. In fact, he did not propose peace, but imposed it, on the condition of absolute silence on my part. The slightest reproach from me, I felt, would have been the cause of a violent scene and perhaps of open rupture!

Such was the aspect my life assumed at Lorenzo’s return. Will any one be astonished at the revolt I felt in my heart in spite of my apparent submission, which was only a mixture of pride and disdain? Will any one wonder at the harrowing regrets, dangerous recollections, and profound discouragement which threw me into the deepest melancholy, and sometimes into utter despair? I began my life over again in imagination with Gilbert, and dwelt on what it might have been, that I might suffer the more for what it was!

This remembrance seemed to be my only resource: these vain desires and regrets my only solace. I gave myself up to them with my whole heart, and thus, while I considered myself irreproachable, I was as much separated from Lorenzo as he was from me, and I allowed myself to live interiorly in a world over which I had no scruple in allowing another to reign almost absolutely!

The following Saturday I was at the grate of the convent parlor a long time before my usual hour. The anguish of my soul was at its height, and for the first time, without regard to the place where I was, and perhaps I ought to say, to her who listened to me, I made known all my troubles to Livia, not only Lorenzo’s new offences, but also my other trials, my inclinations, my regrets, and what at the same time I called my “courageous sacrifice.”

She turned pale as she listened to me, and an expression of grief, such as I had never seen her wear, came over her face, which remained anxious, even when I told her that she unawares had given me the strength to accomplish it.

“So much the better,” said she; adding, with a grave smile, “If that is the case, I certainly did not this time play the part of a _jettatrice_!... But, Ginevra, you escaped a less fearful peril the day I saw you borne by that furious horse towards the abyss. You were saved when I saw you again, whereas to‐day....”

“To‐day?... Are you not satisfied? Have I not obeyed what I felt were your wishes?”

“Yes, my poor Gina, you have made an effort, a courageous effort; and yet you deceive yourself like a child. Lorenzo certainly ought to conduct himself very differently; but even if he did, you would still be deprived of the happiness you dream of. As to that other mirage,” continued she with a shudder. “O merciful heavens! do you not see whence comes the light that has caused it? Ginevra, I can only say one thing to you—what I have said before: pray!”

“I pray every day.”

“With fervor?”

“Yes, Livia, with all my heart, I assure you, I pray as well as I know how. I tell you the truth.”

As I uttered these words, a celestial smile came over her face for the first time since the beginning of our conversation, and she exclaimed:

“O dearest sister!”...and then stopped.

Rather vexed than consoled by the manner in which she received my communications, I remained with my forehead leaning against the _grille_, feeling for the first time how truly it separated us, that my sister felt no pity for me, did not render me justice as she ought, and that she knew neither the world, nor its difficulties, nor its temptations, nor its pains. My tears fell like rain as I made these reflections, but it seemed as if Livia, usually so compassionate, beheld me weep with indifference.

All at once she asked:

“Ginevra, is it long since you went to confession?”

I abruptly, raised my head, my tears ceased to flow, and I wiped my eyes with a gesture of impatience. It was certain Livia could find nothing to say that did me any good. I made no reply.

“You will not tell me. Why not, _carina_?”

Was I really out of humor with her—with Livia? And on the point of showing it? . . . Oh! no; I at once felt it was impossible. Besides, the touch of severity that chilled me had disappeared. She now spoke in a tone I never had refused to listen to. I therefore replied without any further entreaty:

“Yes, Livia, longer than usual.”

No sooner had I uttered these words, than a lively color suffused my whole face. It at once occurred to me that the time corresponded exactly with the length of Gilbert’s visit at Naples. Livia did not observe my confusion, and calmly resumed:

“Listen, Gina. You believe, as well as I, that the Sacrament of Penance is a remedy, do you not? It has been called, I think, ‘the divine prescription for the maladies of the soul,’ and you are conscious, I trust, that your soul is really ill.”

“Oh! yes, my soul, my heart, my mind, my body, my whole being! O Livia! I suffer every way!”

“Well, if you were physically ill, you would certainly consult the best physician in the city, and, who knows? if there were a better one still at the other end of Europe, you would perhaps, like many others, undertake a long journey to consult him as to the remedy.”

“Perhaps so! What then?”

“Listen, dear Gina. I have just thought of a piece of advice to give you, and as it has occurred to me in a moment of pity for you, when my whole heart is filled with affection and sympathy, perhaps it is a good inspiration you would do well to follow.”

“O Livia!” I exclaimed, greatly affected, for I recognized the accent of affection I had been so doubtful about—an affection more than human, because it was an emanation of divine charity: “Yes, tell me, dear sister, what it is. Say anything you please. Command me, and I will obey you.”

She proceeded to inform me that a saintly monk had recently arrived at Naples who was universally known and respected on account of his extensive knowledge, and was remarkable for the unpretending simplicity of his manners. His words went to the heart, led sinners to return to God, and made those who were pious better than they were before.

“Go to him humbly, I beseech you, and open your heart to him before God—your whole heart. I feel a conviction he will be able to give you the remedy you need, and if you have the courage to apply this remedy, whatever it be, I feel the assurance, Ginevra, you will be healed.”

XXXVI.

Let those who do not wish to enter the region into which I am about to lead my readers, now lay aside this book. I assure them, however, there is nothing in the previous portion of this narrative more strictly true than what I am going to relate. I affirm, moreover, that it refers to a point that interests every Christian soul; I might say, every human soul, but I know beforehand that they alone will comprehend me who have faith in these words: “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” that is to say, they who with the Catholic Church firmly believe His Omnipotence is present, living and acting in our midst, and there is not a single instant in which the material and spiritual world, the world of nature and the inner world of the human soul, cannot feel its supernatural and _miraculous_ effects. At the mere sight of this word, I suppose every sceptical, incredulous, or scornful reader has taken the alarm and made his escape, and I shall henceforth address only those who speak, or at least comprehend, the language I am about to employ.

I left the convent without deciding on the hour for following Livia’s advice, and was already on my way home when I took the sudden resolution to proceed without any delay to the church she had indicated. This church was one of the finest in Naples, the only one, perhaps, in which the eye is not offended by any of the incongruities so often found in Italy between the beautiful proportions, the marbles, the frescos that adorn the walls, and certain objects of devotion whose choice or execution indicates more piety than taste. Here everything harmonized, and this harmony was favorable to devotion. I took a chair and knelt against it on the marble pavement; then, according to the Neapolitan custom at confession, I took off my hat and threw over my head a scarf of black lace I wore over my silk dress, and patiently waited for others to enter the deserted church. It was nearly three o’clock.

I did not have to wait long. As soon as the clock struck, I saw quite a number of men and women of every rank and age, as well as young ladies and even children, come in and gather around the confessional, near which by chance I had stationed myself. I turned towards a lady who knelt beside me, and asked the name of the confessor she was awaiting. She looked up with an air of surprise.

“Father Egidio di San Mauro, of course,” said she. “Do you not know his confessional?”

Father Egidio was the name of the priest to whom my sister had directed me. Chance had led me to the spot I wished to find. I was obliged to wait a long time; but this delay, and the profound silence around, aided me in concentrating my mind on the act I was going to perform, and enabled me, I think, to make a good preparation. Besides, I had already gained a victory over myself by the very act of coming here, for I had been obliged to surmount a mixture of timidity and embarrassment one always feels about going to a strange confessor.

At length the priest we were waiting for made his appearance. He came slowly out of the sacristy and proceeded directly to the high altar, where he knelt for some time in prayer. He then rose, and, crossing the church, passed before me on his way to the confessional. He was of lofty stature, but bowed down by years and still more by that sanctity which does not spare the body. His white hair and bald forehead gave his mild, delicate features a grave, imposing aspect, which at once inspired respect, though it was impossible to feel any fear.

I ought to have been the first to approach, as I arrived before the others; but as soon as Father Egidio seated himself in the confessional, which, according to the Italian style, was only closed by a low door, he perceived the children awaiting him, and, leaving the door open, he made them a sign to approach. One by one they presented themselves before him. He bent down his head as he addressed them, and the innocent faces raised towards him were marked by a pious attention that was touching. He smiled occasionally as he listened to them, and the hand they kissed when they were done, he afterwards placed on their heads in benediction.

When the children had finished I was obliged to wait still longer, for a young man brushed hastily by me and fell on his knees in the place they left vacant, and this time the confession was long. Father Egidio, resting both hands on the shoulders of his new penitent, bent his head to listen without interrupting him, and when the young man ceased speaking, the advice he gave in return must have touched his penitent’s heart, for, as he listened, he bent his head lower and lower towards the old priest’s knees, and when he rose his eyes were inundated with tears.

At last my turn came, and I knelt in the place usually taken at confession. My voice trembled as I began, but grew stronger by degrees, and I continued with clearness and the wish to be sincere. My troubles, alas! were closely connected with my faults, and I not only opened my heart and soul, but laid before him my entire life, feeling, as I did so, the relief there is in the avowal of one’s weaknesses in confession that can be compared to no human confidence, however great the wisdom or sympathy that wins it. He murmured two or three times as he listened, “Poor child!” but did not otherwise interrupt me till I had finished.

The words he addressed me then were the mildest and yet most powerful that ever roused the human heart to a sense of duty. But when he finally told me that though I had banished him whose presence was so dangerous to my soul, I must likewise banish his memory with equal resolution; that the recollections in which I still indulged without scruple ought to be resisted, overcome, rooted out, and rejected, I felt an insurmountable repugnance, and replied:

“No, father, I cannot do it.”

He again repeated, “Poor child!” and then said in a tone of mingled compassion and kindness:

“You are not willing, then, to give God the place he has a right to in your heart?”

I did not understand his meaning, and replied:

“Father, I cannot help what I think and feel, or what I suffer.”

Without losing anything of his mildness, but with an authority that subdued my rebellious spirit, he said:

“I know, my child, what is in your power, and what does not depend on your will; but in the name of Him who now speaks to you through me, I ask you to repeat with a sincere heart these words, which comprise all I have just said:

“O my God! root out of my heart everything that separates it from Thee.”

These words, the accent with which they were uttered, and the prayer that I have no doubt rose from the depths of the holy soul from which they sprang, inspired me with the wish and strength to obey.

O my God! enable me now to make others understand what then took place in my soul.

I leaned my head against my clasped hands, and after a moment’s silence, during which I summoned all the strength of my will, I slowly repeated with the utmost sincerity the words he dictated:

“O my God! root out of my heart everything that separates it from Thee.”...

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

O merciful, divine Goodness! how shall I speak of Thee? how tell of thy marvellous grace and love? While uttering these words, before they were even ended, I felt touched by some strange, mysterious, supernatural influence. My heart and soul seemed filled with light. My whole being was transformed. I was inundated with a joy that could not be expressed in human language, and the source of this joy, the sensible cause, which I still feel, and shall never cease to feel, was the conviction made audible in some miraculous manner that _God loves me_!

God loves me. Yes, I heard these words. I comprehended their entire signification. _The Veil was forever withdrawn._ The mysterious enigma of my heart was solved as clearly and obviously as my eyes beheld the light of day.

I loved, not as we try, but in vain, to love our fellow‐creatures; I loved with _all_ the strength of my heart! and with so much strength that I could not have loved more without dying!...

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

All human language is inadequate, I know, to speak of supernatural grace. I can only stammer as I attempt it, and will no longer dwell on the ineffable moment which wrought an entire transformation in my life. I no longer recollect what words I then uttered, or what was said to me: I only remember the holy absolution I received with bowed head, and these words, afterwards uttered in a tone of emotion: “Be calm, my child, and go in peace.”

I had knelt down overwhelmed with sadness. I rose up so happy that I suffered from the great intensity of a joy my heart was too weak to endure!

XXXVII.

Long years have passed by since that day, and perhaps long years still await me; but whatever be the duration of my life nothing will ever efface the remembrance—not of the moment I have just described, for that moment is always present, it can never become a memory of the past—but of the effect which the sight of the earth, the sky, and the sea had on me when I issued from the church where I had received so great a blessing. Everything seemed to have assumed a new aspect, a new meaning, a more glorious signification; for the torrent of happiness in my soul seemed diffused over all nature! I no longer wished for anything. I had found all. I was freed from all anxiety. Hope had become certitude—a certitude more complete than can be derived from the surest of earthly things; for great indeed is the certitude of that assurance which _nothing_ can deprive us of, except _through our own will_!...

_Nothing_ could quench the source from which sprang my joy, or deprive me of its benefits: _nothing_, for my will was henceforth absorbed, and, so to speak, _lost_ in the most ardent love!

To love with strength, disinterestedness, and passion the worthiest object on earth, and learn all at once we could not be deprived of it without the consent of our own heart, would not this induce us to utter the word _never_ with an absolute meaning that the things of this world do not admit of? It was thus God gave me the grace to love, to feel sure of loving always, sure of the impossibility of ever being deprived of the object of my love!

The beauty of the natural world around me now seemed a mere ray of this joy. Never had I found it so lovely. And yet (those whom I _alone_ address now will understand this, however contradictory it may appear) I felt an almost equal disgust for all created things, an ardent desire to renounce everything, a profound contempt for all that had hitherto seemed worthy of so much esteem. Wealth, honor, dress, display, luxury, even the beauty, so uncertain, which I prized so much—they all lost their importance and became worthless in my eyes, not through satiety, or a feeling of melancholy, but through the disgust one naturally feels for the mediocre after seeing the beautiful, and for the beautiful after seeing the perfect!

On the other hand, in spite of this fountain of inexhaustible joy, I by no means imagined I was released from suffering; and what was also strange, perhaps, I did not desire to be. I already felt there was a lively, poignant, and sometimes terrible suffering inherent in the divine love I had just begun to experience. He who has described this love better than any other human being, doubtless because he felt it in a greater degree; he who more than six centuries ago wrote the following words: “Nothing is stronger than love, nothing more generous, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth.... When weary it is not tired, when straitened is not constrained, when frightened is not disturbed, but like a lively flame and a torch all on fire, it mounts upward and securely passes through all opposition;”(154) he who uttered these and so many other burning words, likewise said these: “There is no living in love without some pain or sorrow.” I knew it, and my heart was as ready to embrace the one as the other. As to the ordinary trials of life, it seemed to me I had sufficient courage to encounter them all, and that henceforth I should have nothing in the world to fear, nothing to complain of....

To the reader who comprehends me, and knows all this is perfectly true, I need not say that the state I have just described, though a blessed and rare one, has in all ages, as well as ours, been one to which a great number of souls have arrived by slow but natural progression. When, therefore, I speak of this as _miraculous_ and supernatural, I merely apply the word to the sudden wonderful grace which shortened the way for me, making me pass in an instant from a totally different frame of mind to a plenitude of faith and happiness!

And now ... how did they who were much more closely interwoven with my life than the natural world around me, appear in this new light? How did I now regard them in my heart?—Lorenzo! Livia! Stella! Gilbert! What were the feelings of my heart and soul towards them now that I was so suddenly brought to see and feel what was clear and right?...

In order to express my sentiments with regard to them, I will employ an illustration that may seem obscure, and yet I know no better way of making myself understood. It seemed to me that all the pure, tender, legitimate, and noble feelings of my heart found in this luminous flame a new and powerful aliment, while all others were consumed by this flame as quickly as pernicious weeds cast into a fiery furnace!

Nothing, therefore, was changed in my feelings towards Livia and Stella, unless I loved them more tenderly than before, one seeming more than ever an angel, and the other the dearest of friends!

As to Lorenzo, the change was great, sudden, and profound!... My affection for him, which he had mortally wounded and extinguished, was now rekindled at the divine source of all true love, and became equal to that I had felt at the time of my brightest hopes. The wish I once so ardently felt seemed now to be the only one worthy of occupying my mind. What did a little more or less of human love matter to me now? As Livia had predicted, my heart was satiated; I was rich, even if I did not possess the affection of a single heart on earth. It was, therefore, no longer through a selfish thirst for happiness I now wished to set his soul at liberty, but from a desire a thousand times more ardent—so ardent that it seemed to become my only passion!

And now, Gilbert! ... how shall I speak of him? How, in the light of this divine flame, did the dangerous attachment, the enervating, subtle affection that had so absorbed my mind, appear to me now? And those vague, false hopes—those impossible dreams—those harrowing regrets? And my foolish and culpable longing for his return?

All this was consumed like the pernicious weeds I have just spoken of, and I distinctly saw the abyss on the edge of which I had been walking. I turned away from the danger I had escaped with terror. I felt with profound gratitude that I was saved! ... and like one who has escaped from the perils of the sea, I looked back with horror on the waves that had so recently threatened to engulf me.

This impression was so strong that it began to render the memory odious that I so recently thought the only joy of my life—the joy I could not make up my mind to deny myself. The miraculous effect of the divine mercy had been in answer to the very essence of my prayer; the obstacle that separated me from God had been completely rooted out of my heart. In this respect, more than any other, I felt changed and transformed. But this powerful impression was modified by degrees, and I was soon able to see Gilbert in so clear and true a light as to think of him henceforth without the least disturbance of mind. I now thought of his danger, and the thought filled me with regret. I perceived my secret participation, the primary, and often the only, cause of others’ faults, from which it is so rare to be wholly exempt in such cases, and I prayed God to pardon me and heal the wounds of his soul as perfectly as he had healed mine!

Perhaps I have dwelt too long on this event—the greatest, the only great event of my life—and the effect it had on me in so many ways. But it was necessary to describe the transfigured state of my soul in order to explain what I still have to relate—this day having, thank heaven! set its ineffaceable seal on every succeeding day of my life.

XXXVIII.

For several days I had some difficulty in concealing the irrepressible joy I betrayed in my face in spite of my efforts, and which there was apparently nothing to justify.

Lorenzo’s attitude, in fact, remained the same. He continued, as he had done since his return, to appear only at the hour of his repasts. A part of the morning he remained shut up in his studio, which he now rarely allowed me to enter, and he spent all his evenings abroad. Mario had returned to Sicily; Stella had not yet wholly resumed her usual ease with me, and Lando, absorbed in his own affairs, was less interested than usual in mine.

Our customary reunions continued, however, and the same visitors assembled every evening, as before. I frequently heard my aunt loudly lament the departure of _quel Francese simpatico_, and declare how much il Kergy was missed by everybody. In fact, Gilbert’s name was continually repeated, and I sometimes thought Stella was astonished at my calmness, which was incomprehensible to her, whereas, on the contrary, I was not in the least surprised at her silence, which I understood perfectly. But we continued our tacit agreement never to speak of him to each other. Several days passed in this way, during which Livia was the only person from whom I concealed nothing. How great her joy was when, on seeing me again, she read with a single look the recovered peace of my soul, it is useless to say here. From that time we seemed to be united by a stronger tie than that of blood, and to have become more than sisters. But when, in the transport of my new joy, I declared that the luxuries of my beautiful home now seemed a burden and a fetter, and that I preferred the austere simplicity which surrounded her, she at once checked me.

“Our tastes should correspond with our vocation, Gina. Yours is not to leave the world, or even to lay aside its superfluities. Endeavor to please Lorenzo, to win him back. That is your mission, which is as high as any other; and when you feel your former affection for him revive in your heart, believe me, _carina_, it will meet with no opposition from the love God has revealed to your soul! You have dreamed of great things for Lorenzo. Come, Gina, courage! now is the time to realize them!”

It was thus she led me back to a great but evident truth. I comprehended it in spite of the different feelings I had experienced, and trusted time would give me an opportunity of winning back my husband’s heart, which was even sorer than mine had ever been. My eyes were often filled with tears, in spite of myself, as I saw the alteration in his face, his anxious look, his brow furrowed before the time, and all the sad indications by which a soul that is tarnished betrays the reaction which has such an injurious effect on physical beauty itself. But the time was gone by when it seemed possible to form some project, and achieve it in a day. I had learned the value of the words _patience_ and _silence_.

I rose now every morning as soon as it was light, and went with Ottavia to the church of a neighboring convent to seek strength for the day and, so to speak, draw fresh joy from the inexhaustible fountain. I afterwards carried myself the alms which, in my pride and indolence, I had hitherto been contented to distribute by her hands. This was the only outward change in my way of life, and it was one that nobody perceived. But it was not quite the same with the change that had unconsciously taken place in my language, manners, and even in the expression of my face, and though Lorenzo seldom had an opportunity of noticing me, I soon fancied he had recovered a certain ease of manner towards me. Until now, he had been, not only wounded in his pride and passion, but especially humiliated in my presence; and it must be acknowledged that the coldness and disdain that constituted the mute form of my reproach were not calculated to conciliate him. The freezing haughtiness of his air in return, which seemed to add outrage to perjury, increased my exasperation to the utmost, and irritated me more than his actual offences did at the time I gave myself up with desperation to the thought of Gilbert, as a kind of intoxication which made me at once forget my grief and my anger. Now I no longer sought to escape from the one, and the other was wholly extinguished. This new state of my soul produced an outward calmness and serenity I had never possessed before.

Lorenzo’s quick, penetrating eye soon detected the change without being able to imagine the cause. One day, after looking attentively at me for a moment, a sad, thoughtful expression came over his face, and I thought there was something like affection and respect in his look.

This did not prevent him, however, from spending the evening away from home, and I anxiously followed him in spirit as usual, not daring to utter a word to detain him, and still less venture to question him. A whole week passed in this way, in the vague hope of finding some means of influencing him, but nothing of the kind happened. All at once, one morning, by some extraordinary accident we happened to be alone a moment together, and after causing me some anxiety by the gloomy expression on his face, he gave me a great but pleasant surprise by saying:

“What would you say, Ginevra, if I proposed your taking a journey to Sicily with me?”

I uttered an exclamation of joy.

“What a question, Lorenzo! You know well nothing could give me more pleasure than to see my father again, and Messina, the dear old palace, and....”

Here I stopped, too much affected to continue, and fearing to awaken remembrances that might seem like a reproach. He perceived it and was grateful.

“Well, my lawsuit is about to be tried. Don Fabrizio desires my presence, and I would not for anything in the world renounce the pleasure of hearing him plead. We will start next week, then, if you are willing.”

This proposition caused me the liveliest and most unexpected pleasure. To leave Naples! To go with him! and to a place where, more easily than anywhere else, it seemed to me I could overcome the fatal remembrance in his heart I had to struggle against! And from there—who could tell?—induce him perhaps to go to some distant land; persuade him to let me follow him, go with him to the ends of the earth, if necessary, in search of the pure air he needed to restore him to health! All this crossed my mind in the twinkling of an eye, and for the first time for a long while I saw a ray of hope before me.

When I announced the projected journey to Stella with a satisfaction I made no attempt to conceal, she looked at me with an air of surprise.

“You have entirely forgiven Lorenzo, then?” said she.

“Yes.”

“Then I conclude he has at last acknowledged his offences and begged your pardon.”

“No.”

“No?... In that case, Ginevra, you have greatly changed.”

“Yes, a blessed change has come over me.”

“I have noticed it for some days, and if I ask what has produced it, will you answer me sincerely?”

“Yes, without hesitation. I will tell you the plain truth.”

And without turning my eyes away from hers, which were fastened attentively on me, I calmly continued:

“Between my violent indignation against Lorenzo, and my strong fancy for Gilbert, I went very far astray from God, Stella. A single instant of extraordinary grace enabled me to see this. Everything is clear to me now. I no longer seek happiness: I possess it.”

The moment Stella heard me pronounce Gilbert’s name, which we had invariably avoided of late, the pupils of her eyes dilated, and, as I went on, took that intensity of color and expression which all emotion imparted to them. But she merely replied:

“I do not wholly understand you, Ginevra, I confess, but I see you are happy and courageous: that is sufficient.”

After a moment’s silence, I resumed:

“And will you allow me to ask you a question in my turn, Stella?”

She blushed without making any reply. I hastened to say that my question only concerned Harry Leslie. At his name, she resumed her usual expression, and a double smile beamed from her eyes and lips.

“Certainly, ask anything you please.”

“Well, he came yesterday with a gloomy air to announce his departure. Am I wrong in thinking you have something to do with it?”

“No,” replied she, smiling, “not if it is true he cannot remain in Naples without marrying me, for I have not otherwise ordered him to go away.”

Desirous of drawing her out on this point, I continued:

“But, after all, Mr. Leslie is kind, handsome, excellent, very wealthy they say, and of a good family. You are very difficult, Stella.”

“Yes, perhaps so,” replied she with agitation and a kind of impatience. Then she continued in a melancholy tone of anguish:

“Ginevra, never speak to me again, I beg, either of happiness or the future. I do not know as I shall ever be any happier than I am now, but I know I can be less so.... Oh! may what I now possess never be taken away from me. I ask nothing more.”

She shuddered and stopped speaking, as if she could not give utterance to her fears. It was not the first time I had seen her seized with a kind of terror when the words future and happiness were mentioned before her. One would have said she thought there was no happiness in reserve for her, unless at the price of that she already possessed, and this thought came over her like a vision of terror.

Poor Stella! Alas! how insecure the joys of earth! To be deprived of them, or tremble lest we may be—that is to say, to possess these joys with a poignant fear that empoisons every instant of their duration, and increases more and more in proportion to their prolongation!...

Is it, then, really necessary for a supernatural light to open our eyes to force us to acknowledge that this world is only a place of promise, of which the realization is in another?

To Be Continued.

The Brooklet.

From The German Of Goethe.

O brooklet silver bright and gay! For ever rushing on thy way, I, lingering, ever ask thee whence Thou comest here, where goest thou hence?

“From the dark rock’s deep breast I come, O’er flow’rs and moss I toss and roam; While on my bosom smiles and lies The hovering vision of the skies.

“Ask not of me, a laughing child, Whither or whence my foot steps wild; Him do I trust to guide me on Who called me from the senseless stone.”

The Colonization Of New South Wales By Great Britain.(155)

Some few years ago it became known that the government of Great Britain were thinking of renewing the experiment of transporting convicts to Australia with the object of affording them a chance of reformation. This time, however, it was its western shore which was to be tried, and that, too, on a scale not inferior in magnitude to that on which the attempt had been so unsuccessfully made in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. The bare suggestion of such a proposal sufficed to kindle a flame of indignation throughout the whole Australian continent—for such must an island be called which is as large as Europe. To judge from a letter which we shall have occasion to quote further on, the system as pursued in Eastern Australia, although upon so insignificant a scale, is fraught with evils similar to those which so signally characterized its more important precursor in the west. Yet were the eastern colonists, or an influential and active portion of them, ready to risk the reproduction of the baneful curse which for nearly half a century blighted the prosperity and checked the growth of their western rivals, and from the consequences of which the latter are suffering to this day. So bitter, however, was the remembrance of this system amongst the western colonists, so keen their sense of the dire mischiefs still resulting from its action, that they went the length of avowing their fixed determination to separate from the mother‐country, if the experiment were attempted, although some thousands of miles intervened between them and the spot where the experiment was proposed to be renewed.

What were the causes of a failure so disastrous? The objects proposed in the original undertaking were of the noblest. To colonize a newly‐ discovered country of great extent and promise, to develop its resources, and to bring it under the sway of a benign and noble civilization, was a worthy object of ambition. To unite with this a scheme for the reformation of criminals, in a land where they would be entirely removed from old associations, where they might enter upon a new career without being ever dogged by the spectre of the past, was a great and beneficent design. How was it that the proposed reformatory became a horrible curse alike to the convicts and the colony, and that no prospect of progress in any form could be reasonably entertained until the original scheme was utterly swept away, and the local administration taken altogether out of the hands of the home government, and placed upon its present independent footing?

The question of the reformation of criminals is not only of pressing importance, but one that appeals to our higher feelings; and it has of late become a subject of special investigation to the somewhat interested philanthropy and eminently shallow psychology of the day. It is impossible to say that any solution of the question was seriously attempted in the original transportation project to Botany Bay. It was the one object, nevertheless, which assumed a prominent place in the experiment; and to the history of its failure we propose to devote our chief attention. The colonization of the country was distinctly announced as forming part of the scheme; nor, indeed, is it easy to see how it could very well have been dissociated from it. On this subject, therefore, we will offer a few remarks by way of introduction.

The recolonization of Southern Europe by the Northern tribes in the Vth and VIth centuries of the present era offers a striking contrast to the colonization of Australia by a nation calling itself Christian. Anything but prepossessing is the description given us by the historians of those Northern invaders, whose deeds but too faithfully bear out the description. Over depopulated provinces, cities in ashes, and the ruins of the noblest monuments of religion and art, they swarmed into their new settlements. Vandals, Franks, Goths, and Huns, all alike were distinguished for an unpitying cruelty, although the Huns surpassed the rest in licentious profligacy and crime. Yet amidst the ruin they had made, and the prodigious havoc with which they had desolated the fairest countries of Europe, the winning accents of Christian civilization stole into their ears and subdued their untutored souls. In one respect they had the advantage of the first English settlers in Australia. They had not been flung out of their own country like garbage. They came under no ban of law. They bore not with them the consciences of convicted criminals. They marched to the spoil under the (to them) legitimate banners of ambition, or to satisfy their greed of gain. The untutored instincts of humanity, grand even in their lawlessness and ferocity, urged them on. Deformed, as might have been expected, with many of the gross vices of the savage, they were not wanting in some of the more attractive features of the nobility of nature. Their ears had never listened to the loving voice of the Virgin Daughter of Sion. Their hearts had never been disciplined nor their minds formed by the revelation from heaven committed to her keeping. Theirs was not the guilt, as it has been of some of the nations of this XIXth century, to have _apostatized_ to the barbarous maxim that “might makes right.” They knew no better. No sooner, however, did the majestic vision of the Spouse of Christ—the Catholic Church—meet their gaze, than, far from treating her with insult and outrage, they threw themselves with loving veneration at her feet, bowed their necks with the truthful docility of children to her discipline, and arose to prove themselves her most faithful defenders.

But whilst the men‐eating aborigines of Australia had no civilization to communicate, the first invaders of its shores from Great Britain were, some of them, of the worst class of barbarians—the barbarians of civilization. They were of those whose untamable souls law, civilization, and religion had failed to subdue. They were the offscouring of the criminal class of the three kingdoms. The society they had outraged had cast them out from itself upon the coasts of Australia. They stepped on shore convicted as felons. They had forfeited the citizenship of their own country; and, although still undergoing their respective sentences, it was understood that they were to have the opportunity of making a fresh start in their new country, should their conduct correspond with the clemency of the executive. On a career that, more than any other, requires a spirit of enterprise, light‐heartedness, and courage, they had set out under the ban of expatriation, the burden of shame, and all the depressing influences of detected guilt. Of such were the first settlers of Australia.

On the evening of the 26th of January, 1788, the English dominion over what has been called the fifth division of the globe was inaugurated by the solemnity of pledging the king’s health round a flag‐pole. His majesty’s subjects in New Holland, at the period of this imposing function, numbered one thousand and thirty souls. Of these seven hundred and seventy‐eight were convicts. The remaining two hundred and fifty consisted of the soldiers who formed the garrison of the new settlement, and their officers, together with a few civil functionaries. In this rude germ of future commonwealths the elements neither of agriculture nor of commerce as yet existed. An encampment of huts was its first abiding‐ place. For food it depended on the stores brought with it from the mother‐ country; amongst which was neither seed nor other provision for future crops. At the moment at which we write, after a lapse of eighty‐six years, the flocks and herds of a wealthy agricultural population range over an area as large as that of Europe; five splendid provinces, each with its own court and parliament, can boast of cities equal in size to many European capitals, and constituting commercial marts second to none on the face of the globe.

Of the prodigious strides they have made in material prosperity, Mr. Therry, in his interesting _Reminiscences_, gives the following striking illustration:

“It has been ascertained that our South Pacific colonies take from us in imports for every man, woman, and child of their respective populations, on the average, from £8 to £10 per head per annum, while the United States were only customers to us in 1859 (before the war began), at the rate of 17s. per head. The amount of imports received by Canada, which comes nearest to Australia, is £5 per head; that of New South Wales alone is £21 3s. 4d. per head; of Victoria, £25” (p. 9).

The commerce of these colonies with all parts of the world is nearly three times larger in money value than was the whole export commerce of England less than a century ago; and they receive from the United Kingdom upwards of twenty times the value of exports which the North American colonies were receiving at the time of their separation from the mother‐country. To crown the social edifice, a contented people live and prosper under the shadow of the freest institutions, in many respects surpassing, in this particular, the much‐vaunted model on which they have been framed.

It is certain that the prevailing motive of the English government in despatching a penal colony to Botany Bay was to supply the place of her lost American colonies. No doubt the idea of colonizing the country was present to their minds. But it never went beyond words. Not a single provision was made for colonial development. On the contrary, the whole constitution of the exiled community was fatal to such an object. For nearly half a century the inherent vices of the system struggled against and forcibly restrained any efforts to profit by the advantages of a country of such wonderful promise; nor was it before the original government scheme had been quite abandoned that the colony rose from its inaction, like an unfettered giant, and, as it were, almost at a stride, arrived at a pitch of prosperity unexampled, in so short a period of time, in the annals of the world, with the single exception of the American colonies after they had disembarrassed themselves of the yoke of the mother country.

The defection of those colonies had stopped an important outlet for the criminal population of the three kingdoms. We are told by Bancroft, in his _History of the United States_, that

“The prisoners condemned [in England] to transportation were a salable commodity. Such was the demand for labor in America that convicts and laborers were regularly purchased and shipped to the colonies, where they were sold as indented servants.”

The Irish malcontents, moreover—of whom, owing to the long misgovernment of the kingdom, Ireland was full, and whose disaffection had been stimulated by the revolt of the North American colonies—threatened to increase the convict population by a large and particularly unmanageable element. It was only a year or two before that a country happened to be explored and taken possession of in the name of England so happily fitted for colonization, and of which such admirable use has since been made. The discovery was the result of sheer accident, so far as the British government was concerned. The expedition to which it owes it was sent out by the Royal Society for scientific purposes; the object being to make accurate observations of the transit of Venus from the island of Otaheite. The islands of New Zealand and the east coast of New Holland were explored on the way home. The astronomical expedition returned to England in the midsummer of 1771.

In 1786, the government decided on establishing permanent settlements on the coast lately explored by Captain Cook, accompanied by Messrs. Green and Banks and Dr. Solander. The colony consisted exclusively of the convicts and the military in charge; of prisoners and their jailers. Any class out of which a free civil community might be formed could only arise out of chance settlers, or of those among the convicts whose position was the result rather of untoward circumstances than of any irreclaimable criminality of disposition, and who were prepared to re‐commence in those distant lands a career from which their misfortune or their fault had shut them out at home.

The constitution of the expedition was as follows: A governor, lieutenant‐ governor, judge‐advocate, commissary, and chaplain; a surgeon and two assistant surgeons; an agent for the transports; two hundred and twelve soldiers and mariners, including officers; their wives, numbering forty, and their children; five hundred and forty‐eight male convicts, and two hundred and thirty female.

The neighborhood of Botany Bay having been judged unsuitable for the new settlement, the expedition landed at a spot situated at the head of one of the coves of Port Jackson Harbor, which had been judiciously selected by the governor as the site of the future capital. The 26th of January, 1788, was the day of disembarkation, and it was on the evening of that day that the inaugural rite, to which we have before alluded, was solemnized. After a lapse of eleven days, consumed in putting up the public and private structures needful for the new colony, the ceremony of inauguration was supplemented by one of a yet more imposing character. On the seventh of February was held a formal assembly of all the members of the new commonwealth. An occasion of greater interest could not be imagined. Upon no band of colonists was ever lavished a greater wealth of hope and fortune. No guilt of diplomatic fraud or commercial overreaching marred their title to the new territory. Through no bloodshed, no violence, but quite unopposed, they had entered on its peaceable possession. No foreign power, to whom the new state might be calculated to give umbrage, threatened its future welfare. A magnificent harbor sheltered its ships and transports; and it was only one of many such with which a coast of vast extent was indented. A whole continent of virgin soil stretched out before them, which, under the influence of the finest climate under heaven, waited only the bidding of man to quicken within itself an exhaustless luxuriance of vegetable life. A mighty Empire of the South offered itself to any hands that were willing and able to grasp it. It was only reasonable to expect that England, having just lost her supremacy in the New World, would have devoted her utmost resources of civilization and statesmanship to laying deep and wide the foundations of her new dominion. If none of the members of an aristocracy enjoying more advantages and more power than were ever possessed by the most privileged class of any the most privileged nation, were willing to leave the home of their ancestral traditions, the softness of hereditary ease, and an absolute independence of fortune’s caprice, in order to join in the struggling life of a young community, we should at least have expected that the mother‐country would despatch a contribution from each of the other classes of her citizens to assist in the formation of the new settlement. Her system of jurisprudence, admirable in spite of the inextricable jumble of statutes and precedents amidst which it has been reared, would be represented, one would have thought, by a sufficient number of lawyers of character; her merchant princes would be encouraged to carry their spirit of enterprise to so rich and promising a field; still more, that which forms the only true and solid basis of material prosperity—agriculture—would be abundantly cared for in the shape of a due supply of competent masters and sturdy laborers; last, though not least, some provision would be made, not only for the moral and religious training of the people, but for such mental cultivation as was compatible with the condition of an infant community. What no one in his senses could have anticipated was that the government of a great and ancient nation should have sent out as the founders of a new colonial empire a contingent of malefactors, guarded by a few marines. Upon the occasion of the formal inauguration ceremony the whole colony were assembled around the governor. Nearest to himself were the lieutenant‐governor, the judge‐advocate, provost‐marshal, commissary, adjutant, doctor, and chaplain. The two hundred and twelve marines, including no less than fifteen commissioned officers, were drawn up in battle array. Apart from the rest, as under the ban of crime, stood the bulk of the community—namely, the convicts. To this assemblage the judge‐ advocate read the royal commission and the act of Parliament which constituted the court of judicature. After the reading of which documents the one hundred and ninety‐seven marines shouldered old “Brown Bess,” made ready, presented, and fired three times.

The ceremony was not imposing, but it was on a par with the rest of the proceedings. The governor, Capt. Phillip, wound it up with a speech in which, in spite of grammatical errors which may be pardoned in a sailor, he displayed considerable ability and eloquence, but a marvellous absence of common sense. In the course of a somewhat inflated panegyric on England and her fortunes, his excellency went on to portray his native country as the peculiar favorite of heaven, and to ascribe her successful colonization of New Holland—a matter considered by anticipation as already accomplished, and that, too, in the teeth of the recent defection of her most splendid colonies on the plea of tyrannical misgovernment—to a prolonged special intervention of Divine Providence.

“Nor did our good genius desert us,” continued the governor, “when we reached our destination. On the contrary, it was then that her(?) crowning favor was bestowed. Witness the magnificent harbor which before us extends its hundred beautiful bays. Witness the beautiful landscape, the islands, capes, and headlands, covered with waving foliage, rich and varied beyond compare. Witness every surrounding object which, as regards a situation for our future homes, our necessities could demand or our tastes desire. Happy the nation whose enterprises are thus favored by the elements and by fortune! Happy the men engaged in an enterprise so favored! Happy the state to whose founding such propitious omens are granted!”

It is clear from the following passage, incredible as it may appear, that the government of the day did really contemplate founding a new state beyond the seas out of the criminal population, the moral refuse of society. Gov. Phillip even challenges for the scheme the praise of magnanimity.

“The American colonies,” he said in his inaugural address, “smarting under what they considered a sense of injustice, had recourse to the sword, and the ancient state and the young dependency met in deadly conflict. The victory belonged to the American people, and Britain, resigning the North America continent (?) to the dominion of her full‐grown offspring, magnanimously seeks in other parts of the earth a region where she may lay the foundations of another colonial empire, which one day will rival in strength, but we hope not in disobedience, that which she has so recently lost” (_Flanagan_, vol. i. p. 30).

It is, however, remarkable that Mr. Flanagan grounds his own attribution of magnanimity on the absence of those very features of the new territory on whose conspicuous presence the governor, standing on the spot, congratulates his fellow‐colonists, as one of the signs of a special interposition of Providence in their favor.

“To incur vast expense,” writes the author of the _History of New South Wales_, “encounter great dangers, and overcome great difficulties, in order to possess and colonize a country more remote than any hitherto brought under subjection by Europeans—a country presenting _no pre‐eminent attractions in soil, destitute, so far as was then known, of the precious metals_, and inhabited by a people in the greatest degree barbarous and devoid of all riches—while countries possessing all those attractions which New Holland wanted were within her reach, is the best evidence which can possibly be afforded of national magnanimity” (_Flanagan_, vol. i. p. 2).

“How grand is the prospect which lies before the youthful nation!” exclaimed the enthusiastic governor to the new colony in his inaugurative speech. “Enough of honor for any state would it be to occupy the first position, both in regard to time and influence, in a country so vast, so beautiful, _so fertile_, so blessed in climate, so rich in all those bounties which nature can confer; ... _its fertile plains tempting only the slightest labor of the husbandman to produce in abundance the fairest and the richest fruits_; its interminable pastures, the future home of flocks and herds innumerable; _its mineral wealth, already known to be so great as to promise that it may yet rival those treasures which fiction loves to describe_—enough for any nation, I say, would it be to enjoy those honors and those advantages; but others not less advantageous, but perhaps more honorable, await the people of the state of which we are the founders.”

“To these,” continued the governor, addressing that engaging instalment of British civilization which the imperial government had sent forth from the shores of their country to take possession, in its name, of this new land, and develop its abundant resources, “will belong the surpassing honor of having introduced permanently the Christian religion and European civilization into the southern hemisphere. At no distant date it will be theirs to plant the standard of the cross and the ensign of their country in the centre of numerous populous nations to whom both these have hitherto been but little known. Such are the objects which will arouse the enterprise and stimulate the energies of the people of this young country—enterprise and energy, directed not toward conquest or rapine, chiefly because Australia, rich beyond measure in her own possessions, cannot desire those of others, but towards the extension of commerce, the spread of the English language, the promotion of the arts and sciences, and the extension of the true faith. Such are the circumstances and conditions which lead to the conviction that this state, of which to‐day we lay the foundation, will, ere many generations have passed away, become the centre of the southern hemisphere—the brightest gem of the Southern Ocean” (_Flanagan_, vol. i. pp. 32, 33).

Were these, then, whom Capt. Phillip addressed the men to introduce the Christian religion and European civilization in a newly‐discovered continent? Were a detachment of jail‐birds and their keepers to “develop commerce, spread the English language, promote the arts and sciences, and extend the true faith?” Were such as these the missionaries to plant the standard of the cross, or even that of their own country, amidst populations alien to both alike? Did the English government seriously propose to make a missionary college out of a reformatory, if such it could be called? Were the Barabbases of England to be the pioneers of civilization, the Artful Dodgers of the metropolis the heralds of the Christian faith?

The truth is that the only object directly provided for by the government to which England was indebted for this “magnanimous” deed of colonization was the establishment of a secure and distant depot for the worst criminals of the country.

The noble object to which the exhaustless resources of the continent they had just taken possession of were to be devoted was left to the chapter of accidents. A picture of the future greatness of the equivocal colony was, it is true, dashed off, in glowing colors, by Commodore Phillip, but no provision of any kind was made for its realization.

There was nothing whatever to hinder the attainment of both these objects, or at least an attempt to attain them. On the contrary, never was a fairer opportunity for an experiment of the kind offered to a people. Before them lay the wide, almost limitless landscape in all its exuberant beauty and unexhausted fertility. There it lay, as a kind of treasure‐trove, at their feet, with no one to dispute its possession. Their first object ought assuredly to have been to bring a large portion of the soil under cultivation; agriculture being that on which more than on anything else the prosperity of a country, and especially of a young country, depends. Not one shilling did these original and eccentric colonists invest in the soil of that vast island continent, every acre of which was theirs, with all its latent wealth, whether that wealth consisted in its as yet untried productive powers, or in the hoard of precious metals which might be locked up in its secret depths.

The home government thus had it in their power to offer to a superior class of yeomen inducements of the most persuasive kind to try their fortunes in the new colony. Sufficient area being left for the development of a splendid capital, they should have been planted in middling‐sized farms as closely around the reserved area as seemed desirable, and stretching out into the continent in gradually‐encroaching circles. A small contingent of married men, of good reputation amongst their neighbors, and of superior capacity and attainments, should have been encouraged to throw their fortunes into the colony. To these a greater extent of land should have been granted. These settlers would have formed the nucleus of a class from which could have been selected men fitted for holding the most responsible positions. The young colony could very well dispense with hereditary titles of honor. But it could not so well dispense with a class such as we refer to, if it was to become a country to which men of character and position would not hesitate to resort. A class was wanted other than the emancipists—the very worst that could have been chosen—to supply persons of standing, acquirements, and, above all, of reputable experience for the magistracy, and for other national, so to speak, as well as local, offices of trust and administration. Such a class of yeomen having been thus provided, the staff of government officials, the military and naval forces, and the continually increasing influx of convict laborers, added to the population of those classes themselves, would have supplied a considerable population, ready to hand, of customers and consumers. The mercantile and professional classes would soon have sent their contributions from the overstocked mother‐country, not in arrear, at all events, of the ordinary course of supply and demand. A manufacturing class would have developed of itself quite as soon as the interests of the colony required it. And, lastly and most imperatively of all, had the mother‐country been Catholic, the interests of religion would have been the very first consideration. Priests and a nucleus of one or more religious orders would have been despatched with the expedition. Churches would have been the first structures raised. Land would have been set apart for their support, and for the appropriate splendor of Christian worship. And hospitals, attended by religious of both sexes, would have been erected, and endowed with sufficient land for their perpetual support.

Nothing of the sort was so much as attempted. Thirty years after the memorable inauguration day, a period of time embracing nearly one‐half of the entire age of the colony, the then governor, Macquarie, we are told by Mr. Therry, “_considered the colony was selected as a depot for convicts; that the land properly belonged to them, as they emerged from their condition of servitude; and that emigrants were intruders on the soil._” Ten years afterwards, little more than seventy years ago, the state of “the brightest gem of the Southern Ocean,” in spite of the encouragement given to emigration by Macquarie’s successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, during the three years of his administration, is thus described by the very competent authority just quoted: “_The majority of the community he_ (Sir Thomas Brisbane) _ruled over were of the convict class, who were not respectable nor right‐minded. It consisted of very inflammable materials, composing two‐thirds of the whole community, which it required the exercise of a stern authority to repress._”

Natural advantages have triumphed over the obstacles offered by human folly. The present condition of the Australian colonies more than realizes the glowing expectations of the head‐jailer of the first convict gang that landed on their shores. Indeed, if those utterances of Commander Phillip were to be judged by the results, we might be tempted to ascribe them to the inspiration of even prophetical sagacity. One merit, at all events, may be accorded to the enthusiastic sailor. He did not overestimate the boundless resources and advantageous position of the noble country of which he and his prisoners were assuming the proprietorship “on behalf of the British people,” utterly incapable as they were of taking advantage of them.

To Be Concluded Next Month.

A Summer In Rome.

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

Of course all our friends exclaimed, when we intimated the possibility of our remaining in Rome for the summer:

We would suffocate with heat.

We would be poisoned with malaria.

We would have chills, and consequently fevers.

The fruit would make us sick, the wine would turn sour while we were pouring it out, and we would be kept awake all night by people in the street.

We would have no one to speak to, for everybody would be gone out of town.

Besides, and above all, it was not the proper thing to do.

I do not believe that either of us was serious in first making the proposal, unless Bianca cherished such a wish under her pensive silence; but so much opposition led us to look at the project, and we did not find it so bad as might have been expected. Besides, no one with a particle of spirit likes to be scouted and talked down; and all of us had spirit enough to feel a little vexed at the storm of opposition we had brought about our ears—all except Mr. Varney. He was too indolent to resent anything.

“I do not believe that there is the least necessity for having a fever in Rome,” said Isabel. (It was nearly always Isabel who spoke.) “One has but to select a cool apartment and use a little prudence. If we were to do as I have seen people do here—go from the oven to the refrigerator—we should know what to expect. To walk in a sunny street till you are in a perspiration, then sit on a shady stone to cool off, is not only inviting a fever, but sending a _gendarme_ to fetch it. As for heat, New York is ten times hotter; and I once passed a whole summer in New York, and was quite comfortable; wasn’t I, papa? Then, how any one can say that we shall have no one to speak to I cannot imagine. Here are four of us; and I take perfect delight in talking to myself. The most interesting conversations I ever had in my life were with Miss Isabel Varney.”

“Besides,” said a clear voice from the window, “what we came to Rome to see doesn’t go away in the summer.”

We all looked at Bianca, who had turned her head toward us to speak, and was gazing out the window again, the lace curtain wrapped about her like a bridal veil, and the _persienne_ half closed to shield her from the many eyes in the piazza.

“May I ask what you came to see?” inquired a visitor, who always tried to make this silent one talk.

She only half turned to answer.

“The Holy Father; the shrines and homes of the saints; all the holy, and all the beautiful, and all the famous places here; and the skies that are above them. And, again, the Holy Father. He is the Christian Prometheus, bound to the Vatican as to a rock, and we are a little chorus of American Oceanides who are come to bewail him, and who have no mind to go away for pleasure.”

“Brava!” said papa.

“And as for the ‘proper thing,’ ” said another member of the family, “we have bored ourselves to death all winter trying to do that.”

“Besides,” struck in Isabel, with a bright thought, “we want to learn the language; and that we never could do going about from place to place. Here we can sit down quietly, and study the four or five hundred irregular verbs at our leisure, and settle the genders of things, and learn to pronounce properly all their undulating and circuitous strings of vowels and the little curly tails to their ridiculous words.”

“Don’t include me in your class, if you please,” Mr. Varney said. “I would as soon shave off my hair and wear a wig as drop my own language and speak another. I shall speak English when I say anything; and if people do not understand me, it will not be my fault. We can always find interpreters; and I do not approve of—of—er—of deserting your own tongue for another,” he concluded rather weakly, not having measured his strength before commencing this speech.

The truth was that he never did approve of anything which cost him the least effort; but we listened as gravely as if we believed him to be actuated by the most heroic patriotism.

“You are quite right, papa,” Isabel said emphatically. “Still, since interpreters may not always be honest, you know, it is better that some of us should understand and be able to protect the family.”

“You will not find the verbs so difficult as you may imagine,” remarked an Italian. “The irregularities are chiefly in the preterite. Preterites are always ragged. They are never a part of the original language, I think, but were interpolated when it was discovered that a nicer expression of thought was needed; and then the grammarians had to accommodate themselves to circumstances, and use what was left. You will take pleasure in learning so musical a language, Miss Isabel.”

“Oh! I think English quite as musical as Italian,” replied the young woman with composure.

“When you speak it, _signorina_,” said the Italian, after a momentary pause of astonishment.

“I find the phrases and words I learned in music very useful,” she continued. “The other day I said ‘_allegro, ma non troppo_,’ to the coachman, and he drove perfectly. That is on millions of pieces of music, you know, papa. It quite pleased me to talk to a coachman as if he were a fugue. And when I said ‘_andante_,’ he actually put down the brake.”

“But you know we were going down‐hill then, Bella,” remarked her sister.

“I can make the servants understand perfectly well,” continued Isabel. “But in churches and galleries, and catacombs, and such places, the people are very stupid.”

This is the way in which Miss Isabel Varney made the servants understand perfectly:

“Angelina,” she would say to the _donna_, in English, “I want you to black my thick walking‐boots. The dust has made them look dingy. But first bring me another pitcher of water. It is strange that in a city that would be a lake if all its aqueducts were to burst at once one cannot get more than a quart of water at a time. Make haste, now, for I wish to go out immediately.”

Angelina stood immovable, a picture of distressful doubt. The time had gone past when she would have ventured to remind her mistress that English had not been included in her education.

“Oh! to be sure,” says Isabel. “What a bother it is when one is in a hurry! What is the Italian for water, Bianca? _Acqua?_ Well, Angelina, bring me some _acqua_.”

The _donna_ began to lift her apron toward her eyes.

“_Apportez moi_ some _acqua!_” said her mistress distinctly and authoritatively.

The _donna_ shrank back. “Signorina mia,” she began pitifully.

“Don’t talk!” cried the young lady. “What is the use of your talking to me when I cannot understand a word you say? It is too absurd. Besides, it is the servant’s place to obey without speaking. Bianca, do look in the dictionary for the Italian for wish or will, the strongest word you can get; then in the grammar for the first person, singular, indicative of it—or, no, the imperative. And be quick, or I never shall get out. _Voglio?_ Angelina, I _voglio_ a pitcher of _acqua_—what is the word for quickly? _Vitement?_ No. That isn’t Italian. It must be _vita_. That is an Italian word, I know, and it sounds as if it meant quickly. Angelina, I _voglio acqua vita_.”

“_Si, si, signorina!_” exclaimed the poor little _donna_, and ran off, glad to get out of the room.

“And, after all, she hasn’t taken the pitcher,” said Isabel. “But may be she will bring a pailful. She knew quite well that I was finding fault because we have so little. They understand what we say, I’m sure they do. Their ignorance is all a pretence.”

Five minutes passed, and ten minutes; and when the young lady had exhausted herself in impatient exclamations, Angelina entered the chamber, all out of breath, but smiling in confident triumph, and placed in her hand a bottle on which was an apothecary’s label with _acquavite_ neatly inscribed on it.

There was a _bersagliere_ passing the house at that moment; and I have always thought I would like to know if he ever suspected that the hand of a _papalina_ flung that bottle which alighted safely on the great tuft of flying feathers in his hat. I am sure that if the bottle had contained anything but _acquavite_, the military would have been called out.

This feat accomplished, Miss Isabel seized the empty water‐pitcher, and thrust it into the hands of the frightened girl with one word, “_Acqua!_” uttered in a tone which proved her to have tragical abilities.

Angelina returned in a trice with the water, and found her mistress standing in the middle of the room, with a stern countenance, and a dictionary in her hand.

“Now, _nero_ my _guadagno_.”

The girl lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

“_Profitto_, I mean,” was the hasty correction.

Tears rolled down Angelina’s cheeks.

“It couldn’t be that boot is _stivale!_” said the young woman in a low tone to a third person in the room. “That sounds as if it meant something three‐cornered.”

“You might try,” was the suggestion.

“_Stivale?_” demanded the young woman of the _donna_.

“_Si, signorina_,” said the girl eagerly, glancing at the articles in question.

“Well, _nero_ my _stivale_,” ordered the mistress haughtily.

“_O Dio mio!_” sobbed Angelina.

Isabel lost all patience and dignity. She flew at the boots and caught them in one hand, flew at the toilet‐table and snatched her tooth‐brush in the other, then, rushing at the terrified _donna_, performed before her face a furious pantomime of polishing her boots with the tooth‐brush.

“_Capisco!_” cried Angelina joyfully.

“It is worse than Robinson Crusoe with his man Friday,” sighed Isabel, sinking, exhausted, into a chair. “These scenes are positively ruining my disposition. You know, Bianca, I used to have a very good temper, and the servants at home were always fond of me. But here I am becoming a scold and a fury. We must get settled in another apartment, and have a teacher right away.”

A cool summer apartment was found near the Esquiline, a teacher engaged, and our parting friends went their several ways, taking doleful leave of us.

And here it may not be amiss to make the reader better acquainted with the family who desire the pleasure of his acquaintance and company for a time.

Mr. Varney, the son of a Boston merchant, had, when he was young and venturesome, made a voyage to Spain in one of his father’s ships. The ship came back without him; but, after six months’ absence, he returned, bringing with him a young Spanish wife, whom he had wooed and won during that brief visit. She lived only ten years, pining ever for the sunny land of her birth, and dropped away finally before they had begun to fear that she was dying, leaving two daughters, Bianca and Isabel.

Her death quite uprooted her husband from his accustomed life, and gave him a shock from which he never recovered. He had always promised, and had meant, to take her back to Spain; but, between the calls of business and a habit of procrastination, had put off the visit from year to year till it was too late. Then the New England which had killed her became distasteful to him, and, after lingering a few years to settle up his business, he went abroad for an indefinite time, taking his daughters with him. He seemed to fancy that by this tardy journey he was proving to his wife his regret and the sincerity of his promises.

They avoided Spain, however, unwilling to hasten at once to that land which she had longed in vain to see. There was even an idea of self‐exile and punishment in going so near without touching its beautiful shores. They visited England and France, then came directly to Rome.

“I do not believe that we shall ever go away from Italy for any length of time,” Bianca said. “It is the true land of the lotos, and we have eaten of the charmed plant.”

“Would you like to live here always?” her father asked, looking earnestly at her.

There was a certain pensive melancholy in her face and attitude which constantly drew his anxious regards.

“Yes!” she answered slowly.

“I think Bianca is changed from what she used to be,” he said afterward to one of the family. “It seems to me that I remember her gay and bright, like Isabel; but she has grown quiet and gentle, little by little, and so gradually that I do not know when the change began.”

The person whom he addressed tried to give him the comfort and reassurance which his anxiety evidently pleaded for. She pointed out that one had but to look at the two girls to see at once the difference in their temperaments; that Isabel’s shorter and more compact form proved a stronger and more aggressive vitality than her sister’s willowy slenderness was capable of; that the very shape of their faces—a delicate oval in the one and a full oval in the other—was another proof of difference; and that, moreover, Bianca, being the elder, had been of an age to be impressed by her mother’s death, while Isabel was still too young.

“And I find yet another reason,” the comforter continued, turning mentor. “Your frequently‐expressed regret for your wife, and the habit you have of referring to her love for Spain and her home‐sickness, cannot fail to sadden so sensitive a heart as Bianca’s, while Isabel thinks that it is merely a ‘way you have got into,’ as she would express it.”

It was, perhaps, rather a severe speech; but when a person contracts a habit of making a mournful luxury of his troubles, and of perpetually setting up his mourning standard beside the red, white, and blue of those who at least try to be cheerful, it does no harm to let him know that the effect is not enlivening.

Well, we were settled in our summer quarters, and had just finished our first dinner there, when the historian of the party made a prudent suggestion.

“Since we are beginning a new life with new people, I think that we should have a clear understanding about everything, so as to save trouble at the end,” she said.

Her ears were still ringing with the din of battle which had accompanied their exit from their former home—the loud voice of the _padrona_ demanding payment for broken chairs and tables that had dropped in pieces the first time they were touched; the vociferous porter, who insisted on having money because he had snatched Isabel’s reticule from her hand, in spite of her, and carried it a dozen steps; the small but very shrill boy, whom they had no recollection of ever having seen before, and who wanted to be paid for they knew not what; the hysterical _donna_, who expected that her heart, lacerated because her services had not been re‐engaged, would be soothed by the gift of a few extra _lire_; and a half‐dozen beggars crying for “_qualche cosa_.”

And so “it might be as well to have everything arranged at the beginning,” remarked this prudent person.

“I settled about the furniture before you came in to dinner,” Isabel said. “I had the whole family up, and before their eyes, with papa as witness, I shook and leaned on every table and cabinet, and sat down in every chair as hard as I could. Two chairs dropped, and are taken out for repair, which will cost us nothing. And I have ordered out all the paper bouquets with tall glass cases over them, and all the ornamental cups and saucers. But I think we may as well tell them that if they send begging people up to us, we will deduct what we give from the rent. Papa says he has made a careful reckoning, and finds that if we give a _soldo_ to each ragged beggar in the street, and half a _lira_ to each well‐dressed beggar who comes up, we shall be ourselves reduced to beggary in six months.”

Bianca turned round on the piano‐stool, her face full of expostulation. “Oh! but those dear Capuchins!” she exclaimed.

“It isn’t likely that I meant to refuse a Capuchin,” answered Isabel indignantly. “They are an exception; and so are all religious. No one can say that religion costs them much in Italy. I am ashamed to give so little and receive so much.”

“Having an understanding at the beginning will make no sort of difference at the end,” Mr. Varney said. “Every stranger here expects to have a fight with the family he is leaving. It is a part of the play which cannot be left out by particular request, like the Prince of Denmark out of _Hamlet_. Let us put off explanations till they are forced on us. I would like, though, to say a word or two to Giuseppe about the table.”

Giuseppe was a new servant, whom we considered ourselves very fortunate in engaging, as he not only spoke English, but had lived in England several months, and might therefore be supposed to know something of Anglo‐Saxon ways. He came in immediately.

“There are two or three directions which I wish to give once for all, Giuseppe,” Mr. Varney said in his slow, languid way. “I hope you will remember them, for I do not like to repeat orders.”

“Yes, sir!” said Giuseppe, with a stiffness of bow and attitude oddly in contrast with his sparkling Italian face.

“In the first place,” resumed his master, “when I say that I want breakfast, or dinner, or the carriage at a certain hour, I mean that time precisely, and not an hour or a half‐hour later, nor even five minutes later.”

A second bow and “Yes, sir!” worthy of May Fair.

Mr. Varney went on argumentatively, bringing his fingers into play: “Secondly, I want my wine brought in with the seals unbroken. If I find a single bottle of the wine I have put up opened, I will”—he paused for a suitable threat.

“Break the bottle over your head,” struck in Isabel. “Remember, papa, all the watered wine we have paid for, and don’t be too mild. Remember the horrible stuff for which we paid three times the market price all last winter. Don’t be too mild. You may depend upon it, Giuseppe, we shall not permit of any tampering with wine, or fruit, or candles, or anything. We have had too much of that.”

“Yes, miss!” says Giuseppe.

“I hate to be called ‘miss,’ ” remarked the young lady. “Call me _signorina_. Of all titles I think miss the most disagreeable. And Mrs. and Mr. are not much better. The Italian language has that one advantage, I will own.”

“Be careful about the fruit you give us,” Mr. Varney went on. “We want ripe fruit. The figs to‐day were not quite perfect. Figs,” said Mr. Varney with solemn deliberation—“figs should be just right, or they are good for nothing. When they are just right, there is nothing better, and you can give them to us three times a day. They must be ripe, but not too ripe; fine‐grained, but not salvy; cool, crisp, intensely sweet, and on the point of bursting open, but not quite broken.”

Giuseppe forgot his English training long enough to inquire, “Hadn’t you better speak to the trees about it, sir?”

“That will do,” Mr. Varney concluded with dignity. “I have no more to say now. You can go.”

The setting sun, shining on the new walls opposite, was reflected into our drawing‐room, lighting it beautifully, touching Mr. Varney’s gray hair and pleasant face, as he sat in a huge, yellow arm‐chair by the window and diving into Isabel’s bright eyes, as she leaned on his shoulder, and looked over with him the _Diario Romano_, trying to make out the holy‐ days.

“Here is the anniversary of the coronation of Pius IX.,” she said. “I wonder if we shall be arrested if we wear yellow roses in our hats, Bianca?”

Mr. Varney pored awhile over the book in his hand, and presently asked, with a general inquiring glance about the room, “Does anybody know what time of day or night twenty‐three o’clock is? Here is a function announced to begin at twenty‐three o’clock. Do people go to church at that hour? I should think it would be very late at night.”

“It might be some time the next day,” suggested a member of the family.

The gentleman arranged his glasses, and looked puzzled. “Then, when a function is announced for twenty‐three o’clock on Wednesday, it takes place at some hour on Thursday,” he said.

No one ventured either to acquiesce or to dissent, and it was concluded to put this difficulty on the list of questions we were making out for our Italian teacher to answer the next morning.

“He will be such a convenience to us!” Isabel said. “People assure me that he knows everything, and is never at loss for an answer.”

Mr. Varney took a pinch of snuff. He had always shown an inclination toward that indulgence, but had not dared to yield to it in America. Now, however, with such eminent examples constantly before his eyes, he could carry his snuff‐box, not only with impunity, but with a kind of pride.

“Have you reflected, my daughter,” he asked, “that your Italian teacher knows not a word of English, and that, since you cannot very well fly at him, as you could at Angelina, and extract his meaning at the sword’s point, his explanations, however excellent they may be, are not likely to profit you much for some time to come?”

“Oh! we will make out some way,” she replied carelessly. “One can always understand a clever person. Besides, if worse comes to worse, I don’t know why I shouldn’t fly at him, if necessary. He will be paid for his time; and one can always scold a person whom one pays.”

The last sun‐ray faded away, and the golden globe of the new moon shone out over Santa Maria Maggiore, shining so low and full in the transparent sky that one almost feared it might strike the tower or domes of that dearest of churches in passing, and break itself like a bubble.

We were silent a little while, then Mr. Varney said, “Sing us that song you are humming, my darling.”

When he said “my darling,” he always meant Bianca.

She made a motion to put away the music‐sheet before her, and take another, but replaced it; and presently we heard her low voice, which half sang, half spoke, the words:

“Friend, the way is steep and lonely, Thickly grows the rue; All around are shadows only: May I walk with you?

“Not too near; for, oh! your going Is upon the heights, Where the airs of heaven are blowing Through the morning lights.

“Dare I brush the dews that glisten All about your feet? Can I listen where you listen? Meet the sights you meet?

“Not too far—I faint at missing You from out my way. Vain is then the glory kissing All the peaks of day;

“Vain are all the laughing showers Leading in the spring; All the summer green and flowers, All the birds that sing.

“At your side my way is clearest: Tell me I may stay! Not too near—and yet, my dearest, Not too far away!”

“What does it mean?” asked Mr. Varney. “It seems to me very obscure.”

“Oh! a song isn’t expected to mean anything but melody,” somebody answered rather hastily. “All that is required of the lines is that they should be of the proper length. Sing the other, Bianca—the one I looked over to‐ day.”

The speaker knew that nothing suited Mr. Varney so well as a genuine love‐ song.

Bianca sang

“O roses dewy, roses red and sweet! Tinting with your hues the summer air, Give my cheeks your blushes, give my mouth your breathing, Add such rounded beauty as is meet, Wrap me in the graces all your tendrils wreathing; For he loves me, and I would be fair.

“O sunshine, playing with the swinging vine, Sift your gold through all my dusky hair, Gild each braid and ringlet with a softened glimmer, Hint the crown his love has rendered mine. Than the brightest eyes, oh! let not mine be dimmer; For he loves me, and I would be fair.

“O lilies! in a drift of scented snow, Willing all your sweetness to immure In a leafy cloister, waves alone caressing, Give my soul your whiteness ere ye go, That its stainless beauty be to him a blessing; For he loves me, and I would be pure.

“O faithful stars! I pray ye, touch me so With the virtue given unto you That I fail him never, living, nor yet dying, Howsoe’er the days may come and go, With a steadfast tenderness his life supplying; For he loves me, and I would be true.”

The first stroke of the _Ave Maria_ broke off the last chord of the song, and there was silence in the room till the bells had sung their evening chorus.

Matter. VI.

_Constitution of bodies._—We have hitherto explained and vindicated those facts and principles which experience and reason point out to us as the true foundations of a sound philosophical theory of matter. We are now prepared to examine the much‐vexed question of the constitution of bodies; nor are we deterred from our undertaking by the very common belief that the essence of matter is, and will ever be, an impenetrable mystery; for although the different schools of philosophy have long disputed about the subject without being able to agree in their conclusions, we are confident that these very conclusions, every one of which contains a portion of truth, will afford us the means of reaching the true and complete solution of the question.

The opinions at present entertained by philosophers about the constitution of matter may be reduced to the three following:

Some affirm that the first constituents of natural bodies are the _first matter_ and the _substantial form_, as explained by Aristotle and by his followers. This view, which reigned supreme for centuries, we shall call the _scholastic_ solution of the question.

Others affirm, on the contrary, that the first constituents of bodies are _simple elements_, or points of matter, acting on each other from a certain distance, and thus forming dynamical systems of different natures according to their number, powers, and geometrical arrangement. This second view, which, after Boscovich, found a great number of advocates, we shall call the _dynamic_ solution of the question.

Finally, others affirm that the first constituents of bodies are _molecules_, or _chemical atoms_. This view, based entirely on chemical considerations, originated with Dalton, of Manchester, early in the present century, and it was very favorably received by all men of science as the true interpretation of chemical facts. This third view we shall call the _atomic_ solution of the question.

The investigation of the grounds on which these three solutions are supported will soon convince us that none of them can be entirely rejected, as each of them has some foundation in truth. To begin with the scholastic solution, all true philosophers know that God alone is a _pure act_; whence it follows that all creatures essentially consist of _act_ and _potency_. This act and this potency, when there is question of material things, are called _the substantial form_ and _the matter_. It is therefore an evident truth that material substance is essentially constituted of matter and substantial form. Against this doctrine nothing can be objected by the advocates of the dynamic or of the atomic solution.

On the other hand, the doctrine which teaches that bodies are made up of chemical atoms, or molecules, which have a definite nature and combine in definite numbers, is very satisfactorily established by experimental science; and nothing can be objected against it by speculative philosophers. But, to prevent misconceptions, we must observe that this theory does not consider the chemical atoms as absolutely indivisible, or as absolutely primitive, or as so many pieces of continuous matter. The word “atom” in chemistry signifies the least possible quantity of any natural substance known to us. Atoms are chemical equivalents. Their chemical indivisibility, on account of which they are called “atoms,” is a fact of experience; but they are absolutely divisible, owing to their physical composition; for we know by the balance that atoms of different substances contain different quantities of matter; and their vibrations, change of size, and variations of chemical activity with the variation of circumstances, unmistakably show that their mass is a sum of units substantially independent of one another, though naturally connected together by mutual actions in one dynamical system. Their matter is therefore discrete, not continuous.

As to the doctrine of simple and unextended elements, we have no need of saying anything in particular in this place, as such a doctrine is a simple corollary of the thesis concerning the impossibility of continuous matter, which we have fully developed in our last article.

From these remarks it will be seen that to the question, _What are the primitive constituents of bodies?_ three answers may be given, and each of them true, if properly interpreted, as we shall presently explain. Thus it is true, in a strictly metaphysical sense, that the primitive constituents of bodies are the matter and the substantial form; it is true again, in a certain other sense, that the primitive constituents of bodies are chemical atoms; and it is true also, in a still different sense, that the primitive constituents of bodies are simple and unextended elements. Hence the scholastic solution does not necessarily clash with the atomic, nor does this latter exclude the dynamic, but all three may stand together in perfect harmony, or rather they are required by the very nature of the question, in the same manner as three solutions are required by the nature of a problem whose conditions give rise to an equation of the third degree. The duty, therefore, of a philosopher, when he has to handle this subject, is not to resort to one of the three solutions in order to attack the others, as it is the fashion to do, but to investigate how the three can be reconciled, and how truth in its fulness can be attained to by their conjunction.

This may appear difficult to those whose philosophical bias in favor of a long‐cherished opinion prevents them from looking at things in more than one manner; but those whose mind is free from prejudice and exclusiveness will readily acknowledge that whilst the atomists determine the constituents of bodies by _chemical_ analysis, the dynamists, on the contrary, determine those constituents by _mechanical_ analysis, and the scholastics by _metaphysical_ analysis. Now, these analyses do not exclude one another; they rather prepare the way to one another. Hence their results cannot exclude one another, but rather lead to one another, and give by their union a fuller expression of truth.

If we ask of an atomist, “What are the primitive constituents of a mass of gold?” he will answer that they are _the atoms_, or the molecules, _of gold_, as chemistry teaches him. This answer is very good, as it points out the first _specific_ principles of the compound body; for we cannot go further and resolve the molecule without destroying the specific nature of gold. For this reason the atomist, when he has reached the atoms of gold, stops there, and declares that the _analysis cannot go further_. He evidently refers to the _chemical_ analysis.

If now we ask a dynamist, “What are the primitive constituents of a mass of gold?” he will answer that they are _the simple elements_ of which the molecules of gold are made up. This answer, too, is very good, as it points out the first _physical_ principles of the compound body; for we cannot go further and resolve the simple element without destroying the physical being. For this reason the dynamist, when he has reached the simple elements, stops there, and declares that _the analysis can go no further_. Of course he means the _physical_ analysis.

Let us now ask of a schoolman, “What are the primitive constituents of a mass of gold.” He will answer that they are the _substantial form_ and _the matter_, as the last terms obtained by the metaphysical analysis of substance. This last answer also is very good, as it points out the first _metaphysical_ principles of substance. It should, however, be borne in mind that this answer does not apply to the mass of the body as such, nor to its molecules, but only to each primitive element contained in the mass and in the molecules of the body, as we shall fully explain in another place. When he has reached the substantial form and the matter, the schoolman stops there, and declares that _the analysis can go no further_. He means the _metaphysical_ analysis, which resolves the physical being into metaphysical realities incapable of further resolution.

It is manifest that these three answers, however different, do not clash with one another. Accordingly, the atomist, the dynamist, and the schoolman may all agree in teaching truth, while they give different answers. The fact is, they do not look at the question from the same point of view, and, rigorously speaking, they solve different questions.

The first answers the question, What are the first _specific_ principles of gold or the first golden particles; and he affirms that they are the _molecules_ or _atoms_ of gold.

The second answers the question, What are the first _physical_ principles of such golden particles? and he affirms that they are _unextended elements_ or _primitive substances_.

The third answers the question, What are the first _metaphysical_ principles of those primitive substances? and he affirms that they are _the matter_ and _the substantial form_.

This being the case, it may be asked how it came to pass that the atomic, the dynamic, and the scholastic solutions have hitherto been considered as irreconcilable. We reply that the three solutions would never have been held irreconcilable, if their advocates had kept within reasonable limits in the expression of their views. But as philosophers, like other people, are often exclusive, narrow‐minded, and ready to oppose whatever comes from a school which is not their own, it frequently happens that they are too easily satisfied with a partial possession of truth, and disdain the views of others who regard truth under a different aspect. By such a course, instead of promoting, they hinder, the advance of philosophical knowledge; and while fighting under the banner of a special school, which they mistake for the banner of truth, they allow themselves to be carried away by a spirit of contention, the unyielding character of which is the greatest impediment in the way of philosophical progress. The constitution of bodies is one of the subjects which, unfortunately, have been and are still handled by different schools with remarkable unfairness to one another. The atomist fights against the dynamist, and both despise the follower of the schoolman; whilst the schoolman from the stronghold of his metaphysical castle looks superciliously on both, confident that he will eventually drive them out of the field of philosophy. This attitude of one school towards another is not worthy of men who profess to love truth. If the atomistic philosopher cannot go beyond the chemical analysis, we will allow him to stop there, on condition, however, that he shall not claim a right to prevent others, who may know better, from proceeding to further investigations beyond the boundaries of chemistry. In like manner, if the dynamist cannot rise to the consideration of the metaphysical principles of substance, let him be satisfied with the consideration of the primitive elements of matter, and dispense with further inquiries; but let him not interfere with the work of the metaphysician, whose method and principles he does not understand. As to the metaphysician himself, we would warn him that, however deeply conversant he may be with the _general truths_ concerning the essential constituents of things, he is nevertheless in danger of erring in their application to particular cases, unless he tests his conclusions by the principles of chemical, mechanical, and physical science; for it is from these sciences that we learn the true nature of the facts and laws of the material world; and all metaphysical investigation about the constitution of bodies must prove a failure, if it lacks the foundation of real facts and their correct interpretation.

It is obvious, after all, that truth cannot fight against truth; and since we have shown that each of the three solutions above given contains a portion of truth, we cannot reject any of them absolutely, but we must discard that only which troubles their harmony, and retain that through which they complete and confirm one another.

We therefore admit the substantial points of the three systems on the constitution of bodies, and recognize the general principles on which they are established. The analysis of bodies carried on through all its degrees leads to the following results:

First, by analyzing _the body_ chemically, we find the _atoms_, or molecules, endowed with a determinate mass and with specific powers, corresponding to the specific nature of the body. Such atoms are not absolutely indivisible, though chemistry, as yet, cannot decompose them: hence atoms are further analyzable.

Secondly, by analyzing _the atom_, or the molecule, we discover its components, or primitive parts, called _primitive elements_, and primitive substances, which are physically simple and unextended, and concur in definite numbers to the constitution of definite molecular masses.

Finally, by analyzing _the simple element_ or the primitive substance, which can no longer be resolved into physical parts, we find that such an element consists of _act_ and _potency_, or, as we more frequently express ourselves, of _form_ and _matter_, neither of which can exist separately, as the first physical being which exists in nature is the substance arising from their conspiration. Accordingly the form and the matter of which the simple element consists are not physical, but only metaphysical, principles, and they constitute a metaphysical, not a physical, compound.

These three conclusions are scientifically and philosophically certain; and while they afford a sound basis to our reasonings on material objects, they reconcile modern physics with the principles of old metaphysics. We say _with the principles_, not _with the conclusions_; for we must own that the old metaphysicians, owing to their insufficient knowledge of the laws of nature, not unfrequently failed in the application of their principles to the interpretation of natural facts. Thus the chemical, the dynamical, and the scholastic views of the constitution of bodies cease to be antagonistic, and each of the three schools is awarded all it can claim consistently with the rights of truth.

As we intend to speak hereafter more in detail of the constitution of bodies, we shall content ourselves at present with these general remarks on the subject. It is manifest from what precedes that bodies and molecules arise from simple elements, and are substances, not on account of their bodily or molecular composition, but merely because their primitive physical components, the elements, are substances. Hence the question concerning the constitution of material substance, as such, does not necessarily require any further research after the constitution of bodies, but may be directly settled by the consideration of the elements themselves.

We have already seen that the primitive elements of matter are rigorously unextended; that each of them is endowed with _activity_, _passivity_, and _inertia_, and is thus fitted to produce, receive, and conserve local movement; and that the elementary activity, whether attractive or repulsive, is exercised in a sphere according to a permanent law. And since the essential constitution of things must be gathered from their essential properties, it is of the utmost importance for us to ascertain whether the principles of the material element may be fully determined by its known properties, or whether the element may possess occult properties which, if known, would modify our notion of its principles; for it is only after an adequate knowledge of its principle of activity, of its principle of passivity, and of the relation of the one to the other, that we can safely pronounce a judgment about the essence of a primitive being.

We may ask, therefore, in the first place: _Does a simple element possess any occult power besides its known power of attracting or repelling?_

This question must be answered in the negative. Occult powers and occult qualities have been admitted by the ancient philosophers, and are admitted even now, in _compound_ substances, not because any unknown power resides in the first elements of which they are made up, but because the manner of their composition, and consequently the manner of determining the resultant of their elementary actions, transcends our conception and baffles our calculations. Thus the phenomena of chemical affinity, cohesion, capillarity, electricity, and magnetism depend on actions which science cannot trace to their _primitive_ causes—viz., to the simple elements—but only to their proximate causes, which are complex, and, as such, follow different laws of causation corresponding to the different modes of their constitution. Before we are able to trace such phenomena to their simple and primitive causes, it would be necessary to find out the intrinsic constitution of every molecule; the number, quality, and arrangement of its constituent elements; the arrangement and distance of the molecules in the body; and the mathematical formulas by which every movement of each particle could be determined for every instant of time. As this has not been done, and will never be done, the determination of the causality of molecular phenomena remains, and will ever remain, an insoluble problem, and the complex power from which any such phenomenon proceeds remains, and will ever remain, unknown so far as it is the result of an unknown composition, though we know, at least in general, the nature of the primitive powers from which it results. In other terms, there are no occult powers in matter, but only unknown resultants of known primitive powers.

To prove this, we observe that an occult power is to be admitted, then, only when a phenomenon occurs which cannot proceed from powers already known. This is evident; for, when phenomena can be accounted for by known powers, there is no ground for any inquiry about occult causes. In other words, to look for occult causes without data or indications on which to ground the induction, is to propose to one’s self a problem without conditions; which no man in his senses would do. Now, no phenomenon has been observed anywhere in material things which cannot proceed from the known powers of attraction and repulsion; nay, it is positively certain that all phenomena proceed from the same powers. For each material point, when acted on, receives a determination to local movement, and nothing else; and therefore the effect of the action of matter upon matter is nothing but local movement, one element approaching to or retiring from the other. Now, this is precisely what attractive and repulsive powers are competent to do. Hence it is that in all the works of science and natural philosophy the causality of phenomena of every kind is uniformly traced to mere attractions and repulsions.

Again, if any occult power, besides that of attracting or repelling, be assumed to reside in a primitive element of matter, such a power will remain idle for ever, inasmuch as it will never be applicable to the production of natural phenomena. On the other hand, it is obvious that a power destined to remain idle for ever is an absurdity. It is therefore absurd to assume that there is in the elements of matter any occult power besides that of attracting or repelling. In this argument the minor proposition is evident, because all active power is naturally destined to act; whilst the major proposition is evidently inferred from the fact that matter has no passivity, except with regard to local motion, as is acknowledged by all philosophers, and as we shall presently show from intrinsic reasons. Whence it follows that, if there were in matter any hidden power not destined, as the attractive and the repulsive are, to produce local movement, such a power would be absolutely useless, as absolutely inapplicable to any other matter, and would remain in this absurd condition for ever. We need not, therefore, trouble ourselves with the absurd hypothesis of occult powers; and we conclude, accordingly, that the principle of activity of a primitive element is merely attractive or repulsive, as explained in one of our past articles.

It may be asked, in the second place: _Is the centre of a simple element to be identified with the principle of passivity of the element?_

This question must be answered in the affirmative. For the principle of passivity is that to which the action is terminated; but the action of any one element of matter is terminated to the centre of any other element; therefore the centre of any element is its principle of passivity. The minor proposition of this syllogism might be proved by metaphysical considerations(156); but we may prove it more clearly in the following manner: Locomotive action implies direction, and no direction can be really taken in space except from a real point to another real point. Now, that by which any two elements, _A_ and _B_, mark out two distinct points in space, is the centre of their sphere of action. The direction of the action is therefore from the centre of _A_ to the centre of _B_, and _vice versa_—that is, the action of the one is terminated to the centre of the other. And thus it is evident that each single element receives the action of every other element in its central point, which is, accordingly, the passive principle of the element. This conclusion may be expressed in this other manner: In a material element the matter (passive principle) is a point from which the action of the element is directed towards other points in space, and to which the actions of other material points in space are directed.

We may remark, also, that material elements, whilst they are always ready to receive movement from extrinsic agents, cannot apply their own power to themselves, because they are inert. This being the case, it obviously follows that the action of an extrinsic agent on an element is terminated there where the action of the element itself cannot be terminated. Now, a little reflection will show that the centre of the element is just the point where the action of the element itself cannot be terminated. For as locomotive action implies direction, and as no direction can be had from the centre of activity to itself, but only from a point to a distinct point, the action of the element upon its own centre is a metaphysical impossibility. Whence we conclude that the principle of passivity, or that in which the primitive element is liable to receive a determination to local movement, is nothing else than the intrinsic term of its essence, the centre from which it directs its action in a sphere, or, in other terms, the matter itself as contradistinguished from the substantial form.

In the third place, it may be asked: _Can it be proved that a material element is susceptible of nothing but local movement?_

We answer: Yes. For we have shown that the passivity of the material element resides in a mere mathematical point, which, having no bulk, cannot be liable to _intrinsic_ changes, and therefore is susceptible of such determinations only as will bring about a change of _extrinsic_ relations. It is hardly necessary to explain that such a change of extrinsic relations is always brought about by local movement; for such relations either are distances or depend on distances; and distances cannot be modified except by local movement. It is thus manifest that material elements are susceptible of nothing but local movement. Hence the passivity of matter is confined to the reception of local movement alone.

From this well‐known truth we may again confirm our preceding solution of the question concerning occult powers. For the activity and the passivity of a simple element essentially respond to one another in the same manner and with as strict a necessity as _giving_ and _receiving_, and since they spring from the principles of one and the same primitive essence, they must belong to one and the same kind. If, then, there were in the material elements any occult power besides that which produces local movement, there would be also a correspondent passivity not destined to receive local movement; for without this new passivity the occult power could not be exercised. And since the passivity of matter is limited to the sole reception of local movement, none but locomotive power can be admitted to reside in matter.

_Essence of material substance._—We are now ready to answer with all desirable precision and clearness the question, “What is the essence of material substance?”—a question not at all formidable, when the active and the passive principle of matter have been properly defined and elucidated. Our answer is as follows:

The essence, or quiddity, of a thing is really nothing else than its nature; hence if we know the principles which constitute the nature of the material element, we know in fact the essence of material substance. Now, the principles which constitute any given created nature are _an act of a certain kind_—that is, a certain principle of activity; and _a corresponding potency_—that is, a corresponding principle of passivity. Whence we conclude that the principles of a material nature are _the act by which such a nature is determined to act in a sphere and to cause local movement_, and _the potency on account of which the same nature is liable to receive local movement_. And since the said act is called “the substantial form,” and the said potency “the matter,” we conclude that the essence of material substance _consists of matter and substantial form_.

This conclusion is by no means new; it expresses, on the contrary, the universal doctrine of the ancient philosophers on the essence of material substance. But it must be observed that we limit this doctrine to the essence of primitive elements, which alone can be rigorously styled “first substances,” whilst the ancients, owing to their imperfect notions of natural things, applied the same doctrine to compound substances, which they believed to arise by substantial generation instead of material composition. Thus our conclusion is more guarded and less comprehensive than that of the old metaphysicians. Moreover, the ancient philosophers, who did not know the primitive elements, but assumed the continuity of matter, could not picture to themselves the intellectual notions of matter and substantial form in a sensible manner, and certainly were unable to find any _true_ sensible image of them; and for this reason their speculations about the essence of material substance remained imperfect and their explanations obscure and unsatisfactory. We, on the contrary, thanks to the investigations and discoveries made in the last centuries, have the advantage of knowing that all matter is subject to gravitation, and acts in a sphere according to a constant and very simple law, which presides over the molecular and chemical no less than the astronomical phenomena; and we are thus enabled to form a true and genuine conception of the matter and form of the primitive element, founded on ascertained facts, and free from false or incongruous imaginations. Hence the words “matter” and “form,” as employed by us, have such a clear and precise sense that no room is left for their misinterpretation.

We therefore know, and _clearly_ too, the essence of primitive material substance, whatever may be said to the contrary by some admirers of the old philosophy, who spurn the discoveries of modern physics, or by some modern thinkers, who revile all metaphysical analysis as mere rubbish.

The essential definition of material substance, as such, is therefore the following: _Material substance is a being fit to cause and receive merely local motion._ This definition is fuller than the one adopted by the ancients, who defined matter to be “a movable being”—_Ens mobile._ Of course, when they spoke of a “movable” being, the ancients referred to “local” movement; but, as there are movements of some other kinds, none of which can be produced or received by matter, we prefer to keep the epithet “local” as prominent as possible in our definition, and we add the adverb “merely” as a further limitation required by the nature of the subject. The old definition mentions nothing but the mobility of matter. This is owing to the fact that the ancients had no notion of universal attraction, and considered the activity of material substance as dependent on movement, according to their axiom: _Nihil movet nisi motum._ But as we know, on the one hand, that the specific differences of things must be derived from their formal rather than from their material constitution, and, on the other, as the constituent form of the material element is an efficient principle of local motion, we include in the definition of matter its aptitude both to produce and to receive local motion “as the _complete_ specific difference” which distinguishes material substance from any other being whatever.

It seems to us that our definition of matter wants neither clearness nor precision. Indeed, we would be unable to make it clearer or more accurate; and as for its soundness, let our readers, who have hitherto followed our reasonings, judge for themselves.

In the opinion of most modern philosophers, the essence of matter consists of _extension_ and _resistance_. From what has preceded it is evident that this opinion is utterly false. Extension is not a property of matter as such, but only of physical compounds containing a multitude of distinct material points; and, even in this case, it is not the matter, but the volume, or the place circumscribed by the extreme terms of the body, that can be styled “extended,” as we have shown in our last article. As to resistance, it suffices to remark that no accidental act belongs to the essence of substance; hence resistance, which is an accidental act, cannot enter into the definition of matter. Some will say that, if not resistance, at least _the power of resisting_, belongs to the essence of matter. But not even this is true. The material element has the power of attracting or of repelling; but such a power cannot be considered as formally _resisting_. Resistance is a particular case of repulsion, when the agent by its repulsive exertion gradually lessens and exhausts the velocity of an approaching mass of matter; but resistance may also be a particular case of attraction, inasmuch as the agent by its attractive exertion gradually lessens and exhausts the velocity of a mass of matter receding from it. Hence all material substance has a motive power, either attractive or repulsive; but neither of them can be described as a resisting power; for attractivity does not resist the movement of an approaching body, nor does repulsivity resist the movement of a receding body. It is scarcely necessary to add that the notion of a resisting power essential to matter is a remnant of the old prejudice consisting in the belief that, when two bodies come in contact, the matter of the one precludes, by its materiality, bulk, and inertia, the further advance of the other. Nothing is more common, with the followers of the ancient theories, than the assumption that the matter of bodies _by its quantity and by its occupation of space_ resists the passage of any other matter. We have shown elsewhere that resistance is action, and therefore is not owing to the inert matter standing in the way of the approaching body, but to the active power of which the inert matter is the centre.

To complete our elucidation of the essential definition of matter, something remains to be said about the inertia of material substance. We shall see that inertia is not a constituent, but only a result of the constitution, of matter; whence it follows that no mention of inertia is needed in the essential definition of material substance. In fact, the notion of this substance includes nothing but the essential act and the essential term, that is, the principle of activity and the principle of passivity, both concerned with local motion only. To have a principle of activity and a principle of passivity is in the nature of all created substances, and constitutes their _generic_ entity; hence the mention of these two principles in our definition serves to point out the _genus_ of material substance; whilst the intrinsic ordination of the same principles to _local_ motion serves to point out the essential _difference_ which separates matter from any other substance.

_Inertia._—Many confound the inertia of matter with its passivity, and consider inertia as one of the essential constituents of matter. It is not difficult, however, to show that inertia and passivity are two distinct properties. Those who reduce the principles of real being to an _act_ and a _term_, without taking notice of its essential _complement_,(157) reduce in fact the intrinsic properties of real being to activity and passivity, the one proceeding from the act, and the other from the potential term; and thus the inertia of matter, for which they cannot account by any distinct principle, is considered by them as an attribute of matter identical with, or at least involved in, its real passivity. The truth is that, as the act and the potency, which constitute the essence of a material being, are the formal source of its actuality, so also the activity connatural to that act, and the passivity connatural to that potency, are the formal source of the inertia by which the same being is characterized. This will be easily understood by a glance at the nature of inertia.

That inertia is not passivity is clear enough; for passivity is the potentiality of receiving an impression from without, whereas inertia is the incapability of receiving an impression from within; passivity is that on account of which matter receives the determination to move, whereas inertia is that on account of which matter cannot change that determination, but is obliged to obey it, by moving with the received velocity in the given direction. The determination to move is received only while the agent acts, that is, as long as the passivity is being actuated, and no longer; whereas the movement itself, which follows such a determination, continues, owing to inertia, without need of continuing the action, so that, if all further action were to cease, the moving matter, owing to its inertia, would persevere in its movement for ever.

Moreover, whence does the passivity and whence does the inertia of matter proceed? Matter is passive, because its substantial term, whose reality entirely depends on actuation, is still actuable or potential with regard to accidental acts. Passivity is therefore nothing but the further actuability of the substantial term; whilst, on the contrary, matter is inert, because its substantial act and its substantial term are so related to one another that the motive power possessed by the former can never terminate its action to the latter; for this is the only reason why a material element cannot modify the determinations which it receives from without. Hence inertia is nothing but the result of the special relation intervening between the principle of activity and the principle of passivity in the constitution of material substance; or, in other terms, inertia is a corollary of the essential correlation of form and matter, and, therefore, is to be traced, not, as passivity, to the essential term of the substance, but to its essential complement. This shows that, in the phrase _matter is inert_, the word “matter” stands for the material substance itself, and not for _the_ matter, or potential term, which is under the substantial form, and whose character is passivity.

The question we have here discussed may seem of very little importance; yet we had to give its solution, not only because the confusion of distinct notions is a source of difficulties and sophisms, but also because the given solution confirms the necessity of admitting the essential complement as the third principle of real being, and because in spiritual substances there is passivity, though not inertia; which shows how indispensable is our duty of distinguishing between the two.

From the preceding remarks we infer also that inertia belongs to the essence of material substance, not, however, as a constituent principle, but only as something implied in the nature of its constituent principles. As it is impossible to alter the nature of such principles without destroying the essence of matter, so also it is impossible for matter to cease to be inert so long as its essence remains unchanged. In a word, _non‐inert matter_ is a metaphysical impossibility.

Lastly, we may add that inertia does not admit of degrees; and therefore all material elements are equally inert. In fact, when we say that matter is inert, we mean, as has been explained, that material substance is entirely and absolutely incapable of imparting motion to itself. Now, absolute incapacity is perfect incapacity, and does not admit of degrees. Hence we may find in different bodies more or less of inert matter, but not more or less of inertia. This is true also of the passivity of matter; that is, we may find in different bodies more or less of passive matter, but not more or less of passivity; for passivity, as consisting in an absolute liability to accidental actuation, cannot admit of degrees.

_A few conclusions._—It may be useful, and may prove satisfactory to our readers, to cast a glance over the ground we have trodden and the results so far reached. The sum and substance of the doctrine which we have endeavored to establish is contained in the following propositions:

I. Matter is not continuous, nor divisible _in infinitum_, nor has it any intrinsic quantity connected in any manner with its essential constitution.

II. All bodies are ultimately made up of primitive elements, physically simple and unextended, which being reached, the physical division of bodies cannot go further.

III. The primordial molecules, or so‐called “atoms,” of all substances are so many systems of simple elements dynamically bound with one another by mutual action.

IV. The continuous extension, or geometric quantity, usually predicated of bodies, is the extension of the place comprised within the extreme limits of each body. It is, in other terms, the extension of the volume, not of the matter. Nevertheless, such an extension may be called “material,” not only because the terms of its dimensions are material, but also because in most bodies the elements and the molecules are so close that their action on our senses produces the appearance of material continuity.

V. The extension of bodies is real, though their material continuity is merely apparent; hence only the volumes of bodies, and not their masses, can be properly styled _extended_.

VI. The true _absolute_ mass of a body is the number of primitive elements it contains.

VII. The primitive elements are of two kinds, some of them always and everywhere attractive, others always and everywhere repulsive. The matter, however, is the same in both kinds, and bears the same relation to its form, whether this be of an attractive or of a repulsive nature.

VIII. There are no other powers in the primitive elements than that of attracting and that of repelling.

IX. All primitive elements have a sphere of activity, throughout which they constantly act according to the Newtonian law—that is, in the inverse ratio of the squared distances, even when the distance is molecular; and no distance, however great, can be designated where the action of an element will not have a finite intensity.

X. The active power of primitive elements cannot be exerted in the immediate contact of matter with matter, distance being an essential condition of all locomotive actions.

XI. The elementary power acts immediately on all distant matter throughout its sphere, independently of any material medium of transmission or communication. Movement, however, cannot be propagated without a material medium.

XII. The term _from which_ the action of any given element is directed, and the term _in which_ the same element receives the motion caused by other elements, is one and the same, viz., the real centre of its sphere of activity; and it is called _the matter_. The act from which such a centre receives its first existence is called _the substantial form_; and it has a spherical character, inasmuch as it constitutes a virtual indefinite sphere.

XIII. The essence of a primitive element of matter is by no means a mystery. The essential definition of such an element is “a substance fit to cause and to receive mere local motion.”

XIV. Inertia is an essential property of material substance, no less than activity and passivity. Inertia admits of no degrees.

XV. The so‐called “force of inertia” is neither the inertia itself nor any special motive power; but it merely expresses a certain exercise of the elementary powers dependent on the inertia of the matter acted on; for bodies, on account of their inertia, cannot leave their place before they have received in all their parts a suitable velocity. Hence while such a velocity is being communicated to a body, the body which is acted on cannot yield its place to the impinging body; and consequently, during the struggle of two bodies, the one which impinges loses a quantity of movement equal to that which it imparts to the mass impinged upon. The loss of movement in the impinging body is therefore caused, not by the inertia of the body impinged upon, but by its elementary powers as exercised by it during the reception of the momentum.

The foregoing conclusions, as every attentive reader must have noticed, have been drawn from nothing but known facts and received principles; we may therefore consider them as fully established. The more so as we have taken care to examine both sides of each question, and have given not only such direct proofs of each conclusion as would suffice to convince all unprejudiced minds, but also every objection that we have been able to find against our own views, and have thus found the opportunity of confirming, by our answers to the same, the truth of the doctrine propounded. There may be other objections which did not occur to our mind; yet it is likely that their solution will need no new considerations besides those already developed in the preceding pages. Should any other difficulty occur to the reader which cannot be answered by those considerations, we would earnestly entreat him to propound it to us, that we may try its strength. We are always glad to hear a new objection against what we hold to be true. For objections either can or cannot be solved. If they can, their solution will throw a new light on the doctrine we defend; and if they cannot, their insolubility will show us some weak point, or at least some impropriety of our language, and will thus cause us to correct our expressions or modify our opinions. Whatever helps us to regard things under some new point of view is calculated to enlarge our conceptions, to make our language clearer and more precise, and to strengthen our philosophical convictions. Those alone need to be afraid of objections who draw their conclusions from arbitrary hypotheses, instead of established truths.

We conclude the present article with a short answer to a question, which has often been raised by timorous people, concerning what may be styled the cardinal point of our doctrine on matter‐viz., the _simplicity_ of material elements. The question is the following: If we admit that the elements of matter are physically simple, is there not a serious danger of setting at naught the essential difference between the spiritual and the material substance, and are we not drifting thus into materialism?

We reply that no such danger needs to be apprehended. For it is not true that physical simplicity constitutes the essential difference between spirit and matter. Every primitive being is physically simple; and yet it does not follow that all primitive beings belong to the same species. On the other hand, spirit and matter, notwithstanding their physical simplicity, evidently belong to different species. The element of matter is inert—that is, though acting all around itself, it cannot exercise its activity within itself; whereas the spiritual substance exercises its activity within as well as without itself, and continually modifies its own interior state by its vital operations. Again, the element of matter is ubicated in space, and marks a local point, from which it directs its action in a sphere; whereas the spiritual substance neither marks a local point in space nor acts in a sphere, but determines both the direction and the intensity of its action as it pleases. Moreover, the element of matter has nothing but locomotive power; whereas the spiritual substance possesses not only the locomotive, but also, and principally, the thinking and the willing powers, by which it vastly transcends all material being. This suffices to show that spirit and matter, though physically simple, have an entirely different metaphysical constitution—that is, a different substantial act, a different substantial term, and a different substantial complement. Hence the simplicity of the material element does not set at naught the essential difference between matter and spirit.

Those whose metaphysical notions about material substance still hang upon the physics of the ancients will be loath to admit that our unextended element can be physically simple; for they have been taught to believe that wherever there is matter and form, there is _physical_ composition. But such a notion is evidently wrong; for where in the element are the _physical_ components, without which physical composition is impossible? Can we say that the matter and the substantial form are _physical_ components? Certainly not; for the form without the matter cannot exist, nor can the matter exist without the form. Both are absolutely required for the constitution of the _primitive_ physical being. How, then, can they be conceived as physical beings, if no physical being can be conceived before their meeting in one essence and in a common existence? A physical compound is a compound whose components have a distinct and independent existence in nature; for physical beings alone can be physical components, and nothing which has not a distinct and independent existence in nature can be called a physical being, except by an abuse of terms. The physical being is a complete being—that is, an act materially completed by its intrinsic term, and formally completed by its individual actuality. All beings that are incomplete, and whose existence depends on other cognate beings, are no more than _metaphysical_ realities. Hence the substantial form of the element, which has no separate existence, is not a physical, but only a metaphysical, being; and in the same manner, the matter to which that form gives the first existence is not a physical, but only a metaphysical, reality. Whence it follows that the composition of matter and substantial form is not a physical, but only a metaphysical, composition; and, further, that the primitive element is indeed a metaphysical, but not a physical, compound.

On this subject we shall have more to say when explaining the peripatetic theory of substantial generations, which assumes that the substantial form can be changed without changing the matter. It is on this assumption that the physical distinction between matter and form has been maintained. We shall prove in the most irrefragable manner that the assumption is based on an equivocation about the meaning of the epithet “substantial” as applied to natural forms, and that no form which is truly and strictly substantial—that is, which gives the first being to its matter—can leave its matter and be subrogated by another substantial form.

To Be Continued.

Robespierre. Concluded.

We know how the son of S. Louis passed his last hours on earth; let us see how the men who sentenced him—against their consciences—prepared for that solemn passage. One, named Valazé, on hearing the sentence, stabbed himself, and fell dead in the court; he was dragged back with the others to prison. The remaining twenty‐one passed their death‐vigil in riotous singing and drinking and making merry; in improvising a comedy where Robespierre and the devil conversed in hell; the dead Valazé meanwhile lying in his blood in the same room. Vergniaud, who so hesitated to vote “death” for the king, is now bent on escaping the block by poisoning himself; but he has only poison enough for one, so he throws away the dose, too generous to desert his companions in their last journey. They will all go together; so, after a night of bacchanalian shouting and carousing, they all set forth in the fatal tumbrel; even dead Valazé is flung in to have his head cut off, that the guillotine may not be done out of its prey. They jolt on, singing the _Marseillaise_ and crying Vive la République. One by one the heads fall, the chorus grows weaker, and at last ceases to be heard. The Girondists are gone. Robespierre is King of the Revolution now, and reigns supreme over its destinies. Now let him prove what truth there is in the plea put forth by his apologists that he was only cruel from necessity, from the pressure put upon him by his fellow‐demagogues. His accession to undivided responsibility was, on the contrary, the signal for greater slaughter, and we see the number of victims swelling in proportion to the growth of his individual power. Look at the lists of the _Moniteur_. In July, 1793, there were thirteen persons condemned by the revolutionary tribunal of Paris, and in July of the following year the number sent by it to the guillotine was eight hundred and thirty‐five!

But this system of legal assassination was beginning to recoil on the head of its inventor. The murder of the Girondists was an impolitic act that Robespierre soon repented of. He had made a precedent in attacking the representatives of the nation, hitherto inviolate; and now that the longing for vengeance was satisfied, he was clear‐sighted enough to perceive what the cost was likely to be. He had sacrificed his rivals, but he had imperilled his own head. From this day forward he seemed haunted by the shadow of coming retribution. He had poured out the blood of those who stood beside him, and now he was slipping in it; his footing was no longer secure; the words “assassination,” “victim of the poignard of revenge,” etc., etc., were continually on his lips, and there is evidence that his life was poisoned by the constant dread of being murdered by some of the friends of his victims. Those who had hitherto aided and abetted his atrocities now began to look with suspicion and terror on him; even Danton tried to back out of the partnership, and to talk of “the joys of private life” in a way that suggested he had had enough of the glories of public life. He had just married a young and beautiful woman, whose influence was said to have already exercised a humanizing effect on his ferocious nature. She had brought him independence, too, so there was every inducement to him to quit the shambles, and leave Robespierre there alone in his glory. He withdrew from the Public Safety Committee, and ceased almost altogether to attend the meetings of the Convention. Robespierre understood this significant change. He saw his accomplices were deserting him, and he trembled. The Revolution, Saturn‐like, was devouring her own children; why should not the hunters be devoured by their own dogs? Every one was falling away from the tyrant. Camille Desmoulins and Hébert, lately his devoted friends, were gathering up a rival faction dubbed Ultra‐Revolutionists, and, aided by Hébert’s abominable newspaper, _Père Duchêsne_, they and their followers set to work to hunt down the popular idol. Robespierre was known to harbor a sneaking prejudice in favor of some sort of religion, and once even openly declared his opinion that some such institution was necessary for governing with effect. The Ultras used this admission as a means of insulting him, and at the same time weakening his prestige. They got hold of an unfortunate, half‐witted man named Gobel, an apostate priest, dressed him up as an archbishop, and, surrounded by a crowd of mock priests and prelates, they led him, riding on an ass, to the Convention; here he made a burlesque and blasphemous abjuration of his former state and belief, and solemnly pronounced the _Credo_ of atheism, and the worship of the goddess Reason. The law‐givers, thereupon, amidst the frantic enthusiasm of the crowd, decreed that “God and all superstition were abolished,” and the worship of Reason substituted in their place. A monstrous ceremony was at once organized to celebrate the new religion: an actress was carried to the cathedral of Notre Dame, dressed—or undressed—as the goddess of this adoption, enthroned on the consecrated altar of the living God, while the populace passed before her in adoration. The walls of the sacred temple re‐echoed to the hymn of liberty, the _Marseillaise_, and were profaned with horrors that no Christian pen may retrace. Similar scenes were enacted in the other churches. Venerable old S. Eustache was turned into a fair; tables were spread with sausages, pork‐puddings, herrings, and bottles; children were forced to sing songs and give toasts, and to drink to the half‐naked goddess; and when the little ones—the precious little ones of Jesus—got drunk, there was huge merriment amongst the spectators.

The shrine of S. Geneviève was torn down and desecrated. The tombs of the kings of France at S. Denis were broken open, and the ashes scattered abroad with every species of insult. The _Moniteur_ thus describes the spectacle the streets of Paris presented during the Festival of Reason: “Most of the people were drunk with the brandy they had swallowed out of Chalices—eating mackerel on the Patens!... They stopped at the doors of dramshops, held out Ciboriums, and the landlord, stoop in hand, had to fill them thrice.” Other things are recorded of this demoniacal saturnalia which had best be left unsaid—if happily they be yet unknown to Catholic hearts.

The provinces followed suit. Lyons sacked her churches, and drove a mitred ass through her streets, trailing the sacred volumes at his tail. The Loire was polluted with drowned bodies of priests. At Nantes ninety priests are embarked at dead of night under hatches; in the middle of the stream the boat is scuttled, and goes down with her human cargo. These are the _noyades_. Then follow others of more than a hundred at a time. Oh! these priests, these men of the Gospel of Christ, at any cost they must be got rid of! The guillotine is too slow; let us have fire and water to the rescue! So there are the fusillades; men, women, priests, and nuns fall under the showers of grapeshot as fast as they can be gathered and ranged in line—mothers with infants at their breasts, children clinging to one another—five hundred at a batch they go. The mother Revolution herself is turning sick of it. Robespierre alone shows no signs of squeamishness; but, whether from sagacity or some latent moral—perhaps even religious—instinct, he repudiated the sacrilegious excesses which inaugurated and followed the installation of the new goddess. He saw, too, that it was an arrow pointed at himself. He denounced Hébert at the Jacobin Club, ridiculed his new‐fangled divinity, and declared that if “God did not exist, a wise law‐giver would have invented him.” Hébert winced; Camille Desmoulins started the _Vieux Cordelier_, and began to broach the doctrine of clemency and the savage stupidity of useless blood‐ shedding. Never since the Revolution began had such theories been hinted at. The country was growing nauseated with wholesale butcheries; the daring words of the _Vieux Cordelier_ were heard with wonder and welcomed with deep though silent applause. Robespierre might have tolerated the humane doctrines of the newspaper, if it had abstained from personal aggression; but Desmoulins used his weapon of sarcasm unsparingly against the tyrant, on one occasion twitting him, half facetiously, with his aristocratic origin, as proved by the discarded _de_ formerly prefixed to his name. Robespierre grew pale—paler than his usual sea‐green hue—on reading this, and Desmoulins’ doom was sealed. Hébert went first; he, with nineteen of the faction, perished in one hour on the scaffold, in March, 1794. Ten days later Camille and Danton fell. It is yet a mystery why Danton was thus quickly sacrificed; he was apparently on good terms with Robespierre, and had pointed no witticisms at him like the editor of the _Vieux Cordelier_. The tyrant himself gives no explanation in his long‐ winded speeches on the hard necessity which compelled him “to sacrifice private friendship to the good of the country,” and so on. But whatever the motive may have been, the act drew upon its perpetrator the aversion and contempt of those who till then had been his staunchest followers and supporters. Every one was terrified for his own head. Danton’s fall seemed to bring the axe to every man’s door. Robespierre was now alone, more terribly alone than the lost traveller in the desert. His fellows shunned him, or shuddered when he passed. He lived in perpetual fear of being assassinated, though it is doubtful whether any attempt was ever made on his life. Several were trumped up with a view to uplifting his tottering popularity; but though the accused persons were guillotined with great pomp and _éclat_, the proofs of their intended crime were extremely doubtful. A last expedient yet remained.

Robespierre would re‐establish the existence of God, and thus be a prophet as well as a king. He decreed, accordingly, a great meeting which should atone for Hébert’s Feast of Reason and annihilate its brief triumph. It was to take place in the Tuileries gardens. Robespierre, while working the axe so assiduously, never bespattered himself with the blood of his instrument. In a time when _sans‐culottism_ made dirt and Bohemian gear the fashion, he remained a dandy, powdered and frizzled in the midst of legislators who prided themselves on dirty hands and begrimed linen. For this gala‐day of his new religion he ordered a fine sky‐blue silk coat, white‐silk waistcoat embroidered with silver, white stockings, and gold shoe‐buckles. Thus equipped, the Prophet of the Mountain sallied forth to patronize the Omnipotent and decree the existence of a Supreme Being. He ascended the rostrum with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, made a fulsome discourse in a vein of sentimental deism, and then proceeded to unveil the effigy of atheism, a hideous caricature, made of paste‐board, besmeared with turpentine and other inflammable stuffs, to which he applied a lighted torch. The flame leaped up, and Atheism, amidst shouts and cracklings, burned itself to dust; then from the ashes rose up another effigy, the statue of Wisdom, supposed to symbolize the new religion, but sorrily smutted and begrimed by the subsiding smoke of Atheism. No wonder Billaud should exclaim, “Get thee gone! Thou art a bore, thyself and thy _Etre Suprême_.”

O merciful God! may heaven and earth praise thee, and all the creatures therein, for thou art verily a God of love, long suffering and patient!

And now that Robespierre has duly installed his _Etre Suprême_, and decreed, moreover, “that consoling principle, the immortality of the soul,” and obliterated from the graves of murdered citizens the hitherto obligatory inscription, “Death is an eternal sleep,” what is there left for him to do? Nothing, apparently, but to go on killing. The revolutionary tribunal must be made to work with greater speed, and so it is split into four fractions, each with its president, and empowered to try and condemn as fast as it can. Even the Mountain quaked when this proposition was uttered at its base; but the law was carried, and henceforth the guillotine quadruples its business. Fouquier‐Tinville sets up one of “improved velocity,” and boasts of being able to make room for a batch of one hundred and fifty at one time. He wants to establish one in the Tuileries itself, but Collot protests that this would “demoralize the instrument.” It did not matter, apparently, how much the instrument demoralized the people. These sit at their windows watching for the tumbrels to pass, criticising the occupants, joking and enjoying themselves. Women fight for seats near the scaffold, where day after day they sit knitting, counting off the heads, as they fall, by the prick of a pin in a bit of card‐board. These are the “furies of the guillotine.”

But to make the new law, called _22me Prairial_, more fully available, it was necessary to provide extra work for the executioners. Fouquier‐ Tinville was equal to the occasion. He got up an accusation against the occupants of the prisons for “conspiring against the Convention.” Let us cast a glance into these prisons, where, at this crisis, twelve thousand human beings lie literally _rotting_ to death. The memoirs of the time agree in describing the twelve houses of arrest (the original prisons had long since been increased to that number) as dens of noisome horror never equalled in any other clime or period. Noble dames, maidens of tender years, were huddled pell‐mell with the worst and most wretched of their sex; nobles and shoe‐blacks, priests and ruffians, nuns and actresses, crowded by day and night into the condemned cells, where every night the turnkey came and read his list for the morrow’s “batch.” Then followed scenes such as no pen or painter’s brush could adequately describe. “Men rush towards the grate; listen if their name be in it; ... one deep‐drawn breath when it is not. We live still one day! And yet some score or scores of names were in. Quick these; they clasp their loved ones to their heart one last time. With brief adieu, wet‐eyed or dry‐eyed, they mount and are away. This night to the _Conciergerie_; through the palace, misnamed of Justice, to the guillotine to‐morrow.” These were the persons whom Tinville’s ready wit accused of getting up a plot to overthrow the Convention! But what did it signify whether the story was an impossibility as well as a lie? The four tribunals must have work, the guillotine must have food. In three days—the 7th, 9th, and 10th of July—one hundred and seventy‐one prisoners were executed on the charge of conspiring from the depth of their squalid dungeons to overturn the state. So much did the newly‐discovered _Etre Suprême_ do towards softening the rule of Robespierre.

But, oh! are we not sick of the ghastly tale? It is now hurrying to a close.

Barère, one of the fiercest of the revolutionary gang who had so far escaped the guillotine, gave a bachelor’s dinner at a suburban villa on a warm day in July, Robespierre being among the guests. The weather was intensely hot, and the company, unshackled by stiff conventionalities, threw off their coats, and sauntered out to sip their coffee under the trees in easy _déshabillé_. Carnot wanted his pocket‐handkerchief, and went indoors to fetch it. While looking for his own coat he espied Robespierre’s fantastic sky‐blue garment, and, prompted by a sudden thought, put his hand into the pockets, wondering if any secret might be lurking there. What were his feelings on discovering a list of forty names told off for the guillotine, his own amongst the number! He carried off the paper, showed it discreetly to his friends, and they agreed that Robespierre must be made away with. Two days later he appears at the Convention, and is met by dark faces that scowl when he ascends the tribune, and show no docile acquiescence when he speaks. Terror for their own lives has at last stirred these dull, brutalized accomplices to raise their voice and protest against the tyrant. He is impeached by common acclamation. He defends himself in a passionate harangue, accusing Mr. Pitt and King George of having bribed the Convention to arrest him, after sowing calumnies against him in the minds of the people. The charges against him were numerous and heavy; he answered them all with vehemence and a certain wild, disjointed eloquence, and wound up by the following denunciation: “No, _death is not an eternal sleep_! The nation will not submit to a desperate and desolating doctrine that covers nature itself with a funereal shroud; that deprives virtue of hope, and misfortune of consolation, and insults even death itself. No; we will efface from our tombs your sacrilegious epitaph, and replace it with the consoling truth, ‘Death is the beginning of immortality!’ ” The speech produced an effect on the Assembly, but it did not secure a real success. The next day Saint‐ Just mounted the tribune to defend Robespierre; but he had hardly begun his discourse when cries of “Down with the tyrant!” forced him to give it up. Robespierre stood at his place, utterly abandoned by the members of the Assembly, where twenty‐four hours ago he ruled with despotic and unrivalled sway. Not a voice was raised in his behalf. He strove to obtain a hearing, but his words were drowned in shouts of “Away with him! down with him!” He stood dumb and petrified at the sound of those words, bowed his head, and slowly descended the steps of the tribune; suddenly he looked up and cried, “Let me die, then, at once!” The younger Robespierre advances and takes his brother’s arm, asking to share the same fate with him. This generous movement excites the Convention to still greater rage; it yells and bellows, gesticulating like so many madmen. The president puts on his hat, and calls for order; a temporary lull ensues. Robespierre again tries to make himself heard, but his voice is again drowned in shouts and hisses; he rushes up and down the steps and about the hall, clenching his fist and breathing menaces that now fall powerless and are met with taunts of triumphant hate. At last, over‐mastered by his own emotions, he drops into a chair. The arrest of the two brothers is voted unanimously. The elder one endeavors to resist, but is seized and carried forcibly down to the bar. In the midst of this stormy ebullition, one of the deputies, seeing Robespierre unable to speak from the violence of his rage and terror, cried out: “It is Danton’s blood that is choking him!” Stung by the taunt, Robespierre found breath and courage to retort, “Danton! Is it Danton that you regret? Cowards! why did you not defend him!” These spirited words were the last he ever uttered in public. He and his brother were now removed in custody to a hall close by the Convention, and with them Saint‐Just, Couthon, and Lebas. It had been an arduous day’s work for the Convention, and it is not surprising that the deputies “clamored for an adjournment, that they might repose themselves and dine”; for whether men live or die, legislators must dine. They were thoughtful enough to remember that the five in custody would also like to dine, even for the last time; so the guilty deputies had a good dinner provided for them, and immediately after were transferred to separate prisons: Robespierre to the Luxembourg, his brother to St. Lazare, Couthon to Port Royal (dubbed Port _Libre_ since it had been turned into a prison!), Lebas to Le Force, and Saint‐Just _aux Ecossais_. Henriot, who commanded the troops devoted to Robespierre, was seized in the act of attempting an attack on the Convention, bound, and locked up in one of the courts. Two bold friends of his rallied the soldiers, stormed the Convention, released him, and placed him again at the head of his men. Meantime, the jailer of the Luxembourg had refused to admit Robespierre, and the bailiffs had to take him to the _Mairie_, where he was received with acclamations of respect as the “father of the people.” Henriot and his band by midnight had set him and the other four deputies free, and they were installed at the Hôtel de Ville, with a large body of soldiers drawn round the edifice to protect them. But the Convention, on its side, had not been idle. Barras was placed in command of all the troops that could be mustered, and in company with twelve energetic leaders, at the head of the _gendarmerie_ and the artillery, marched on the Hôtel de Ville, dispersed Henriot’s troops, and penetrated into the building, where they found the five deputies and captured them. The younger Robespierre flung himself out of a window in a frantic effort to escape the more tragic death that was now a certainty; he was picked up horribly mutilated, but with life enough yet to realize the horrors of his position. Lebas, on hearing the _gendarmes_ battering on the door of the room, blew his brains out with a pistol. Saint‐Just was seized with a knife in his hand, which he was going to plunge into his heart; he gave it up without a word, and allowed himself to be bound. Couthon, who was nearly blind and half‐paralyzed, being powerless to offer the slightest resistance, was flung into a wheelbarrow that chanced to be in the court‐yard. Robespierre himself, the centre of this group of suicides and murderers, attempted to cheat the guillotine as Lebas had done; but either his cowardly hand trembled and betrayed his will or was seized as he pulled the trigger, for the bullet went through the cheek instead of through the forehead. The jaw was frightfully fractured, and hung loose from the face, held on only by the flesh. Some spectator had the humanity to help the unfortunate man to tie it up with a handkerchief, and in this miserable plight he and his companions were conveyed at about two o’clock in the morning to the Committee of Public Safety. The official report of the day gives the following graphic description of what then occurred: “Robespierre was brought in on a plank ... by several artillery‐men and armed citizens. He was placed on the table of the ante‐chamber which adjoins that where the Committee holds its sittings. A deal box, which contained some samples of the ammunition‐bread sent to the army _du Nord_, was put under his head by way of pillow. He was for nearly an hour in a state of insensibility which made us think that he was no more; but after an hour he opened his eyes. Blood was running in abundance from the wound he had in the left lower jaw; the jaw was broken, and a ball had gone through the cheek. His shirt was bloody. He was without hat or neckcloth. He had on a sky‐blue coat,(158) nankeen breeches, white stockings hanging down at his heels.... At six in the morning a surgeon who happened to be in the court‐yard of the Tuileries was called in to dress the wound. By way of precaution he first put a key in Robespierre’s mouth. He found the left jaw broken. He pulled out two or three teeth, bandaged up the wound, and got a basin of water, which he placed at his side.” All this time no word was spoken by the wounded man; not even a sigh escaped him when the teeth were being extracted, yet the agony he endured must have been terrific. There he lay, a spectacle to gods and men, in his sky‐blue coat, a tiger caught in his own lair, barked at and cursed and triumphed over by a band of wolves. Who could pity him—he who had never known pity for man or woman? For more than twenty hours he lay there in this mental and bodily torture. Once he made a sign which was understood to express thirst. The burning fever of his wound had parched him till he gasped for breath: but no one was so merciful as to get him a glass of water. Vinegar and gall they gave him in abundance. Many cursed him as the murderer of their kith and kin, and bade him drink his own blood, if he was thirsty.

All this while the tocsin is ringing out the glad news to Paris. Crowds rush out on the house‐tops, and wave signals to the prisoners in the _Conciergerie_ that the hour of deliverance is at hand. The prisoners cannot understand; they think the tocsin is the signal for a new September massacre. The word flies from cell to cell, and all fall on their knees and prepare for instant death.

Others, too, are making ready for death, but not thus. The tumbrels jolt up to the Convention, and collect for the last time their “batch”; this time there are but twenty‐three victims. Amongst them, by an exquisite touch of retributive justice, is Simon the Cordwainer, going to die with Robespierre! And now they are ready, and the tumbrels move on. The corpse of Lebas is flung in with Robespierre, as that of Valazé was with Brissot; the other three were so disfigured with blood and the traces of the death‐ scuffle in the town‐hall that they are hardly to be recognized. The entire city is out, shouting itself hoarse with joy. The roofs of the houses are alive with human eyes, all watching for the figure of Robespierre. When it appears, the soldiers point to it with their swords—show the tyrant, bound and gagged, to the people. The sight causes a frantic thrill of exultation that finds utterance in a yell of something too unholy for joy, too fierce for laughter. A woman breaks through the crowd, dashes aside the bayonets of the escort, and leaps to the side of the tumbrel. “Ah! thou demon,” she cries, waving her hand above her head, “the death of thee is better than wine to my heart Wretch, get thee down to hell with the curses of all wives and mothers!”

Surely this is hell already begun. The wretched man opens his eyes, glued together with blood; a shade of deadlier hue passes over his livid, sea‐ green face; he shudders, but utters no sound. The tumbrel reaches the Place de la Revolution. The furies of the guillotine rush round it, and execute a dance of fiendish joy, the crowd making room for them and applauding. Now the cart stops, and the condemned alight. In the first are the two Robespierres, Couthon, Henriot, and Lebas. Maximilien Robespierre is the only one who has strength left in him to ascend the scaffold without help. He stood on the fatal step whither a few days ago his nod sufficed to send the noblest heads in France; within a few yards of the spot where only six weeks ago he had decreed the existence of the Omnipotent, at whose judgment‐bar he was now going to appear. Seldom indeed does that silent, inscrutable Judge allow us to behold the judgments of his justice accomplished here below, and amidst circumstances so palpably impressive, and to our human eyes so fearfully appropriate, as was this death‐scene of Robespierre’s. He showed no sign of terror or remorse, but, dumb and self‐contained to the last, yielded himself to Samson’s hands. Only when the bandage was wrenched brutally from the broken jaw, letting it drop from the face, he uttered a piercing cry that rang above the yells of the multitude. It was the last sound his voice emitted in this world. Samson did his work, and Robespierre was no more.

One long, loud shout of gladness went up to heaven, and carried the tidings to the ends of France on wings quicker than words. It penetrated the iron doors of the prisons, like the sweet beams of the golden dawn, and bade men hope and rejoice, for the Reign of Terror was at an end and the gates of their dungeons unlocked.

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The guillotine has been so prominent a figure in the foregoing sketch, as indeed throughout the whole span of the Reign of Terror, that a word on its origin may not be uninteresting. It is popularly supposed to have been invented by Dr. Guillotin, but this is a mistake. The first idea of it emanated from him, and he had the unenviable glory of giving it his name; but these are his only claims to its invention. The guillotine would seem to be almost a creature born spontaneously of the Revolution, a cruel offspring of the self‐devouring monster. It is strange that, until the “_Sainte Guillotine_” was enthroned as the agent of that murder‐mad reign, no mention is ever made in the reports of the time of the exact kind of machine used in capital punishment. We read of persons being “condemned” and “executed,” but there is no more definite account of the manner of execution. The _lanterne_ was the mode of capital punishment up to the Reign of Terror, and the mob could always do summary justice on its victims by making a gallows of the nearest lamp‐post; but when speed became the primary object, this was found too tedious, besides being troublesome. Towards the close of the year 1789 Dr. Guillotin was elected to the States‐General. He was such a mediocre, insignificant person in every way that his appearance in the Assembly caused general surprise and laughter. In the _Portraits of Celebrated Persons_, a contemporaneous work, we find him thus treated: “By what accident has a man without either ability or reputation obtained for himself a frightful immortality? He _fathered_ a work written by a lawyer—Hardouin—who had too much character to produce it in his own name; and his work having been censured by the parliament, Guillotin, who assumed the responsibility of it, became the man of the day, and owed to it that gleam of reputation which ensured his election to the States‐General. He was, in truth, a _nobody_ who made himself a _busy‐body_, and by meddling with everything was at once mischievous and ridiculous.” This meddling personage made himself extremely ridiculous on the one occasion to which may be traced his ill‐ starred celebrity. He proposed in the Assembly that some machine, more humane and expeditious than the process of hanging, should be invented for capital punishment, and, after describing the idea that was in his mind, he proceeded to illustrate it by a pantomime with his fingers, straightening out the left index, and bringing down that of the right hand over the thumb with a snap. “There, now, I put your head here; this falls, and it is cut off; you feel nothing; it is the affair of a moment!” Roars of laughter followed this lucid and cheerful explanation, and the next day the ballad‐mongers diverted Paris with a song, the burden of which was “a machine that will kill us right off, and be christened _la guillotine_!” The doctor said no more about his idea, but, jocosely presented as it was, it nevertheless made an impression on the Assembly, who adopted it three years later. Meantime, they were beset by complaints from the _Tiers Etat_, who could not reconcile it to their dignity that the _bourgeoisie_ should be hanged while the _noblesse_ were beheaded. Let it be hanging all round, they said, and they would be satisfied; but why should nobles have their head cut off, while plebeians “swung at the lantern?” The grievance met with cold sympathy, however, until the times were ripe for reform, and it became urgent to find some more expeditious means of despatching both nobles and plebeians into the other world. Dr. Guillotin’s proposal was reconsidered; an officer of the Criminal Court, named Laquiante, designed an instrument, which was approved of by the authorities and confided for execution to a piano‐maker—a native of Strasbourg, we believe—named Schmidt. There was a good deal of haggling over the cost. Schmidt, in the first instance, wanted nine hundred and sixty francs, which was found exorbitant and refused. In consideration, however, of his having suggested some improvements in the original design, they consented to let him take out a patent, and to give him an order for eighty‐three machines, one for every department in France, at five hundred francs each, and to be made as quickly as possible. They were three months quarrelling over the bargain, and all this time an unfortunate criminal, of the name of Pelletier, was lying in prison, waiting to be executed; when at last the price was settled and the first machine ready, he had the miserable distinction of inaugurating it on the 25th of April, 1792. The prejudice had been very strong against the new mode of decapitation, the clergy especially arguing that “the sight of blood would prove highly demoralizing to the people.” Samson, the executioner, was one of the staunchest opposers of the innovation on the same grounds, and also because of the shock the spectacle would give to many spectators. His letter to the Assembly embodying his opinions and experience on the subject is a curious bit of literature, highly creditable to the hangman, as indeed all that has come down to us concerning him seems to be. The humane desire to abridge the sufferings of the criminal overcame, however, every objection, and hanging was formally abolished and replaced by decapitation. The new instrument—most unjustly, as we see—was called the guillotine, in spite of a semi‐official mention of it as _Louison_, and some efforts to make that name adhere. The worthy doctor was doomed to notoriety on account of his having first mooted the affair and made Paris laugh over it. Nothing secures immortality with the Parisians like a joke.

Apropos of the guillotine, we may mention that the Samsons were a respectable family of Abbeville, and held the office of “Executioner of the High Acts of Justice,” by descent, from the year 1722. Charles Henri Samson, who beheaded Louis XVI., came into office in 1778, and retired on a pension in 1795. He was succeeded by his son in his formidable functions, the latter having resigned the grade of captain in the artillery to undertake them.

Robert Cavelier De La Salle.

The pious hymns of the good and noble Marquette and his companions had not ceased to reverberate over the waters of the Great River, awakening the echoes of its banks and overhanging forests, when a bold and devoted spirit, fired by the fame of previous explorations, was meditating on the shores of Lake Ontario the prosecution of the grand work begun by the illustrious missionary. The world was startled with the news that the waters over whose bosom the missionaries and traders of Canada drove their canoes at the north, after meandering through the vast plains and forests of the continent, poured themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. This great physical problem was settled by Father Marquette and the Sieur Joliet, who, after having explored the course of the Mississippi for eleven hundred miles, returned to electrify the world by the reports of their brilliant success. But as yet comparatively little was known of this gigantic stream. The imagination of the most sanguine and the hearts of the boldest were appalled at the task; but it was a destined step in the onward march of religion and civilization. A Catholic missionary had gloriously led the way; a Catholic nobleman no less gloriously advanced to complete the work. This was Robert Cavelier de La Salle.

He was born at Rouen, in Normandy, of a good family, but the date of his birth has not been transmitted to us. He spent ten or twelve years of his early life in one of the Jesuit seminaries of France, where he received a good education, and he was well acquainted with mathematics and the natural sciences. His renunciation of his patrimony and his long sojourn among the Fathers of the Society of Jesus justify the belief that he was intended for the priesthood. Providence, however, destined him for a somewhat different sphere of labor and usefulness, but one in close co‐ operation with the great work of the church among mankind. He carried with him from the seminary of the Jesuits the highest testimonials of his superiors for purity of character, unblemished life, and exhaustless energy. By his own high qualities and noble achievements he has won a diploma for himself, inscribed on the brightest pages of our history, and more honorable than man can confer.

Emerging from the seminary full of youth, intelligence, and daring spirit, he joined one of the numerous bands of emigrants from France who came to seek adventures and fortunes in the New World. He came to Canada about the year 1667, and embarked with great energy in the fur trade, then the prevailing means of obtaining an exchange of European wealth and merchandise. His enterprising spirit soon carried him to the frontiers, and in his frail canoe he traversed the vast rivers and broad lakes of the continent, mingling with the aborigines, and acquiring information and experience of their modes of life, character, and languages. He explored Lake Ontario, and ascended Lake Erie. The activity of his mind and the restlessness of his genius could not be satisfied even with the vast and adventurous field of trade presented to him; for he shared largely in the prevailing ambition of discovering a northwest passage across the continent to China and Japan, an evidence of which he left behind him in the name of Lachine, which he bestowed upon one of his trading posts on the island of Montreal. He saw in that extended chain of lakes the link that united America with Asia, and indulged in the fond and proud dream that, as the discoverer of the long‐sought passage, his name would be inscribed beside that of Columbus on the scroll of immortality.

Seeing the advantages of the position selected by the Comte de Frontenac, the Governor of Canada, in fortifying the outlet of Lake Ontario, La Salle erected one of his trading posts under the protection of Fort Fontenac. He acquired the favor and friendship of the governor, and soon rejoiced in the esteem and confidence of the public. Up to this time his efforts were apparently chiefly expended in bold and energetic efforts to build up his fortunes. But his resources were inferior to the grand enterprises which he contemplated. He accordingly repaired to France in 1675, where, aided by the influence of Frontenac and the recommendations of the minister Colbert, he obtained from his sovereign, Louis XIV., letters‐patent, granting him Fort Frontenac and the seigniory of a large tract of land about the same, upon condition that he would rebuild the fort of stone, garrison it at his own expense, and clear up certain lands. This grant secured to him a large domain and the exclusive traffic with the Five Nations. The king also raised him and his family to the rank of nobility as a reward for his services and noble actions. His patent of nobility bears date the 13th of May, 1675.

Returning to America, the Cavalier de La Salle took possession of his seigniory, and soon proved how well he merited the confidence and favors he enjoyed. He fulfilled all his stipulations with the king. In two years Fort Frontenac reared its massive walls and bastions of stone which cast their shadows on the waters of Ontario. A number of French families clustered around the fort; the Recollect missionaries induced their Indian neophytes and catechumens to pitch their tents and offer up their newly‐ learned devotions under its shadow; the rugged wilds were supplanted by cultivated fields, gardens, and pastures, and the new lord of Cataraqui was at once the pioneer of civilization and the friend of religion. Such was the origin of the present city of Kingston.

At the same time La Salle prosecuted his commercial enterprises with renewed vigor, and these, in return, seemed at first to promise to repay his perseverance and energy. Now for the first time the rapids of the St. Lawrence were stemmed, and the waters of Ontario ploughed by the keels of three small barks with decks erected on them. Had all depended on energy and zeal, success and prosperity would have followed, and the young nobleman would have achieved a fortune, fame, and power that would not have been long in winning for him a position among the proudest and most powerful nobility of France. But his fame was destined rather to be associated with the foundation of a great republic than with the more limited work of founding a noble family, to whom to transmit a princely fortune, and with building up the power of a brilliant despotism. His enterprises failed, wealth eluded his grasp, and he found himself oppressed with vast debts, incurred in the great undertakings in which he had embarked. Turning from this field of disaster, his vigorous mind again became filled with visions of the northwest passage and with his darling projects of discovery. He studied the accounts of the Spanish and other adventurers and discoverers on the continent. Joliet, in 1674, passing down from the upper lakes, had visited Fort Frontenac, of which La Salle was then commander under Gov. Frontenac, and thus La Salle was one of the first to learn of the brilliant achievements and discoveries of the illustrious Marquette and Joliet, and was probably one of the first to see the maps and journal which the latter lost between the fort and the next French post. These did not seem, at the time, to have deeply impressed the mind of La Salle, who was then engaged in other plans; for it was after this that he embarked in the project of founding the seigniory of Cataraqui on the shores of Ontario, and in the vast trading operations above referred to. On the failure of these he began to plan new adventures and discoveries. His study of the reports of Spanish and French explorers led him before all others to identify the great river of Marquette and Joliet with that of De Soto. Blending the taste for commerce with the thirst for fame, he saw in the vast herds of bison, described as roaming over the prairies that extended from the banks of the Missouri and Illinois rivers, the means of shipping cargoes of buffalo‐skins and wool to France from the banks of those rivers _via_ the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Nor did he yet relinquish his trading projects at the north; for these he expected to connect with his contemplated trading posts on the Mississippi, Fort Frontenac still remaining his principal post. Nor did he yet abandon the hope of discovering from the head‐waters of the Mississippi a passage to the China Sea.

Filled with these grand and noble views, he returned to France in 1677, and still enjoying the recommendation of Frontenac and the favor of the great Colbert and of his son and successor in the ministry, the Marquis de Seignelay, he succeeded in obtaining from the king, on the 12th of May, 1678, new letters‐patent, confirming his rights to the fort and the seigniory of Cataraqui, and authorizing him to advance as far westward as he desired, to build forts wherever he might choose, and prosecute his commercial enterprises as before, with the single exception that he should not trade with the Hurons and other Indians who brought their furs to Montreal, in order that there might be no interference with other traders. At the recommendation of his friend, the Prince de Conti, La Salle took into his service as his lieutenant the veteran Chevalier de Tonty, an Italian by birth, who proved a great acquisition to the work, and was the ever‐faithful friend and companion of the great captain.

In two months La Salle completed his work in France, and in the autumn of 1678, sailed from Rochelle, accompanied by Tonty, the Sieur de la Motte, a pilot, mariners, ship‐carpenters, and other workmen. He was well provided with anchors, sails, cordage, and everything necessary for rigging vessels, with stores of merchandise for trading with the Indians, and whatever might be useful for his projected expedition. Arriving at Quebec in September, he immediately pushed forward to Fort Frontenac—but not without having to surmount great difficulties and labors in getting his heavy canoes and freight over the perilous rapids of the St. Lawrence—where he arrived exhausted and emaciated by his fatigues, but full of courage and hope.

As the winter approached La Salle pressed forward the preparations for his grand enterprise, which he resolved to enter upon in the spring. On the 18th of November, 1678, he despatched the hardy and faithful Tonty, accompanied by Father Louis Hennepin, to the Niagara River in one of his brigantines of ten tons, with workmen, provisions, implements, and materials, to undertake the construction and equipment of a vessel to bear his party over the upper lakes—a work which was to be accomplished with a handful of men, in the midst of winter, at a distance of hundreds of miles from any civilized settlement, and surrounded by savage tribes, whose enmity had been enkindled by the malice of La Salle’s enemies, who, actuated by the rivalry of trade, had induced the Indians to believe that he intended to monopolize their trade upon terms dictated by himself at the cannon’s mouth. Tonty set to work with a cheerful heart. He encountered perils and hardships, which overcame the endurance of La Motte, who abandoned the enterprise, and retired to Quebec to seek ease and rest from such labors. Tonty persevered until the 20th of January, when La Salle by his presence inspired him and his companions with new ardor and courage. About this time the brigantine was cast away on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, in consequence of dissensions among the pilots; and several bark canoes, with their valuable freight of goods and provisions, were wrecked and lost. His difficulties with the Senecas also compelled La Salle to relinquish the fort which he had begun to build at the falls of Niagara as a protection to his ship‐builders, and to content himself with a mere shed or store‐house. A spirit less brave and firm than La Salle’s would have quailed under the misfortunes which, through the inclemency of the season and the malice of men, surrounded his steps. But these only nerved him to greater exertion. In six days after his arrival the keel of his vessel was laid, the cavalier driving the first bolt with his own hand. “When he saw the snow began to melt,” he sent out fifteen men in advance of his exploring expedition, with instructions to pass over the lakes to Mackinac, provide provisions for the expedition, and await the arrival of the main party.

Leaving Tonty now to conduct the building of the vessel, La Salle made a journey of over three hundred miles of frozen country to Fort Frontenac, to arrange his financial business before setting out in the spring. His only food was a bag of corn; his baggage was drawn over the snow and ice by two men and a dog. At the fort he had to exert all his ability and energy to counteract the malicious efforts and practices of his enemies for his ruin. His creditors at Quebec became alarmed by the reports and calumnies of his foes. His effects at that town were seized and sacrificed, while the property which he was compelled to leave at Fort Frontenac was in value double all his debts. But the delay of his expedition would be to him a greater evil than the loss of property, so that he could not stop to remedy or resist these proceedings. In the midst of such harassing cares he bore in mind the necessity of providing for the religious wants of his companions and of the benighted heathen nations which he intended to visit. He secured the services of three Recollect missionaries, Fathers Gabriel de la Ribourde, Louis Hennepin, and Zenobe Membré. He had already, while commanding at Fort Frontenac, built for these good missionaries a house and chapel; he now bestowed upon their order eighteen acres of land near the fort, and one hundred acres of forest‐land.

Tonty having faithfully completed his task, the ship was launched, receiving the name of _Griffin_, as a compliment to the Comte de Frontenac, whose armorial bearings were adorned with two griffins. Tonty was next sent in search of the fifteen men who had previously set out. The _Griffin_, with La Salle, the missionaries, and the remainder of the party on board, sailed on the 7th of August, 1679, on the bosom of Lake Erie. The artillery saluted the vessel, as she dashed through the waves, and the missionary and crew chanted a grateful _Te Deum_ in honor of Him who had speeded their work. The Senecas gazed with wonder at a bark of sixty tons riding the lake with greater ease and grace than their own canoes. Reaching in safety the straits connecting Lakes Erie and Huron, he considered the expediency of planting a colony on the majestic Detroit, as he glided between its islands; and on the 12th, S. Clare’s Day, as he traversed its shallow waters, he bestowed upon the little river the name of that saint. While the ship was passing over Lake Huron, she was overtaken by a terrible storm, which caused even the bold captain to fear for the safety of all on board. Uniting with the missionaries in petitions for the intercession of S. Anthony of Padua, he made a promise to dedicate the first chapel built in the countries he was going to discover in honor of that patron saint, in case he should escape. The province from which the missionaries of the expedition had come was that of S. Anthony of Padua, in Artois; hence the selection of this saint as their protector on this occasion, as well as for the reason that he is frequently invoked as the patron of mariners. The storm abated, and on the 27th of August, the _Griffin_, aided by friendly winds, entered a safe harbor in the island of Mackinac.

Here again the “great wooden canoe” was an object of admiration and dread to the natives, heightened by the roar of the cannon on board. La Salle, clad in a cloak of scarlet and gold, visited the nearest village, and the pious priests offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the benefit of those benighted savages. The opposite bank had been the scene of the missionary labors of the illustrious Marquette. The captain visited this spot, endeavoring there and in the neighboring country to propitiate the friendship of the natives as he advanced. His enemies had here too been at work, poisoning the minds of the Indians against him far and near, and tampering with the advanced corps of fifteen men whom he had sent out, and who, under such influences, became faithless to their leader: some of them deserted, and others squandered the provisions which he had entrusted to them. Again setting sail, the _Griffin_ bore them to Green Bay, where La Salle had the satisfaction of meeting some of his advanced party who had continued faithful to him and their duty, and who now returned with a goodly quantity of furs, the result of successful traffic with the Indians. After two weeks he loaded the _Griffin_ with the rich furs brought in by his men, and sent her with the pilot and five mariners back to the Niagara, amidst the murmurs of his men, who dreaded the work of proceeding in light canoes. It has been remarked(159) that had he adopted the Ohio as his conduit to the Mississippi, one vessel would have answered his purpose, and much suffering and delay been saved, for this river had been known to the missionaries; by his present plan, he had to build two vessels, one above the falls of Niagara, and one on the Illinois River. He now set out to descend Lake Michigan in four bark canoes, September the 19th, the party consisting of La Salle, the fathers, and seventeen men; and they continued their perilous voyage along the west side of the lake. They were overtaken before nightfall by a violent storm, and for several days they struggled through wind, rain, sleet, and waves, until they landed with great danger near the river Milwaukee. Seeing their perilous situation, La Salle leaped into the water, and with his own hands helped to drag his canoe ashore. Those in the other boats followed his example, and soon the landing was effected and the canoes secured.

La Salle was accompanied in his expedition by a faithful Indian, who proved a useful member of the party; for his unerring gun frequently relieved the hunger of the travellers with game from the surrounding forests. They also procured corn from the natives, always paying its full value; and even when they had to take it from villages temporarily abandoned, where there was no one to receive payment, its value in goods was left in its place. At this bleak landing near the Milwaukee the Indians, moved with sympathy for their exhausted and weather‐beaten condition, brought deer and corn for their relief, smoked with them the calumet of friendship, and entertained them with war dances and songs. Cheered on their way by the kindly offices and generous sympathy of the natives, in which they felt that

“Kindness by secret sympathy is tied, For noble souls in nature are allied,”

they pushed on with renewed courage to encounter again the perils of the elements. The voyage from this point to the end of the lake was one continued series of hardships and dangers. They found it frequently a relief from the fury of the waves to drag their canoes over the rugged rocks; and as they pulled them ashore the heaving surf dashed the spray over their heads. They encountered a wandering party of Outagamies, or Fox Indians, near a green and refreshing spot, where they stopped to rest and refresh themselves, and it was only the address, deliberation, and iron courage of La Salle that prevented a bloody conflict with these treacherous savages. On the first of November the entire party came safely into the mouth of the Miami River, now S. Joseph’s, previously appointed as the rendezvous, at which the several companies were to meet.

Here La Salle was sorely disappointed at not finding the Chevalier Tonty. Suffering from want of food and the increasing severity of the winter, the men began to murmur; but La Salle’s bold spirit of command kept them in subjection, especially when they saw him sharing every hardship, privation, and danger with them. He kept them busy in building a fort for their protection from the savages, and in exploring the country and neighboring rivers. The missionaries caused a bark chapel to be erected, in which the divine service was attended by both Europeans and Indians. But La Salle’s apprehensions for the fate of the _Griffin_ began to increase. At length Tonty arrived, and, while he relieved his captain and men with provisions and reinforcements, he confirmed their alarm for the vessel. The _Griffin_ had not reached Mackinac, no tidings could be obtained from the Indians of her safety or fate, and it became, alas! too certain that she, the first to ride triumphantly, with her proud sails spread and her streamers unfurled, across these great lakes, had been the first to fall a victim, with her hardy crew, to the avenging waves of Lake Michigan.

The cavalier now prepared to go down the Kankakee River to the Illinois. The distance to the portage was seventy miles, and much time and labor were spent in endeavoring to find the proper portage. La Salle started out himself to explore the country, and to discover, if possible, the eastern branch of the Illinois. Detained till evening in making the circuit of a large marsh, his gun, fired as a signal, was not answered, and he resolved to spend the night alone in that fearful wilderness. He fortunately descried a fire, and on approaching saw near by a bed of leaves, from which some nomadic son of the forest, startled at the report of the gun, had just fled. La Salle scattered leaves and branches around, in order that he might not be surprised in the night, and then took possession of the Indian’s rustic bed, in which he slept peacefully till morning. To the great joy of his friends, he returned in the following afternoon, with two opossums hanging from his belt. At length the Indian hunter of the expedition found the portage. Leaving four men in the fort, the expedition set out on the 3d of December; the canoes and all the baggage were carried over five or six miles to the head‐waters of the Kankakee, and about the 5th of December the company, consisting of thirty‐three persons, commenced their passage down the dreary and marshy stream, rendered yet more gloomy by the rigors of mid‐winter. At length, after enduring hunger and cold, they came to a more genial and smiling country, and soon their canoes glided into the river Illinois. On the banks of the river they discovered and visited the largest of the Illinois villages, composed of four or five hundred cabins, in each of which resided five or six families, not far below the present town of Ottawa, in La Salle County, Illinois. But the place was deserted; the inhabitants had all gone to the hunting‐grounds for wild cattle and beaver, leaving their corn stored away in their granaries. Yielding to the necessities of his condition, and trusting to fortune for an opportunity to make ample compensation, La Salle appropriated fifty bushels of corn from the immense quantities stored away in the capacious granaries of the village. Re‐embarking on the 27th of December, the party proceeded down the current. On the 1st of January, 1680, the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord was solemnly and appropriately celebrated, the salutations of the New Year were exchanged, and we may well imagine with what hearty and earnest good‐wishes those brave voyagers blessed each other. On the same day, after passing through Lake Pimiteony, now Lake Peoria, our voyagers came suddenly upon an Indian encampment on both sides of the river. Having heard that the Illinois were hostile, La Salle arranged his flotilla for the emergency; the men were armed, and the canoes were placed in battle array across the entire river, La Salle and Tonty occupying the two canoes nearest the shore. Observing that the Indians were somewhat alarmed and disposed to parley, La Salle boldly landed in the midst of the innumerable bands of dusky warriors, prepared for either war or peace, and by his skill and invincible courage soon succeeded in making them his friends. After smoking with them the calumet of peace, he explained the circumstance of his having taken their corn, and then paid them liberally for it, to their great satisfaction. He also told them that he came amongst them in order to give them a knowledge of the one true God, and to better their condition. An alliance of friendship was entered into, and all retired apparently to rest.

But during the night emissaries from La Salle’s enemies arrived. A grand council was held, as that is the favorite time with the Indians for transacting their most important business. The poison was infused into the minds of La Salle’s recent allies; and on the following morning his keen eye soon saw that the intrigues of his enemies had not failed to follow him to that distant region, and it was only his brave, frank, and determined bearing that enabled him to surmount the countless obstacles that were thus thrown in his way. The effect of this intrigue, however, was not wholly lost on his own men. Six of them deserted him at this trying juncture. Severe as was this loss, his proud spirit bore up manfully under it; but the loss of his vessel was a severer trial to him, but one that failed to dampen the ardor of his enthusiasm or the determination of his will. He selected a spot for a fort half a league from the Indian camp and near the present city of Peoria; and while he bestowed upon his fort the name of Crèvecœur—Broken Heart—under the sad influence of the loss of the _Griffin_ and the machinations of his enemies, the vigor with which he raised its walls and arranged its armament is ample proof that he still possessed a heart full of courage and hope.

In the middle of January the entire company took up their residence within the fort. Father Membré remained with the Indians, was adopted into the family of a noted chief, and devoted himself to the task of winning the Illinois to the Christian faith. Father de La Ribourde exercised his ministry at the fort, where he erected a chapel; and Father Hennepin is said to have “rambled as his fancies moved him.”

La Salle engaged a portion of his men in building a brigantine forty‐two feet long and twelve feet broad, in which to descend the Mississippi. On the 29th of February, 1680, he sent an expedition under the direction of Father Hennepin, accompanied by Picard Du Gay and Michel Ako, to explore for the first time the Mississippi above the mouth of the Wisconsin, the point from which Father Marquette’s voyage down the great river commenced. In six weeks the hull of the brigantine was nearly ready to receive the masts and rigging, but the necessary materials were wanting to complete the equipment. An abundance of such materials had been placed on board the _Griffin_, but these had been buried beneath the waters of the lake with the ill‐fated vessel. Gloomy indeed was the prospect before our brave cavalier; but bold resolves are rapidly conceived and speedily executed by daring spirits. He placed Tonty in command of the fort, and, in order to procure what was necessary for the new vessel, he determined to return on foot to Fort Frontenac, distant at least twelve hundred miles. His journey lay along the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, through vast forests; innumerable rivers intervened, which he had to ford or cross on rafts, and this, too, at a season of the year when the drifting snow and floating ice threw extraordinary dangers and fatigues in the path of the traveller. For food he must rely entirely upon the hazards of the chase. The history of our race contains the record of few such undertakings as this; yet the spirit of La Salle faltered not. On the 2d of March the bold cavalier shouldered his musket and knapsack, and, with three Frenchmen and his Indian hunter, started upon his perilous journey:

“My heart is firm; There’s naught within the compass of humanity But I would dare and do.”

After La Salle’s departure the brave and faithful Tonty began to experience in turn the frowns of fortune. While superintending the erection of a new fort at a spot selected by La Salle, Tonty received the news of an insurrection at Fort Crèvecœur. This, too, was instigated by La Salle’s enemies. Deserted by more than half his party, Tonty took up his quarters at the great Indian village, where he was treated with hospitality. After a residence there of six months a war‐party of Iroquois and Miamis approached the village, and for a long time Tonty and Father Membré, at great peril and with much ill treatment at the hands of the invading savages, endeavored to negotiate a peace. Failing in every effort, and finding that dangers and perils were gathering thick and fast around him, Tonty resolved to make his escape with his remaining five companions, which he succeeded in accomplishing, in an old and leaky canoe, on the 18th of September. On the following day, about twenty‐five miles from the village, they drew the canoe to the shore for repairs. While thus engaged they had the misfortune of losing for ever the great and good Father Gabriel de La Ribourde, who, with a mind fond of the beautiful in nature, as well as with a soul that loved all men, had wandered too far up the banks of the river, drawn on by the picturesque scenery that lay before him, was met by three young Kickapoo warriors, and fell a victim to the unsparing tomahawk. After passing, with heavy hearts, over ice and snow, rambling for some time almost at random in the woods, and enduring hunger and delays, they fortunately reached a village of the Potawatamies, where they were received with hospitality. Tonty was detained at the village by a severe and dangerous illness. Father Membré advanced to the missionary station at Green Bay; here they all met in the spring, and then proceeded to Mackinac to await the return of La Salle.

In the meantime La Salle, after stopping twenty‐four hours at the Indian village which he had previously visited, and finding that the two men whom he had despatched from the Miami River to Mackinac had obtained no tidings of the _Griffin_, now abandoned every lingering hope for her safety. He pressed forward on his great journey, only to hear of new disasters and losses at Fort Frontenac. The fact that he accomplished such a journey under such circumstances is sufficient to illustrate the endurance and unbending resolution of this great explorer. Of this chapter in the history of La Salle Bancroft thus writes:

“Yet here the immense power of his will appeared. Dependent on himself, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest French settlement, impoverished, pursued by enemies at Quebec, and in the wilderness surrounded by uncertain nations, he inspired his men with resolution to saw trees into plank and prepare a bark; he despatched Louis Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi; he questioned the Illinois and their southern captives on the course of the Mississippi; he formed conjectures concerning the Tennessee River; and then, as new recruits were needed, and sails and cordage for the bark, in the month of March, with a musket and a pouch of powder and shot, with a blanket for his protection, and skins of which to make moccasins, he, with three companions, set off on foot for Fort Frontenac, to trudge through thickets and forests, to wade through marshes and melting snows, having for his pathway the ridge of highlands which divide the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes—without drink, except water from the brooks; without food, except supplies from his gun. Of his thoughts on that long journey no record exists.”

He arrived safely at Fort Frontenac, but his affairs had all gone wrong in his absence. In the destruction of his vessel and cargo he had sustained a loss of a large portion of his means; besides this, his agents had plundered him in the fur trade on Lake Ontario; a vessel freighted with merchandise for him had been lost in the Bay of St. Lawrence; his heavily‐ laden canoes had been dashed to pieces by the rapids above Montreal; some of his men, corrupted by his enemies, had deserted, carrying his property among the Dutch in New York, and his creditors, availing themselves of a report, gotten up by his enemies, that he and his companions had been lost, had seized on his remaining effects, and sacrificed them in the market. But one friend remained to him in all Canada—the Comte de Frontenac. The undaunted La Salle still pushed forward his work; having arranged his affairs as well as he could, he secured the services of La Forest as an officer, and engaged more men. On the 23d of July, 1680, he set out on his return. Detained more than a month on Lake Ontario by head‐ winds, he reached Mackinac in the middle of September, and the Miami towards the end of November. Proceeding to the spot where he had left Tonty, he found his forts abandoned, the Illinois village abandoned, and could hear nothing of the companions whom he had left behind him. He now heard of the Iroquois war, and spent some time and effort in endeavoring to effect an alliance of all the neighboring tribes against the Illinois. Finding it impossible to accomplish his purpose for want of a larger force, he returned to the Miami River late in May, 1681, and about the middle of June he had the happiness of saluting Tonty and his companions in the harbor of Mackinac. The two cavaliers sat down together, and related to each other their respective misfortunes and hardships. Thus another year’s delay was occasioned; but in the meantime the trade with the Indians was prosecuted with vigor. Some idea may be formed of the material of which these two men were made when it is related that even now, when all their plans had failed and all seemed lost to them, the ardor with which they first commenced this wonderful task remained unbroken and undiminished. In order to renew their preparations for the exploration of the Mississippi, they all set out in a few days for Fort Frontenac, from which La Salle had already twice departed with the bold and lofty purpose of exploring and laying open to the world the interior geography of the continent. An eyewitness to these interesting conferences between La Salle and Tonty relates that the former maintained “his ordinary coolness and self‐possession. Any one but him would have renounced and abandoned the enterprise; but, far from that, by a firmness of mind and an almost unequalled constancy, I saw him more resolute than ever to continue his work and to carry out his discovery.”(160)

As already mentioned, Father Hennepin had been commissioned by the captain to explore, with his selected companions, the Upper Mississippi, probably the last aspiration of La Salle after the discovery of the northwest passage to the China Sea. Proceeding down the Illinois to its mouth, Father Hennepin directed his canoe up the unexplored stream, and on the eleventh day he and his companions were near the Wisconsin River. Turning up this river, they proceeded nineteen days, when the grand cataract burst for the first time upon the view of Europeans.

“It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight, And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight.”

It was called “The Falls of St. Anthony” in honor of the holy founder of the order of the Recollects. Falling in with the Sieur Du Luth, the two parties, nine in number, rambled and messed together till the end of September, 1680, when they all set out for Canada. Father Hennepin sailed from Quebec to France, where he published, in 1684, an account of his travels and discoveries. Thirteen years after this, and ten after the death of La Salle, he published his _New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, between New Mexico and the Frozen Ocean_, in which the love of the marvellous is regarded by historians as having far transcended the limits of authentic and trustworthy narrative, and as conflicting with the recognized and just pretensions of La Salle.

Upon his return to Fort Frontenac La Salle lost no time in preparing for another effort. He arranged his affairs with his creditors, pledged Fort Frontenac and the adjacent lands and trading privileges for his future expenses, and enlisted forces for his expedition. On the 28th of August, 1681, the company set out in canoes from the head of the Niagara River, and on the third of November they had arrived at the Miami. The constant and ever‐faithful Tonty and the good Father Membré accompanied the expedition, which consisted of fifty‐four persons, of whom twenty‐three were Frenchmen, eighteen Abnakis or Loup Indians, ten Indian women whom the Indians insisted should go along in order to do their cooking, and three children. Six weeks were consumed at the Miami in making the necessary arrangements. The Sieur Tonty and Father Membré proceeded with nearly the entire company along the southern border of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Chicago River, dragging their canoes, baggage, and provisions for about eighty leagues over the frozen waters of the Illinois on sledges prepared by the indefatigable Tonty. La Salle travelled on foot from the Miami River, and joined the company on the 4th of January, 1682. They continued their journey in the same way up the Chicago to Lake Peoria, where the canoes were carried upon the waters, and on the 6th of February the great river, then called the “Colbert,” received its explorers safely upon its waves. They were detained by the floating ice till about the 19th, when the flotilla commenced its eventful voyage. On the same day, six leagues lower down, they passed the mouth of the Missouri, then called the Osage. They stopped at a deserted village of the Tamaroas Indians, whose people were absent on the chase, and then slowly passed on for forty leagues till they reached the Ohio, stopping frequently on the route to replenish their stock of provisions by hunting and fishing. Leaving the Ohio, they passed through one hundred and twenty miles of low, marshy river, full of thick foam, rushes, and walnut‐trees, till, on the 26th of February, they came to Chickasaw Bluffs, where they rested. Here a fort was built and called Fort Prudhomme, in memory of Peter Prudhomme, one of their companions, who was lost while hunting in the woods, supposed to have been killed or carried off by a party of Indians, whose trail was discovered near by. Afterwards, by the untiring and determined efforts of La Salle, and after nine days scouring the country, Prudhomme was found and restored to his companions; but the fort long retained his name. Proceeding about a hundred miles, they heard the sound of drums and the echo of war‐cries, and soon they came abreast of the villages of the Arkansas Indians, whose inhabitants were informed at one and the same time that the strangers were prepared for war—as was evidenced by the erection of a redoubt upon the shore; or for peace—as was manifested by their extending the calumet of peace. They found the Indians peaceable and friendly, and here our voyagers stopped to rest. Two weeks were spent amongst these gay, open‐hearted, and gentle natives in smoking the calumet, partaking of feasts, and obtaining Indian corn, beans, flour, and various kinds of fruits, for which they repaid their entertainers with presents which, however trifling, pleased their fancy much. Father Membré erected a cross, around which the natives assembled; and though he could not speak their language, he succeeded in acquainting them with the existence of the true God and some of the mysteries of the true faith. The Indians seemed to appreciate all he said, for they raised their eyes to heaven and fell upon their knees in adoration; they rubbed their hands upon the cross, and then all over their own bodies, as if to communicate its holiness to themselves; and, on the return voyage, the missionary found that they had protected the cross by a palisade. La Salle also took possession of the country with great ceremony in behalf of France, and erected the arms of the king, at which the Indians expressed great pleasure.

On the 17th they proceeded on their route, and were received and entertained most hospitably at another village of the same Akansas nation. On the 20th they arrived at a small lake formed by the waters of the Mississippi, on the opposite side of which they found a gentle tribe of Indians, far more civilized than any they had yet met, whose sovereign ruled over his people with regal ceremony, whose houses were built with walls and cane roofs, were adorned with native paintings, and furnished with wooden beds and other domestic comforts. Their temples were ornamented, and served as sepulchres for their departed chiefs. La Salle being too fatigued to visit this interesting people, he sent the Sieur Tonty and Father Membré on an embassy to the king, to whom they carried presents, and who received them with great ceremony. The king next returned the compliment by a visit to the commander, sending his master of ceremonies and heralds before him, and coming two hours afterwards himself, preceded by two men carrying fans of white feathers, himself dressed in a white robe beautifully woven of the bark of trees, with a canopy over his head, and attended by a royal retinue. The king’s demeanor during the interview was grave but frank and friendly. Resuming their route on the 26th of March, thirty or forty miles below this they came among the Natchez Indians, whose village La Salle, with some of his companions, visited by invitation, sleeping there that night and receiving hospitality. A cross was erected here, too, to which were attached the arms of France, signifying that thereby they took possession of the country in the name of their sovereign. The Holy Mass was also offered, and the company received the Blessed Sacrament. They next visited the village of Koroa, and then, advancing over a hundred miles, on the 2d of April they came to the country of the Quinipissas, a belligerent tribe, who answered a proposal to smoke the calumet of peace by a shower of arrows. But having no object to attain by difficulties with the natives, La Salle passed on to the village of the Tangiboas, three of whose deserted cabins he saw full of the bodies of Indians who, fifteen or sixteen days before, had fallen victims in an engagement in which the village was sacked and pillaged. Speaking of La Salle while thus descending the great river, Bancroft writes: “His sagacious eye discerned the magnificent resources of the country. As he floated down its flood; as he framed a cabin on the first Chickasaw bluff; as he raised the cross by the Arkansas; as he planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, he anticipated the future affluence of the emigrants, and heard in the distance the footsteps of the advancing multitude that were coming to take possession of the valley.”

To Be Concluded Next Month.

Birth‐Days.

“WHO ARE JUST BORN, BEING DEAD.”

Who weeps when love, a cradled babe, is born? Rather we bring frankincense, myrrh, and gold, While softest welcomes from our lips are rolled To meet the dawning fragrance of a morn Of checkered being. Even while the thorn Keeps pace with rosy graces that unfold, Do we with rapture cry, “Behold, behold, A heaven‐dropped flower our garden to adorn!” And yet when from our darling fall the years As from the rose the shrivelled petals rain, And into newer life the soul again Springs thornless to the air of purer spheres, So blinded are we by our bitter pain We greet the sweeter birth with selfish tears.

The Future Of The Russian Church.

By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.

II.—Continued.

Let it only be borne in mind _what_ are those things which are required of her members by the faith and discipline of the Orthodox Church, and it will be granted us, at least face to face with unbelief, that her priests need something more than the ordinary respectability of a worthy man, an obedient subject of his sovereign, a good father of a family, faithful to his wife and devoted to his children.(161)

This _something more_ is possessed by the Catholic Church. The Russian Church has lost it. Whatever may be thought of the ecclesiastical law on the celibacy of the priesthood, we think it cannot be denied that a priest, living as an angel upon earth, exercises an influence which is always lacking to a married priest. This “magnetism of purity,” as it has been called, has inspired one of the noblest odes of the great English poet, Tennyson;(162) and they who in good faith argue against sacerdotal celibacy do so because, in their opinion, the purity required by the Catholic Church is a virtue too celestial to be met with here below; thus reasoning as did that Jew who, after reading a treatise on the Holy Eucharist by the Abbé Martinet,(163) said to us, “This cannot be true, because it would be too beautiful!” Those who reason as did this Jew conclude too easily from difficulty—what virtue is not difficult?—to impossibility? We do not undertake to convince those who have not faith, and who refuse to allow the efficacy of supernatural means; for the task would be a hopeless one. But if they have faith, we will submit to them the following consideration, which will not be without some weight.

And this is that the Catholic Church earnestly invites all her priests to celebrate _daily_ the holy Mass, and makes it their strict duty to recite every day, with attention and piety, the divine Office. In undertaking the defence of the Russian clergy M. Schédo‐Ferroti says: “Hypocrisy is a vice unknown among them, their piety being of a genuine stamp, and only giving outward expression to the sentiment which is really felt—namely, a belief in the sanctifying virtues of the ceremonies which they are called to perform.”(164) Let it, then, be permitted to us also to express here our firm belief in the sanctifying virtue of the Mass and the divine Office. The Holy Eucharist is called in Scripture _frumentum electorum et vinum __ germinans virgins_—“the wheat of the elect and the wine which makes virgins spring forth” (Zach. ix. 17). With regard to the divine Office, it is the prayer _par excellence_ of the church. As the Lord’s Prayer, taught and recommended by Jesus Christ himself, has a power which is special to it, and a particular efficacy, so also is a sanctifying virtue attached to a prayer chosen and placed daily on our lips by the church. The Mass and the divine Office, in a manner, force the priest to have always about him some thoughts of heaven. If vanity or worldly seductions acquire over him a momentary ascendency, the Mass and the divine Office recall him to those salutary truths which never change.

We will not dwell longer on this point; the reader will be well able to make its practical application. We will only now add that, if to have been capable of an act of great generosity is a title to indulgence for many defects; if the remembrance of an heroic action in favor of one’s country or of humanity surrounds with an aureola of glory the whole existence of him who has performed it; and if, in short, people hesitate to pronounce sentence against him, even when he has deserved blame, let it also be remembered that every Catholic priest, whoever he may be, has accomplished, at least once in his life, an act of the greatest generosity. He has sworn, on being admitted into Holy Orders, to renounce every affection which, by dividing his heart, could hinder him from devoting himself solely and without reserve for the good of souls; and solely with that intent has he voluntarily chosen the path of self‐denial and of conflicts which are the consequences of his generosity. This being considered, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a certain influence is invariably exercised by the Catholic priest who is faithful to his duties, even if his learning and education be defective.

Now, this influence, doubly necessary in Russia, on account of the social inferiority of the orthodox clergy, is entirely wanting to all that portion of the clergy which is in contact with the people;(165) and the fatal consequences of this want will make themselves especially felt in that day when nothing shall be unimportant that can help to keep alive faith in the Russian people.

And this is not all. In the poem alluded to above Tennyson puts these words into the mouth of his hero, the virgin‐knight:

“My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.”(166)

He who thus reveals to us the intimate relation existing between purity and strength is not a Catholic. If we had expressed the same thought as originating from ourselves, we might have been charged with mysticism; this is why we have quoted the great poet. He would not fear being called upon to justify his thought; let him therefore be the one attacked.

But whatever may be the weight which experience gives to this thought of Tennyson’s, there is no need to wait for the time when the Russian clergy shall be waging war against unbelief, to judge of the strength they are likely to have for the combat. In a chapter devoted to revelations of the state of the “orthodox” clergy, M. Schédo‐Ferroti takes praiseworthy pains to exhibit their good qualities. “I have found,” he writes, “with some regrettable exceptions, that the Russian priest possessed two valuable and truly Christian qualities, the frequency of which constitutes in some sort a characteristic feature of the class. The Russian priest is pious without any ostentation, and he is gifted with a wonderful faculty for supporting misfortune, under whatever form it may overtake him.”(167) We have already made some observations on the first of these two qualities, and will now do the same for the second.

To be endowed with a marvellous power of supporting misfortune—what better preparation, apparently, could there be for supporting the struggle of the future? It is to patience that our Lord Jesus Christ promises the possession of our souls for a happy eternity when he says: _In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras_—“In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 19). These divine words, alas! cannot in any way find their application in the patience of the Russian clergy. The patience whereof our Lord speaks is that which fills and sustains the soul, and which places in our mouths words whose wisdom puts our adversaries to silence.

This explanation is not our own; it is that of Jesus Christ himself. “They will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name’s sake: and it shall happen to you for a testimony. Lay it up, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before, how you shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. And you shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but a hair of your head shall not perish. In your patience you shall possess your souls” (S. Luke xxi. 12‐19). The patience here described corresponds exactly with the patience of which the Catholic bishops and priests of Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere are offering us at this very time so edifying and admirable an example.

The patience taught by our Lord, then, is not wanting to the Catholic clergy; can we hope to find it in the Russian clergy in the day when orthodoxy shall be threatened? Let us well consider the words of our Lord which we have just quoted, bearing in mind the energetic spirit which they suppose, and let us then compare them with the following words of the most devoted advocate of the orthodox clergy in Russia: “This readiness to bear, without murmuring, the sudden reverses of fortune,” says Schédo‐ Ferroti, “this spontaneous submission to the decrees of Providence, is too Christian a virtue to allow us to refuse it the admiration which it deserves; but it seems to us that the combination of circumstances which has contributed to develop in the Russian clergy this _mute resignation_ has also exercised a depressing influence upon their moral strength, in paralyzing the powers of their will by rendering its free exercise utterly and invariably impossible. It is the natural consequence of excessive suffering, whether physical or moral, to end in the enervation of the patient, by depriving him of the faculty of action, by destroying all his energy, and leaving him destitute even of any belief in his own strength; allowing him to remain in possession of but one single conviction, that of his powerlessness to struggle against fate—a conviction that finds its expression in this mute and absolute resignation which we find in the lower Russian clergy.”(168)

Poor Russian clergy! They are all that they can be expected to be, considering what the czars have made them. The sufferings of the Russian priest are not forgotten by God, neither does he forget his resignation. Far from desiring to cast a stone at him, we gladly point out all that we can find in his favor. Reduced to such a degree of indigence that he is compelled to maintain himself by laboriously toiling in the fields, the pressing needs of life bow down not only his brow, but his soul also, towards the earth. What right have we to expect that he can devote to the interests of souls the time and thought imperiously demanded by the daily necessities of his own existence? And even could he forget himself, and in self‐devotion taste the sublime joy of sacrifice, he is not alone; and will his wife and children also become so many victims of his zeal for souls?

This feebleness, this helplessness, these bonds—these are the very things which many would desire to see also in the militant ranks of the Catholic Church. “But wherefore, then, is it,” asks the church, in pointing out the armies of this world, “that the secular governments will that the soldiers called to defend their country should be alone and free?”(169)

But if to be single and free is an element of strength lacking to the Russian priest, already by long habituation to suffering and slavery reduced to the state of which so striking a picture is drawn by Schédo‐ Ferroti, another support is also wanting to him, the power of which is evident in the Catholic clergy. In our day, and under our very eyes, every circumstance concurs to encourage apostasy among the latter. Priests who fail in their duty gain the favor of governments, a considerable portion of the press, the secure perspective of honors and offices; they are proclaimed the only honest, the only true ministers of Jesus Christ, who alone comprehend his interests or succeed in causing him to be loved by souls. In all this there is something seductive, not only for the ambitious and such as would free themselves from the severe discipline of the church, but for those also who, in presence of the ravages which unbelief is making, persuade themselves—not with much humility—that if the church would act according to their ideas, the interests of God would be better secured. In spite of all these things, the number of apostates is a mere nothing when we take into consideration the number of Catholic priests. Did those who have undertaken to make war against Catholicity expect this check?—which, we remark in passing, witnesses plainly against the alleged prevalence of abuses. Have they well calculated the forces of the enemy which they flattered themselves they were about to annihilate? Unless we are mistaken, they think that its strength is the same in the present day as it was in the time of Luther, and that, if whole nations were then withdrawn from the church, there is no reason why they should not be so now. But the Protestantism of those days allowed a true faith in God, in Providence, in Jesus Christ, and retained a baptism in every respect valid. It is allowable to believe that if God has permitted that whole nations should be snatched from the _immediate_ care of the church, his providence will keep them from ever falling back into the state in which they were before the redemption; though this is the logical result of modern Protestantism. Besides, the social and political situation of Europe, the habits of the various nations, and especially the difficulty of communication, then permitted sovereigns to raise, as it were, so many walls of China round the confines of their states. They could at that time isolate their subjects, and only allow them just so much intercommunication with the rest of the world as _they_ might choose to consider suitable to the interests of the state. If thought itself could not be chained, its manifestations at least could be circumscribed or stifled. This is no longer possible in the present day; a pamphlet, a journal, a speech in parliament, even to a simple word of a bishop, can now, from the other end of the world, trouble the repose and disturb the plans of a powerful conqueror. For thought there are no longer any barriers possible, nor yet police; and thought makes revolutions.

Now, amongst the thoughts which escape the vigilance of all police, and which pass through every barrier, there is also that of the constancy which, in no matter what period of the existence of the Catholic Church, is shown by men living under different climates, ruled by various institutions, but _brothers in the faith_. If to bear the same name, to be born on the same soil, and to speak the same tongue, creates bonds so powerful and so devoted a defence of common interests, fraternity in the Catholic faith yields the palm in nothing to any other fraternity whatsoever for the powerfulness of its effects. The humble _curé_ of a poor parish hidden among the gorges of the mountains learns that a priest in a distant land has been imprisoned for refusing to betray his conscience. He is moved by the tidings, and takes a lively interest in the fate of the priest, following anxiously in his journal the narrative of the struggles of this confessor of the faith. During this time, without his being aware of it, a salutary work has been going on in his mind. Soon afterwards he finds himself in the same case—namely, of being called upon to suffer for the performance of those duties which his quality of priest imposes upon him. His adversaries, judging him by the gentleness of his language and his life, expect to intimidate him by a word; but, to their amazement, they find in him the firmness of an apostle. From whence did he gain this courage? They know not, neither does he; that which impressed his soul and prepared it for the conflict was nothing else than the story of the sufferings of his brother in the faith and in the priesthood, in a distant and foreign land.

Well, then, this sustaining thought which supports the Catholic priest by making him feel himself a member of that family which is as vast as the world and a brother in the faith with martyrs—this support will be wanting to the Russian clergy when upon it alone will depend the fate of orthodoxy. The Russian priest, who, not being alone, will have need of a courage so much the greater as there are beings dear to him whose existence is bound up with his own, will seek examples to encourage him; but will he find them? The same causes which have produced the _mute resignation_ spoken of by Schédo‐Ferroti authorize us to think that the Russian clergy will not have its martyrs, or, if there should be some, that their number will be too small to counterbalance the example of the general feebleness. And yet here again we will undertake the defence of the Russian clergy; for who, in fact, could require an act of heroism of a man “enervated by excess of moral and physical sufferings, deprived of the faculty of action, and not only possessing no longer any energy, but having also lost all belief in his own powers”? Now, this is, word for word, the condition of the Russian priest, as depicted by his most zealous defender.

“But,” it may be said, “the Orthodox Church is not confined to Russia; the orthodox priest will find brethren in Austria, in Roumania, in Turkey, and in Greece.” This is true; but it is not enough to find brothers only. The Russian priest will need brother‐martyrs; and where will he find them?

Besides, strange to say, the various branches of the Orthodox Church live almost strangers to each other, unless some political interest awaken the sentiment of fraternity in their common faith. Without entering into details on this point, we will only make one remark. It is easy to find several histories of the different branches, taken separately; but is it so easy to find an universal history of the Orthodox Church?(170) In Catholic countries the reverse of this is always the case; it is, comparatively, difficult to meet with particular histories of the Catholic Church in France, in Italy, in Germany, etc.; but everywhere is found and taught the universal history of the Catholic Church—a history in which that of a nation, however great or powerful, figures, if not as an episode, certainly as but a simple portion, a contingent part, of a necessary whole.

We one day read in an English journal that has a wide circulation the following remark: “A church which counts among its members men like Archbishop Manning and Dr. Newman is a church which is not to be despised.” English common sense thus did justice to the “coal‐heavers’ faith,” as people are pleased to call the adhesion of Catholics to the doctrines proposed to them by their church. In fact—to speak only of the last named of these two personages—the author of the _Grammar of Assent_ does not yield in intellectual power to any of his Anglican adversaries; from whence we may infer, by a series of logical deductions, that neither does he yield in this to any of the adversaries of the Catholic Church. To speak plainly, we have never perceived that these adversaries have shown any alarming degree of intelligence, at least with regard to the application of the rules of logic. In any case, as, since Porphyry and Celsus, men have never been wanting who have represented the faith propounded by the Catholic Church as an abdication of reason, so also, since Justin and the first Christian philosophers, the church has never lacked doctors who, in defending her, have at the same time been the defenders of reason. The apostolate of learning is not less fruitful, perhaps, than that of virtue and of martyrdom. Without pronouncing upon the relative necessity and advantages of these three apostolates, nor examining whether it is possible to exercise a _true_ apostolate by learning unaided by self‐denial and virtue, nor even doing more than call to mind how God in the Old Law, and the church in the New, have always made learning a part of the duty of a priest, we will confine ourselves to remarking that many souls are led to embrace the faith, and others, tempted to doubt, are quieted and confirmed, by a simple reflection analogous to that of the English journal just quoted. “A faith,” they say, “professed by minds so much above the ordinary class as such and such a writer ought not to be lightly rejected.” It is a preliminary argument of which the effects are salutary, and grace does the rest.

If we now take into account all that eighteen centuries and innumerable writers of all lands have accumulated in the way of proofs and testimonies in favor of the Catholic faith; and if we at the same time consider the immense variety and the infinitely‐multiplied forms of error, each in its turn combated by the church, we shall comprehend that it is scarcely possible to imagine any error of which the refutation has not already somewhere appeared. In the same way the struggle still goes on in all parts of the globe, and among peoples who have advanced, some more, some less, in learning and civilization; in all parts of the globe the defence also continues, and by men brought up among the same surroundings as their adversaries. In short, Catholic productions are not the exclusive appanage of any single diocese, any single country, any single nation; they are the family treasures, belonging to the whole Catholic Church. Facility of communication brings us, together with their names, the works of those who are waging war against various errors in various lands. To take time, to enquire, to make some researches—this is the worst that could happen to a Catholic priest who might find himself, for the moment, unable to solve an objection. But the objection is already solved, even if it be drawn from some scientific discovery of yesterday, if indeed (as it often happens) it cannot be solved at once by the simple use of common sense, and especially of logic, the most necessary of sciences, and the least studied of all.

Thus we see what happens in the Catholic Church, and we see, therefore, why it is that in those countries where formerly the clergy may have been at times taken by surprise, and not well prepared to meet a sudden adversary, they now struggle bravely; and also we see why earnest Catholics have been able without difficulty to distinguish between true and false progress, and between true science and false.

Will it be the same in Russia?

We do not wish to exaggerate anything, and will even admit that the complaints which are so general of the ignorance of the Russian clergy may be much overstated. Nevertheless, in looking through the bibliography of that country, we find ourselves forced to acknowledge that whenever the day shall arrive for unbelief to have free course there, decorated with the seductive appellations of science, of progress, of the emancipation of reason, etc., the Russian clergy will either find themselves without arms wherewith to defend orthodoxy, or with such only as shall prove insufficient.

In fact, the reader is perhaps not aware that, from the year 1701, Peter the Great had been _obliged_ (according to Voltaire) to forbid the use of pen and ink to monks. “It required,” says the apostle of science, “an express permission from the archimandrite, who was responsible for those to whom he granted it. Peter willed that this ordinance should continue.”(171) The successors of Peter likewise willed the same, although we do not venture to affirm that the ordinance is still observed. Let us, then, be just, and refrain from blaming the Russian monks. If, since the time of Peter the Great, they have not extraordinarily enriched the literature of their country, the fault is none of theirs.

Neither have we any right to blame the secular Russian clergy if few writers have appeared among them, nor yet any one of those whose name alone exercises an apostolate. All the Russians who have written on the ecclesiastical schools of their country are unwearied in their complaints against the badness of the method and the insufficiency of instruction which the young Russian levite takes with him on leaving the seminary.(172) We do not in any way accuse the commissions charged with the inspection and reformation of the ecclesiastical schools. We are convinced that these commissions have done their best; if the evil still continues as before, it is because they have not the power to touch its root. Besides, how can it be expected that a priest, poor, burdened with a family, and in very many cases necessitated to maintain himself and his family by the work of his hands, can either have the necessary freedom of mind or sufficient leisure to devote himself to study?

It remains for us to consider the bishops. These are taken from the monastic orders, and if, since Peter I., all of them have not been archimandrites, yet to all has, at any rate, been granted by the archimandrite, of their convent, at his own risk and peril, the use of pen and ink. Of the two hundred and eighty ecclesiastical writers who have appeared and died in Russia from the conversion of that country to Christianity down to the year 1827, and whose biographies may be found in the _Dictionary_ of Mgr. Eugenius, Metropolitan of Kief,(173) one hundred and ten belonged to the episcopate; and ever since 1827 that episcopate has continued to reckon among its members men remarkable for their learning. Everything, however, is relative. These bishops have shone in Russia; and there has been a desire to make them shine as far as France by translating into French the _Orthodox Theology_ of Mgr. Macarius, Bishop of Vinnitsa; a collection of _Sermons_, by the late Mgr. Philarete, Metropolitan of Moscow; and perhaps some other works. It is also to be supposed that some care must have been shown in selecting from amongst the productions of ecclesiastical literature in Russia, the best there were to be found of what she possessed. Without criticising, we think there is reason for saying that hitherto the Russian episcopate has not by its writings furnished orthodoxy with a support proportioned to the dangers with which it is threatened, and we doubt very much whether it will be equal to furnishing her with it very quickly. The Russian prelates renowned for their learning are but few in number; besides, so long as the faith and the church are protected by the Penal Code, and judicial prosecution would be the consequence of any attack, neither priests nor bishops have much chance of finding themselves face to face with any adversaries of importance. The latter, in fact, would be exceedingly careful to avoid the men who could denounce them; and the result of this is that, for want of exercise, neither the bishops nor priests can state what is either their strength or their weakness. To this we must add the thousand hindrances placed by Russian censorship to the manifestation of religious thought. There is nothing, even to the sermon preached by the pope in his parish, which must not be submitted to censure.(174) As for pastoral letters of bishops, we should be very glad if any could be quoted to us. The formalities and delays which accompany the revision and approbation of every work destined to appear in print are of a nature to discourage the most intrepid. The examination of _all_ the ecclesiastical productions destined to appear in the immense empire of the czars is confided to the committees of the _four_ ecclesiastical academies of Kief, Kasan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. If no exceptions were allowed, at any rate in favor of periodical works, the complaint of Jeremias might be truly applied to Russia: _Parvuli petierunt panem, et non erat, qui frangeret eis_—“The little ones asked for bread, and there was none to break it for them” (Lament. Jer. iv. 4). Finally, we will not stop to consider the manner in which ecclesiastical censorship is exercised in Russia, nor yet its tendencies nor its object; but we say, to single out one point only, that it is impossible to find in all Russia a single work that is able to throw any light upon the reciprocal relations of the church and state. More than one reader will join us in acknowledging that in Russia a true, apologetic literature has yet to be created.

To complete the picture of that which will inevitably take place in Russia on the day when the Orthodox Church shall there lose the support of the Penal Code, and will have to struggle alone, and abandoned to her own strength against heresy and unbelief, we ought to observe that, since the general confiscation of the goods of the clergy which was effected under Catherine II. (1762), the Russian Church has no longer anything to supply its needs but that which is allowed it by the state. It is the state which provides for the keeping up of churches and monasteries; the state which furnishes the expenses of the orthodox worship, and which assigns to the ministers of that worship the piece of land from which they must find a maintenance for themselves and their families, or else which supplies them with a salary proportioned to the functions they are to exercise. It is not, after all, impossible that, in the day of which we speak, the state, while continuing to retain a budget for the orthodox worship, may nevertheless extraordinarily reduce it; and also it is not impossible that conditions which cannot be conscientiously accepted will be attached to the payment of the salary, already so moderate, of the ministers of this church. In either case, more even than to combat heresy and unbelief, it will be necessary for the Russian Church to consider how her priests and their families are to find bread and shelter. Now, the only classes which can then effectively help them—are they not the same which at this day show so great a contempt for their popes?

And this is not yet all. In the day of which we speak who will secure to the bishops the obedience of the secular clergy? This clergy trembles now before them, because it sees them armed by the law with a despotic power;(175) but no one can foresee what will happen in the day when popes and bishops shall be equal before the law. The bishops being all drawn from the monastic state, the result has been that hitherto the secular clergy have lived in subjection to the regular; and this fact, united to other causes, has created a powerful antagonism between these two orders of the clergy, which not unfrequently betrays itself by venomous writings. One portion of the press makes common cause with the secular clergy; and, if we may judge by certain tendencies, the admission of the secular clergy to the episcopate will probably be one of the consequences of the changes that will take place in the relations between the church and state. But it is not possible that this change can be peaceably effected; the disorders which, at times, arise in the application of the principle of universal suffrage, show, in some degree, how, in this case, various elections of bishops would be brought about. And then, in the confusion and wild disorder of conflict, where would be found the authority which could have power to settle these differences and claim for itself adhesion and respect? The bishops, moreover, who or a century and a half have all been equal before the czar, and only distinguished by the titles and decorations granted or refused according to the good pleasure of the monarch—will these submit themselves to an archbishop, to a metropolitan, to a patriarch—in a word, to one from amongst themselves? Will they, for the love of concord, invest him with a superior authority, and obey him? And were they to reach this point, would not St. Petersburg contest the primacy with Moscow? And would Kief forget her canonical jurisdiction of former times?

Yet more, would not Constantinople vindicate any right over Russia? And the other Oriental patriarchs—would they forget that their concurrence was formerly sought for the erection of the patriarchate of Moscow, and their approbation to sanction the establishment of the Synod?

We may thus, in its principal features, behold the state to which the czars have reduced the faith and the church of which they entitle themselves the guardians. The picture is a gloomy one; nevertheless, we do not believe that we have exaggerated anything. Before proceeding further we would even say a word of excuse for the czars.

If the Catholic Church were not built upon a rock, proof against all tempests, many a Catholic sovereign designated by appellations indicative of the highest degree of attachment to the church would long ago have reduced her to the same condition as the church of the czars.

To Be Continued.

The Bells Of Prayer.

During the prevalence of the great plague at Milan, “at the break of day, at noon, and at night a bell of the cathedral gave the signal for reciting certain prayers which had been ordered by the archbishop, and this was followed by the bells of the other churches. Then persons were seen at the windows, and a confused blending of voices and groans was heard which inspired sorrow, not, however, unmixed with consolation.”

Stern Death, the tyrant, had swept along With trailing robes through the dusty mart. And laid his hand, that is white and chill, On the city’s heart.

The Lombard City of olden ways Over its sorrow and wild despair A cry sent up to the unseen Throne In an earnest prayer.

A lord that is dead as a peasant is, And a peasant dead is as a lord; The angel stood at the city’s gate With his lifted sword!

The tongues of bells in the steeple‐tops Sent on the breath of the baleful air A call for the people far and near To evening prayer.

At the sound of bells the weeping ceased, The heart of the thousand stilled its moan, The name of God was uttered aloud With the bells’ sad tone.

And the gleaming crosses pointing up, Like the gold of crowns that princes wear, Seemed in the gray of the changeless sky As signs of prayer.

And the women’s eyes were wet with tears, Their desolate souls were wrung with pain, For the dead asleep in their silent graves Through the sun and rain.

In the dawn and noon and dusk it rose, Threading its way up the narrow stair— The Catholic cry—when the bells were rung For the people’s prayer.

New Publications.

THE PRISONERS OF THE TEMPLE; OR DISCROWNED AND CROWNED. by M. C. O’Connor Morris. (Eleventh volume of Father Coleridge’s _Quarterly Series_.) London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This is a republication with additions of papers from that excellent magazine, _The Month_, which is especially valuable for its historical articles. It gives an account of the imprisonment of Louis XVI. and his family in the old tower of the Templars, together with sketches of other parts of the history of that noble and unfortunate group of victims to atheistic and revolutionary fury. The chief interest centres in the history of Louis XVII., commonly called the Dauphin. The tragic tale of his horrible sufferings and death is minutely told. At the end of the volume we have a report of the judgment in the famous case of the Naundorffs, who pretended to be the heirs of the Dauphin. This is one of the many tales of an escape of the Dauphin from the Temple and the substitution of another child in his place. The utter falsity of all these stories is amply proved, pretenders and prophets to the contrary notwithstanding. Whoever looks to the branch of the Capets for the deliverance of France must find him in the Count de Chambord. We cannot too warmly recommend this charming and pathetic narrative to all our readers.

MEDITATIONS ON THE LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST. By Nicholas Avancinus, S.J. Translated from the German Edition of the Rev. J. E. Zollner, by F. E. Bazalgette. With a Preface on Meditation, by George Potter, S.J. 2 vols. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The _Meditations_ of Avancinus were specially adapted to the use of religious. The German editor modified them for the use of all persons indiscriminately. They are prepared for every day in the year, are short, simple, and well fitted for use, both in community and in private.

THE NOBLEMAN OF ’89. By M. A. Quinton. Translated by Prof. Ernest Lagarde, of Mt. St. Mary’s College. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1874.

Some of our readers have doubtless read the _Quatre‐Vingt‐Treize_ of that great magician of language and fiery genius of revolution, Victor Hugo. It is an apology for the French Revolution; yet, to any person whose mind and heart are not already corrupted by bad principles and passions, it must seem like an apology which makes the crime worse and less excusable. The romances of Erckmann‐Chatrian are more subtle and plausible. One or two of them are, if taken singly, quite inoffensive, and a translation of them was some time ago given in our own pages on account of their vivid illustration of most interesting historical epochs. A contributor, quite unsuspectingly, even proposed to translate them all, and the necessity of reading the whole set before accepting the proposition, first opened our eyes to the scope and object which their authors have always had in view, and which is exposed in some very plainly; as, for instance, in _Waterloo_, the sequel to _The Conscript_. The end of these writers is to extend and popularize hatred of the church, the clergy, and the classes enjoying wealth or power in the state; to foster the spirit of liberalism either in its extreme or moderate form, and thus to help on the revolution. The influence of such books teaches us a valuable lesson concerning the polemic strategy to be employed on the opposite side. Historical romances have an extraordinary charm for a multitude of readers, and they can be made the vehicle of conveying historical knowledge together with the valuable lessons which history teaches. In order that they may perfectly fulfil their highest purpose, they should present true, authentic history, using fiction merely as an accessory. M. Quinton has done this, and has given a correct and vivid historical sketch of one period in the French Revolution, which is included in the plot of a novel of genuine dramatic power and descriptive ability. Its size is very considerable, making a volume of eight hundred pages, closely printed in quite small type. Fearful as the scenes are through which we are hurried in following the adventures of the persons figuring in the story, we are not left without some compensation and alleviation in the episodes of quiet life which relieve its tragic gloom. Some charming characters are portrayed, the best of which are three individuals of low station but high heroism—Louisette, Drake, and Cameo.

The characters of Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Philippe Egalité, and other leaders of the Revolution, are well portrayed. The author’s special success, however, is in describing the low ruffians who led the mob in the work of assassination. Maillefer, Lepitre, Boulloche, and Ratfoot are like Dante’s demons. We have never read anything more infernally horrible than the description of Aunt Magloire and the band of women who were trained to yell at the royal family. We recommend the perusal of this description most especially to the strong‐minded young ladies who are inclined to dabble in infidelity. In Mme. Roland they may see themselves as they are now; in Aunt Magloire and her frenzied band they may see where womanhood is brought by the abandonment of faith, when the lowest stage of degradation is reached.

The translator has done a great service to the public by putting this admirable historical novel into English. We take the liberty of recommending to him another one—M. Barthelemy’s _Pierre le Peillarot_. The multiplication of such books will go far to counteract the evil influence of those which falsify history and instil bad principles. We have vainly endeavored to persuade some of our publishers to undertake the translation of Conrad von Bolanden’s historical novels, which are far superior to the heavy productions of Mühlbach. If these latter, in spite of their dulness, obtained so extensive a circulation, why not the admirable works of Bolanden which depict the thrilling scenes of the Thirty Years’ War? A series of small, popular histories of certain important epochs is also very much wanted.

PURGATORY SURVEYED, ETC. Edited by W. H. Anderdon, S.J. Reprinted from the edition of 1663. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The original of this treatise was written in French by Father Binet, S.J. As it now stands it is the work of Father Thimelby, S.J., who used the work of Father Binet as a basis for his own. It is quaint, rich, and in one respect more directly practical as a spiritual book than some other excellent treatises on the same subject, inasmuch as it shows the pious reader how to avoid purgatory.

LESSONS IN BIBLE HISTORY FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. By a Teacher. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.

Experienced teachers usually prepare the best school‐books. The compiler of these Bible lessons is a lady of remarkable talent, who has spent many years of most successful labor as a teacher in an academy for young ladies which deservedly enjoys the highest reputation. Her book is one which has been prepared during this long course of teaching, and thus practically tested, as well as continually improved. It is now published with the direct sanction of his Grace the Archbishop of New York, after a careful revision made under his authority. The author has not attempted to go into questions of difficult critical erudition in respect to chronology and similar matters, but has simply followed the commonly‐received interpretation of the text of Scripture history, where there is one, avoiding the difficulties and doubtful topics which beset the study of all ancient history, sacred as well as profane. In this respect she has shown uncommon tact and judgment, and has always kept in view her true object, which is to prepare a text‐book suitable for young pupils of from ten to fifteen years old. The style and method are admirable for brevity, clearness, and a graphic, picturesque grouping of events and characters. The delicacy with which every narrative, where immoral and criminal acts are involved, shuns the danger of shocking the innocent mind of children by contact with evil of which it is ignorant, is exquisite. The questions about morals which necessarily suggest themselves to the quick, inquisitive minds of children, and which the author has often had to answer in class, are solved prudently and correctly. The interval between the sacred history of the Old Testament and that of the New has been filled up from profane authors, particularly Josephus, which is a great addition to the value of the book, and throws light on the narrative of the Gospels that makes it much more intelligible. In the history of the life of Christ the words of the evangelists are for the most part employed, without other changes or additions than such as are necessary to make the narrative continuous. The parables are arranged by themselves in a series. A summary of the Acts of the Apostles concludes the work, which is of very moderate size and copiously illustrated by woodcuts. As a school‐book this is the best of its kind, in our opinion, and we expect to see it generally adopted in Catholic schools. We cannot too cordially recommend it to teachers and parents for their young pupils and for family reading. Many adults, also, will find it the best and most suitable compendium of Bible history for their own reading; and even if they are in the habit of reading the sacred books themselves in their complete text, this manual will aid them to gain a better understanding of their historical parts than they can otherwise obtain. We trust the good example set by the pious and accomplished author will be followed by many of her associates in the holy work of religious education, to the great advantage of both teachers and pupils. Thousands of lovely children whom she will never see this side of heaven will bless the hand that has prepared for them so much delightful instruction, even if their curiosity is never gratified by knowing her name.

EXCERPTA EX RITUALI ROMANO. NOVA ET AUCTIOR EDITIO. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet, et Soc. 1874.

This is a lovely little ritual, a very pretty present for any one to make to a priest, especially to one just sent out from the seminary to a poor and arduous country mission.

LETTERS OF MR. GLADSTONE AND OTHERS. New York: _Tribune_ Office. 1874.

The London _Tablet_ epigrammatically remarks that Mr. Gladstone kindled a fire on a Saturday which was put out on the following Monday. Mgr. Capel has very satisfactorily answered him. Every person not an ignoramus in theology and jurisprudence, knows that the Catholic Church teaches the derivation of the state from a divine institution _immediately_, and _not_ mediately through the church; moreover, that she teaches what follows by logical sequence, the duty of allegiance to the state. No Christian, no moral philosopher, and no person holding the principles on which the American fabric of law is based, can hold that this allegiance is unlimited.

The New York _Herald_, remarkable both for extraordinary blunders and for extraordinarily just and sensible statements, has well said that there is a “higher law” recognized by every one who believes in the supremacy of conscience and duty to God. It is a very base and inconsistent thing for an American to profess a doctrine of blind, slavish obedience to civil magistrates and laws, however wicked these may be. The Catholic Church has always claimed to be the infallible judge in morals as well as in faith. The Pope has always exercised the supreme power of pronouncing the infallible judgments of the church, and the Vatican decrees have added nothing to that power. They have embodied the perpetual doctrine of the church in a solemn judgment with annexed penalties, as an article of Catholic faith; and, in consequence, whoever refuses obedience and assent to that judgment is _ipso facto_ a heretic and excommunicated. It is therefore idle for Lord Acton and Lord Camoys, who have stained their nobility and their Catholic lineage by an act of treason and apostasy, to pretend to be Catholics. They are no more Catholics than is Mr. Gladstone, and the English Catholics have repudiated them and their doctrine with indignation. It is futile to pretend that the Pope claims any _jure divino_ temporal power directly over states or citizens in their political capacity, or pretends to retain any _jure humano_ sovereignty beyond his own kingdom. The reader will find the general subject of this notice discussed at greater length elsewhere in this number.

OUTLINES OF ASTRONOMY. By Arthur Searle, A.M., Assistant at Harvard College Observatory. 16mo, 415 pp. Boston: Ginn Brothers. 1874.

A new interest has within the past few years been given to the science of astronomy by the recent discoveries which have been made in it, principally by the use of the spectroscope and by the new field which has been opened and which is still opening before astronomers, of physical research into the construction of the celestial bodies. A short time ago the science seemed nearly as complete as it was ever likely to become; now, while retaining its old ground intact, it is rapidly developing new resources, and, besides being itself perfected, it is contributing no small share to the solution of the great problem of the day in purely physical science—the constitution of matter.

Many new and excellent works have, accordingly, as might be expected, lately appeared on the subject, called forth by the reawakened interest in it, both in the world at large and among scientific men. The book forming the subject of this notice is certainly one of the best of these.

It is not a mere condensed summary of what is known and has been discovered. Such summaries, of course, are of great utility, both for reference and as text‐books, and serve excellently in the latter way, if the object of the learner be to memorize for a time a large number of facts, or, in other words, to cram for an examination. They may serve, for students of good memories, even a permanent purpose; but they require close application, and labor under the difficulty—too often a fatal one—of not being interesting, unless helped out by startling representations of nebulæ, comets, clusters of stars, and other beautiful objects at which many people seem to suppose astronomers to spend their lives in idly gazing.

Fine writing, on the other hand, about the grandeur and magnificence of the celestial orbs, etc., is indeed often interesting; but, though edifying and useful in its way, it fails to instruct. One really knows little more after it than before.

This book has to a great extent, and perhaps as far as possible, avoided both of these difficulties, which usually stand in the way of people who wish to know something of astronomy, but not to become practical astronomers. It is more on the plan of Herschel’s treatise than of any other which we remember, but is, though this is saying a good deal, superior to it in two respects. One is, as is obvious, that it is brought up to the present state of the science; and the other, that in the first part the geometrical diagrams usually considered necessary are dispensed with, and supplied by ingenious popular illustrations borrowed from facts of daily life, and familiar to all, which attract, instead of terrifying, the reader. It is true that the fear which most people have of mathematics is to a great extent unreasonable; but allowance must be made, even for ill founded prejudices. Illustrations and explanations of this kind, for which the author has a remarkable talent, are a feature of the book throughout.

The last half of it is intended for those who have a real desire to understand the work which astronomers do, and how they have done it; the nature of the problems which they have to solve, and the means employed. It does not presuppose any really mathematical education; what geometry is needed is explained as it is required, and with a great deal of originality, as we may observe by the way. But to this branch of the subject there is no admission, except by Newton’s key of “patient thought.” Those who do not care to use it must dispense with the knowledge to which it opens the door. The chapter on the “History of Astronomy” is, however, easy reading, and much the best short sketch of the progress of the science of which we are aware.

The illustrations are excellent, not being copies on a traditional type, but taken from photographs or careful original drawings. A copious index, appended to the book, facilitates reference.

The work is mainly intended for the general reader; but there is no reason why it should not be a text‐book, especially for academies and colleges, as Sir John Herschel’s, already alluded to, has proved to be. We have no hesitation in recommending it for this purpose, and as being worthy to take the place of any now in use.

We regret that the words on page 384, expressing a mere hope in the existence, or at any rate in the providence, of God as the author of nature, should have been inserted. We have not noticed anything else in the book to which Catholics can object, unless it be the use of the word infinity in the sense common to Protestant authors, which is, in fact, the one ordinarily given to it by mathematicians.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS EXAMINED BY THE RULES OF EVIDENCE ADMINISTERED IN COURTS OF JUSTICE. By Simon Greenleaf, LL.D., late Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University, author of “Treatise on the Law of Evidence,” etc. New York: James Cockcroft & Co. 1874.

Prof. Greenleaf’s reputation as a writer on jurisprudence is too well known to need any comment from us. In bringing his judicial calmness and legal acumen to bear on the Christian evidences, he has conferred an obligation which all Christians must acknowledge. He writes as a Christian scholar should write, with learned gravity, yet with reverent simplicity; and as he believes the divinity of Our Lord, and raises no disputed point of doctrine, his work may be accepted as orthodox. It is in reading the productions of such minds as his that the really ephemeral character of works like Renan’s _Life of Jesus_ is best appreciated. Renan holds a brief, and his arguments in support of it are only flowery and superficial rhetoric. Renan’s _scenes_ are very dramatic—the apparition of our Lord to Magdalen, for instance, is worked up with great elaborateness of effect; but when he comes to face solid evidence, he fails most deplorably. Thus, in treating of Our Lord’s appearance to the apostles after his resurrection, and the conviction of the doubting Thomas, he merely says that at the first interview S. Thomas was not present, adding in a careless way: “It is said (_on dit_) that eight days afterward he was satisfied.” A cavalier way this of disposing of a most circumstantial piece of history!

This ample and elegant volume is a new edition of a work published, we believe, some thirty years ago, and now out of print. One of the best parts of the book is the Appendix, containing, among other things, M. Dupin’s “Refutation of Salvador’s Chapter on the Trial of Jesus.”

SINS OF THE TONGUE; OR, JEALOUSY IN WOMAN’S LIFE; followed by discourses on rash judgments, patience, and grace. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1874.

THE VALIANT WOMAN: A series of discourses intended for the use of women living in the world. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1874.

Two very practical books written by Mgr. Landriot, late Archbishop of Rheims, and translated from the French by Helena Lyons. After having passed through four editions in England, Mr. Donahoe presents them to us in an American dress for circulation and perusal in this country. The print is clear, the translation good, and the binding in keeping.

Both of these books will be found very useful to clergymen who have the spiritual direction of women living in the world, and will assist them in preparing sermons to decry those most mischievous of sins: envy, jealousy, rash judgments, and sloth.

Although these books were written for females, yet they will be very beneficial to many of the opposite sex, who are not unfrequently in great need of cultivating reserve and charity. The first one, particularly, may be read with advantage by some writers for the press, who seem to forget that calumny, detraction, and vituperation are mortal sins, which are even more aggravated when published to the world than when only privately indulged in, and that, moreover, they exact reparation.

ORDO DIVINI OFFICII RECITANDI MISSÆQUE CELEBRANDÆ, JUXTA RUBRICAS BREVIARII AC MISSALIS ROMANI, ANNO 1875. Baltimore: apud Fratres Lucas, Bibliopolas, via vulgo dicta Market, No. 170.

We beg pardon for having misquoted the title of this work. The title‐page contains the word “Rectandi,” which we have supposed to stand for “Recitandi,” and “Celebrande,” for which we have substituted “Celebrandæ.”

It would be well if the mistakes in this important publication were all on the title‐page, and if they were all merely misprints. We will, however, begin with these. The proofs do not seem to have been read at all.

The following, then, are some of the misprints. Feb. 4, “S. Andræ Corsini.” Feb. 10, “_Dom. Possion_.” Mar. 10, “_A cunctus_.” Mar. 20, “_fucit heri_” and “_præsente Candav_.” Mar. 28, “DOM. RESURECT.” This last is, if we remember rightly, an old acquaintance. Apr. 13, “S. Hemenegildi.” May 2, “S. Anthanasii.” May 5, “_præsente caduv_.” May 19, “S. Prudentianæ.” May 23, “Festum SS. Trinitatatis.” The superfluous “at” here has perhaps come out of “_Matut._,” on June 8, which reads “_Mut._” June 13, “Vesp.”

These will suffice as specimens of mere typographical errors. The following cannot be considered as such:

On January 16 we find the feast of S. Marcellinus. The Breviary has Marcellus. Similarly, on July 13, we have S. Anicetus for S. Anacletus.

The feast of S. John Nepomucen has disappeared altogether. Unless it has been suppressed, it should have the day to which that of S. Francis Caracciolo has been transferred. This requires the following changes:

June 15. For S. Francis Caracciolo read S. John Nepomucen.

June 17. For S. Ubaldus read S. Francis Caracciolo.

June 18. For S. Bernardine read S. Ubaldus.

June 22. For S. M. M. of Pazzi read S. Bernardine.

June 23. For the Vigil of S. John read S. M. M. of Pazzi.

The assigned feast of S. Leo comes, it would seem, this year, on July 3. Until now it has been on July 7. Moreover, we do not find it in the Breviary on the 27th of June, as stated this year, but rather on the 28th, as previously.

We must do the _Ordo_ the justice to say that it has itself corrected one of its mistakes. It put in the feast of S. Justin on the 14th of April, and has inserted a slip saying that this is only for the Roman clergy.

Cannot we have a better _Ordo_ next year? It has been getting worse and worse for some time. And if we have a change for the better, would it not be a good idea at the same time to separate the part peculiar to the Diocese of Baltimore entirely from the rest, for the convenience of the clergy? Since writing the above, our attention has been called to the omission of the anniversaries of consecration of some of our bishops.

There may be some other errors; it is not probable that we have noticed all.

REGLEMENT ECCLESIASTIQUE DE PIERRE LE GRAND. Par le R. P. C. Tondini, Barnabite. Paris: Libr. de la Soc. Bibliogr., 75 Rue du Bac. 1874.

F. Tondini has sent us two copies of this curious and valuable document, for which he will please accept our thanks. It contains the text of the _Regulation_ in Russian, Latin, and French, with other pieces and notes, and is prefaced by an introduction. There is a great deal of political talent and skill exhibited in this code of the Russian Peter, which is the foundation upon which the modern schismatical Church of Russia is founded. There are also many things in it most whimsical and amusing. The Emperor Paul wanted to celebrate a Pontifical Mass in vestments of sky‐blue velvet. Peter did not care about performing any such childish escapade as this, but he was resolved to exercise the governing power of a supreme pontiff, and he carried his resolve into execution. The one salient feature of his regulation is the systematic effort to degrade the hierarchy and clergy of the Russian Church, to make them impotent and contemptible. The able despot, aided by his unscrupulous instruments, succeeded but too well. The ultimate result has been that Russia is worm‐ eaten and undermined by infidelity and its necessary concomitant, the revolutionary principle. There is no salvation for it, even politically, except in a return to obedience to the See of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. Our Episcopalian admirers of the Russian Church will find some wholesome reading in this interesting and learned work of F. Tondini.

SADLIERS’ CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1875. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.

In the cursory glance we have been able to give this publication, we are glad to notice an evident effort to improve on the issues of previous years. We do not look for perfection in such difficult compilations, and anything approaching it is to be commended.

IERNE OF ARMORICA. By J. C. Bateman. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1874.

This work, reprinted from Father Coleridge’s admirable _Quarterly Series_, was noticed, at the time of its original publication, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for June, 1873. We have also received from the same house: Moore’s _Irish Melodies_, with memoir and notes by John Savage; Carleton’s _Redmond Count O’Hanlon_, _The Evil Eye_, and _The Black Baronet_; the latter reprints, we believe, of works heretofore published by Mr. Donahoe of Boston.

THE MILWAUKEE CATHOLIC MAGAZINE, January, 1875.

We welcome to our table this new contemporary, an octavo monthly of thirty‐two pages, just come to hand. The editor having beautified the churches and dwellings of his locality with the productions of his pencil and crayon, now takes up the pen professional; though he has heretofore made occasional contributions to the press, which have recently been put into book‐form. He brings to his task a refined, poetic taste, a genuine appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, and a sturdy good sense, which will doubtless serve him well in his new relations. We wish him all success.

ANNOUNCEMENT.—The Catholic Publication Society has in press, and will soon publish from advance sheets, two very important works in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s late pamphlet; one by the Very Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D., and the other by His Grace Archbishop Manning. The former is entitled _A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, on the occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s recent Expostulation_, and the latter, _The Vatican Decrees and their Bearings on Civil Allegiance_.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XX., NO. 120.—MARCH, 1875.

Italian Documents Of Freemasonry.

When Elias Ashmole and his literary friends amused their learned leisure at Brazenose in the construction of abstruse symbols and mystic jargon, that passed through their cavalier associates to the first Masonic lodges, they could never have foreseen the result of their invention. In less than two centuries the association that sprang from the union of a few Royalist officers in England, and accompanied the exile of King James’ followers to France, has spread itself over the two hemispheres, a mystery where it is not a terror. Its history has been written by many pens and in many colors. Some have ascribed to it an origin lost in fabulous antiquity, or traced its genealogy back a thousand years before the Christian era. To some it is an absurd system of innocent mystification, without any capacity for the good it promises, and powerless for the evil with which its intentions are credited. But others discern under its mantle of hypocrisy nothing less than a subtle organization for the destruction of all established order, and a diabolical conspiracy for the overthrow of religion. Between the two descriptions our choice is easily made. The voice of the Roman pontiffs, our guardians and our teachers, has been neither slow nor uncertain. Clement XII. and Benedict XIV., Pius VII. and Leo XII., Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., have unequivocally condemned Masonic societies as hot‐beds of impiety and sedition. This judgment was not lightly pronounced. It proceeded from an examination of the manuals, statutes, and catechisms of the order, from undoubted evidence of its practical action as well as its speculative principles. Since the close of the last century many writers, both Catholic and Protestant, have contributed by their researches to justify the sentence of the popes, and nothing has more powerfully aided these efforts than the publication from time to time of the authentic documents of this secret society.

A signal service has just been rendered to the same cause by the publication in Rome of the General Statutes of Freemasonry, and of two rituals for initiation into the first and thirtieth grades of the craft.(176) It would be a mistake to suppose that the organization of Freemasonry is everywhere identical, or that it has been always harmoniously developed to the same extent in the different countries where it has taken root. It has been torn by schisms from the beginning, although its divisions, which concerned rather matters of form and detail than general principles, have never prevented its combining for common purposes of destruction. The two great factions which divide the brethren take their name from the _rite_ which they profess. The orthodox Masons, who are the great majority, give their allegiance to the Scottish rite, which at one time, they say, had its principal seat in Edinburgh. Now, as Domenico Angherà, Grand‐Master of the Neapolitan Orient, tells us in a reserved circular of the 22d of May last, which has found its way to the public papers, the acknowledged centre is established in Maryland under the specious designation of Mother‐Council of the World. In the Scottish rite the grades are thirty‐three: eighteen symbolic, twelve philosophic, and three administrative. The Reform of Orléans, which distinguishes the followers of the French rite, abolishes all the philosophic and higher grades, and reduces the symbolic to seven. The reformers are reproached with clipping the wings of the eagle of liberty, forbidding the introduction of political and religious questions into the lodges, and cancelling at a stroke two‐thirds of the Masonic programme, Equality and Liberty, making Fraternity sole motto of the order.

The documents published are those of the orthodox Masons of the Scottish rite, which is almost exclusively followed in Italy. Of their authenticity there is no doubt. The statutes are printed from the latest edition, clandestinely prepared for Masonic use at Naples (Tipografia dell’ Industria, 1874). They are distributed into five hundred and eighty articles, and in the Roman reprint are followed by thirty‐seven supplementary statutes for Italy agreed to in the Masonic convention held at Rome in May. The rituals, equally authentic, are also copied from the most recent editions. Without the rituals, the statutes cannot be understood. The latter are put into the hands of all Freemasons, and the language, when not positively misleading, is studiously ambiguous, only to be explained as the initiated proceeds in his graduation. It is necessary to give their substance at greater length than the platitudes and general professions of philanthropy they contain would warrant, in order that the commentary afforded by the other manuals may bring the hypocrisy and imposture of the system into full relief. As far as possible these documents shall be allowed to speak for themselves. They are their own indictment.

The General Constitutions of the Society of Freemasons of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in their first paragraph declare that the scope of the order is the perfection of mankind. Embracing in its scheme the whole human race, the grand aim of the institution requires its members to devote all their material means and mental faculties to its furtherance. The brethren, whatever be their nationality, to whatever rite of Masonry they owe allegiance, are members of a great family, one as is the species to which they belong, as the globe they inhabit, as nature which they contemplate. For this reason Freemasons of every country are to take among themselves the designation of brothers, and both in and out of their lodges show, in their deportment to each other, true fraternal affection. The _venerable_ president of the lodge is required to see observed that strict equality which ought to exist among brothers. He is never to forget that the simple quality of man in the eyes of a Freemason commands the highest respect, and is to show deference only to such as deserve it by their virtue and superior Masonic acquirements. He must never permit a brother to assume any superiority over another on account of rank or distinctions he may enjoy in the profane world. He himself, on his admission to office, is reminded that he is but _primus inter pares_, that his authority lasts only for a time. He must never make his superiority be felt by the others. He ought to reflect that he is chosen to lead because he is considered possessed of the necessary prudence, and that only gentle and kind demeanor can secure the harmony that should reign among Freemasons.

Every member at his initiation, besides his entry‐money paid to the treasurer, must deposit a sum for the benevolent fund. At every meeting of the lodge a collection is made for the poor. This is so essential that any meeting where this duty has been omitted is declared not Masonic, irregular and null. All fines imposed on delinquents or absentees go to the same fund. The grand almoner is charged with the distribution of the offerings among the more indigent of the fraternity, and even the profane are sometimes admitted to share in the Masonic alms. Every application for assistance must be made through a member, and is discussed in the lodge. Preference is to be given to those cases where distress has not been produced by idleness or vice. Certain circumstances justify the president in authorizing an alms without consulting the lodge, but an explanation is to be given at the first meeting. He has also power to exempt the poorer brethren from the payment of the regular subscription, but this he is enjoined to do with such precautions as may conceal the exemption from the other members of the lodge. Were he to manifest the favor, he would be expelled the order.

In every lodge there is an official styled hospitaller, whose duty it is to visit the brethren in sickness daily, and supply them with medicines and whatever else they may happen to need. All the members of the lodge are obliged to visit the sick brother, one each day by turns, and also during his convalescence. A remarkable provision is added, obliging the sick Mason to receive the visits of his brethren. If the illness is dangerous, the sick man must hand over all his Masonic papers to those who are deputed to take charge of them. The funeral expenses of a deceased member are defrayed by the lodge, when circumstances require it, and he is accompanied to the grave by all his brethren of the same or lower grade in Freemasonry. The lodge orator, where practicable, pronounces a discourse over the tomb, enumerating the virtues and praises of the deceased; within the lodge the oration must never be omitted.

In keeping with the professedly humanitarian scope of the order are those articles of the statutes which regulate the admission of new members: “If the end of the institution is the perfection of mankind, it is indispensable that the Freemason should practise true morality, which supposes the knowledge and practice of the duties and rights of man. He ought, accordingly, to be upright, humane, sincere, beneficent to every sort of persons, and, above all, a good father, a good son, a good brother, a good husband, and a good citizen. A Freemason must be a citizen in full enjoyment of his civil rights, of acknowledged probity, and of at least ordinary intelligence. No one is admitted who has not the age required by the statutes. No one may be admitted or may remain in the order who has once been employed or engages in servile, mean, and dishonorable trades or professions, or who has been condemned to suffer punishment for crime. The expiation of any such sentence gives no claim for readmittance.”

The retiring warden, handing over the keys of the Masonic temple to the warden‐elect, admonishes the latter to exclude from its precincts all who have not laid aside every profane distinction, and who do not seek to enter solely by the path of virtue. Every precaution is taken to prevent the admission of unworthy subjects. The age for reception is fixed at twenty‐one, but the son of a Freemason may be initiated at eighteen, or even at fifteen if his father is of the upper grades of the order. The candidate must be proposed in the lodge by a member. Three commissioners are secretly appointed to separately inquire into the antecedents of the postulant, each inquisitor concealing his mandate from his fellow‐ commissioners.

“The investigation,” it is prescribed, “should chiefly turn on the constant integrity of the _profane_ in his habitual conduct, on the exact discharge of the duties of his position, on the rectitude and safeness of his principles, on the firmness of his character, on his activity and ability to penetrate, develop, and fully understand the profound sciences which the mystic Masonic institute offers to the consideration of its followers.”

The three reports of the inquisitors must agree in recommending the candidate; otherwise the subject drops. But even when the commissioners unanimously approve of the proposal, the question is put to the secret votes of the lodge in three several meetings. Two negative votes in the first ballot are sufficient to delay the next trial for three months, while after three negatives it is put off for nine; and if at the end of that time three black balls are again found in the urn, the candidate is definitively rejected, and communication is made of the result to the Grand Orient, which informs all the dependent lodges of the exclusion, to prevent the admission of the rejected candidate among the brethren of its jurisdiction.

Having secured by these stringent regulations the purity of selection, and put the mystic temple beyond the risk of contamination by unworthy neophytes, it is not surprising that the statutes should tell us (paragraph 444) “that the character of Freemason does not admit the supposition that he can commit a fault.” Nevertheless, considering the weakness of human nature and the force of old habits imperfectly subdued, certain violations of decorum are contemplated in the statutes which constitute Masonic faults, and are enumerated with the penalties attached to each. Among these peccadilloes are mentioned perjury and treason against the order, the revelation of its mysteries, embezzlement of its funds, insubordination and rebellion against its authority, duelling _among brethren_, and breaches of hospitality.

Out of the lodges the conduct of the brethren is to be closely watched. It is the duty of the president to admonish any one whose conduct is reprehensible. This he must do in secret, and with due fraternal tenderness endeavor to bring back the wanderer to the path of virtue. Every corporation has to see that its individual members do nothing to forfeit the good opinion and confidence of the world at large. When, therefore, a brother is subjected to a criminal prosecution and proved guilty, the lodge is to take immediate steps for his expulsion.

Promotion from the lower to the higher grades of Masonry is regulated on the same principles of meritorious selection that govern the first admission of members. Irreprehensible conduct, both in his civil and Masonic capacity, are requisite in the aspirant; and he must have acquired a thorough knowledge of the grade which he possesses before he can be advanced to _greater light_. Certain intervals must pass between each successive step, that the spirit and devotedness of the brother may be fully ascertained and his promotion justified.

Minute rules are laid down in the statutes to regulate the proceedings in lodge. The arrangement of the seats, the order of business, the method of discussion, all is provided for in a way to promote harmony and social feeling. Unbecoming behavior and offensive language are severely punished. “Among Freemasons everything must breathe wisdom, kindness, and joy.” Any brother may signify his dissent from a proposal while it is under discussion; but when it has received the approbation of the majority, he must applaud the decision with the rest, “and not be so foolishly vain as to think his own opinion better than that of the greater number.” When the ritual practices have been observed, and necessary business despatched, the presiding dignitary may invite the brethren to suspend their labors and engage without formality in conversation or amusement. After this relaxation the ceremonial is resumed for the remainder of the meeting, and the lodge is closed in the usual manner.

Prominent among the observances instituted for the cultivation of Masonic feeling are the _Agapæ_ of Masonic banquets. Some are _de rigeur_, as those on the Feasts of S. John the Baptist and S. John the Evangelist, and on the anniversary of the foundation of the various lodges. Others may be given according to circumstances. In the regulation banquets the lodge orator makes an appropriate address. Toasts and songs enliven the entertainment, and dancing is not prohibited. Between the toasts a poet, if there be one, may offer some of his productions. “Mirth, harmony, and sobriety are the characteristics of a Masonic feast.” Officials are charged to maintain order and decorum in these reunions. They are instructed to observe a “moderate, fraternal austerity” in their superintendence. Venial slips may be corrected on the spot, and a trifling penance imposed, which must be accepted with the best grace. A brother who more gravely offends against any of the social decencies is to be rigorously chastised at the first subsequent meeting.

After the claim of Freemasonry to represent a universal brotherhood, and its professed purpose to effect a general diffusion of its principles and influence, we are not surprised to find the statutes enjoin the most absolute respect for all political opinions and all religious beliefs. The 325th article says: “It is never permitted to discuss matters of religion or affairs of state in the lodges.”(177) We are not, however, to interpret toleration into a denial of the foundation of religious truth, or into a wicked connivance at subversive agencies in the body politic. Every Masonic temple is consecrated to the “Great Architect of the Universe.” In the name of him, “the purest fountain of all perfection,” the election of the office‐bearers is proclaimed on S. John’s day. By him they swear when, with their hands on S. John’s Gospel, they promise fidelity to the order. All their solemn deeds are inscribed “to the glory of the Great Architect of the Universe” in the name of S. John of Scotland (S. John the Baptist), or of S. John of Jerusalem (S. John the Evangelist), according to the rite. The Bible is always reverently placed on the warden’s table when the lodges meet, and the proceedings are always opened with an invocation of the Deity. If the craft admits among its adepts men of all persuasions, it professes to do so because it does not search consciences. Its toleration, it declares, does not proceed from atheism, but from enlightened liberality. Nor has the state anything to apprehend from the brethren, if we believe the admonition addressed to a novice at his initiation. “Masons are forbidden to mix themselves up in conspiracies.” The first toast in all Masonic banquets is to the head of the nation. It would be strange indeed if, notwithstanding the enlightened scope of the institution and the jealous care with which it professes to exclude all those who are troublesome to society or have given cause of complaint in their civil conduct, any government should find that the Masonic body was not one of the firmest stays of order. Virtue, philanthropy, benevolence, brotherhood—these are the watchwords of Masonry, and its statutes appropriately terminate in the following paragraph:

“The Freemason is the faithful friend of his country and of all men. He must not forget that by the oath he took at his initiation he stripped himself of every profane decoration and of all that is vulgar in man, to assume no other distinction but the sweet name of brother. Let his conduct correspond to the title, and the scope of Masonry is attained.”

We have hitherto drawn on the General Constitutions, which are binding on “all Masonic lodges, and on all Freemasons, of whatever grade, throughout the two hemispheres.” As these statutes, though carefully guarded from the eyes of the profane, are put into the hands of the apprentices or youngest adepts, whose prudence and capacity for _greater light_ have still to be tested, it would be dangerous to make in them more open professions of faith than are covered by elastic and general expressions; yet there is sufficient internal evidence in them to show that the maxims they contain are mere exoteric doctrine compared to the deeper revelation of the inner sanctuary, where only the tried craftsman may dare to penetrate. “Secrecy,” say the Constitutions, “is the first characteristic of the order.”

And this secrecy is to be observed not merely towards the uninitiated, but is equally enforced between the different grades of the brotherhood. The presence of a member of a lower grade regulates the quality of the business to be transacted in the lodge, even if all the others are master‐ masons. And not only the business but the very ceremonial must be accommodated to the imperfection of those present. Each of the thirty‐ three grades has its own ritual, the publication of which is high treason to the order, and which cannot be read without profanation by a member of inferior degree. The books in the lodge library are by no means promiscuous reading, but are permitted according to gradation. Hence the multiplicity of officials with fantastic names who watch over the privacy of the proceedings, verify the certificates of strangers, look out for spies or illegitimate intruders; hence the precautions taken with their documents, and the intricate system of checks and counterchecks on the very office‐bearers through whose hands the correspondence and written documents of an intimate nature have to pass. Why all this secrecy, and why those terrible oaths, which we have still to see, if the end of Masonry is faithfully exhibited in these Constitutions? As they stand, they might almost suit a pious confraternity. Doubtless there are suspicious articles. Their exclusiveness is not a Christian trait.

“Odi profanum vulgus et arceo”

is not the spirit of religion. The visits to the sick, and the obligation not to decline them, receive a dubious commentary in the death‐bed scenes now so distressingly frequent in Italy: when the minister of religion is driven away by the visitors even when sent for by the dying man or his relatives. The solemn decree, “The hand of a Mason shall not be raised against a brother,” throws light on the inexplicable verdicts of juries, judicial sentences, and remarkable escapes of condemned prisoners with which the newspapers have made us familiar. But from the statutes we can learn no more. We cannot discover whether the anti‐Christian and anti‐ social maxims which are unquestionably ascribed to Masonry are the real outcome of its teaching, or an element quite extraneous to its genuine principles. This is to be gathered from other sources, and, fortunately, these are at hand in equally authentic documents, the rituals of the several degrees, and many of the secret instructions that from time to time are issued by the directing lodges. An examination of these leaves no room to doubt the genuine scope of the association. The process may be tedious, but it is conclusive. It brings out the hideous impiety of the sect and its satanic hypocrisy.

Let us follow, Ritual in hand, a neophyte in his first initiation to the grade of apprentice.

A lodge is properly composed of four chambers—a vestibule, the Chamber of Reflection, the middle chamber, and the lodge proper, or temple. In the last the ordinary assemblies of the Masons are held, but for the initiation of a member all the apartments are put in requisition. The candidate is conducted, if possible, in a carriage, blindfolded, to the place of meeting; at all events, he must be blindfolded before entering the Masonic precincts. He is led first into the vestibule, where he is handed over to the Expert. This functionary, who is clothed in a long, black robe, with a hood concealing his features, takes the candidate by the hand, then bids him put his confidence in God, and, after making him take several turns in the outer chamber, introduces him to the Chamber of Reflection. This is described in the Ritual as

“A dark place impenetrable to the rays of the sun, lit by a single sepulchral lamp. The walls are painted black with death’s heads and similar funereal emblems to assist the recipient in his meditations. He has to pass through the four elements of the ancients, and here he is supposed to find himself in the bowels of the earth, reminded of his last abode and of the vanity of earthly things by the spectacle of a skeleton stretched on a bier. In the absence of a skeleton a skull must be placed on a small table in the centre of the room. On the table are pen, ink, and paper, a dish of water, and a piece of bread. A chair completes the furniture.”

Inscriptions are distributed over the walls; as, “If curiosity has brought you here, depart,” “If you are capable of dissimulation, tremble,” and others, as the lodge may think proper. The Ritual adds: “If it can be conveniently arranged, appropriate voices may be made to proceed from the ceiling.” The candidate is made to sit with his back to the door, and the bandage is taken from his eyes. The Expert addresses him: “I leave you to your reflections. You will not be alone. God sees every one.” Then he quits him abruptly, and, closing the door, locks it behind him.

The length of time to be employed in self‐examination is not prescribed in the Ritual, but is left to the caprice of the Masons, who are now engaged in the temple. When the brethren are bent on a joke at the expense of the recipient, it has been known to extend over four hours. The state of the patient during this time may be imagined. He came with his head full of mysterious fancies about Masonry, and the first surroundings are calculated to crowd perplexing thoughts on an already agitated mind. Some never get past this first essay. They have had enough of the mystic rite at the threshold, and are accompanied to the door with the gibes and laughter of the brotherhood, who then close the evening over a repast prepared at the expense of the candidate with his forfeited entrance money.

In most cases, however, the time for reflection is just so much as is necessary to allow the completion of the opening ceremonies in the temple preparatory to the reception of the neophyte. When these are finished, the president sends the Expert to require of the candidate written replies to three questions: “What does man owe to God? What does he owe to himself? What to his fellow‐men?” The candidate is also to be told that as the trials through which he has to pass are full of danger, it behooves him to make his will. When the Expert returns, the will is laid by to be returned to the candidate at the end of the function; but the answers to the three questions are discussed in public, and the disquisitions in theology, philosophy, and ethics may be fancied. If among the auditors there are junior Masons whose ears are not yet accustomed to unequivocal negations of God and the human soul, the president strives to moderate the language of the disputants, and always sums up with a vague and general declaration of respect for all opinions, and of Masonic toleration.

The recipient is now prepared for further tests. The preparation consists first in having his eyes once more bandaged in the Chamber of Reflection, then in being stripped of his clothes, “left only in his shirt and drawers, with his left breast and arm and his right leg bare, his feet in slippers, and a cord twined three times round his neck.” He is led by this cord to the door of the lodge. Here he is to be subjected to a lengthy interrogatory as to his name, birthplace, age, profession, and other qualifications. “As Masonry receives into its bosom members of all opinions and all religions, the president must not propose political or religious questions to offend the sentiments or belief of the recipient or of the auditory.”

In due time the neophyte may learn that the creed of Masons is to have none, and that its politics are the subversion of all authority; but prejudices must be respected at the outset, and the apprentices are not to be shocked unprepared. When the examination is over, the farce begins. The doors of the lodge are thrown open with a great noise, and as soon as the candidate has been led into the room, the Tiler holding the point of a sword against his naked breast, they are violently shut. “What do you perceive?” the president asks. “I see nothing,” the recipient must answer; “but I feel the point of a sword on my breast.” “That point,” says the president, “is symbolic of the remorse that would gnaw your heart, should you ever betray the society you seek to enter. Think what you are about to do. Awful tests await you. _Terrible_ brother, take this profane one out of the lodge, and lead him through those places which all must pass over who would know our secrets.” The candidate is then led out and made to take so many turns that he completely loses every idea of where he is; and when he has quite lost his bearings, he is again in the lodge, although he does not know it; and the brethren, in breathless silence, await the progress of the comedy.

A large, wooden frame, filled in with paper, has been prepared in his absence, and set up in the lodge before the entrance. “What is to be done to this profane one?” asks Brother Terrible. “Throw him into the cavern,” replies the president. Two Masons then seize the candidate and cast him against the frame. The paper, of course, breaks, and the candidate is caught in the arms of some of the brethren who are in waiting. The doors of the lodge are then closed with noise, an iron ring, passing over a dentate bar of iron, is made to imitate the bolting of the door, and the candidate, blindfolded, out of breath, stunned, and frightened, really may fancy himself at the bottom of a cavern.

The candidate is now seated on a stool, with a jagged bottom and unequal legs which never find a plane, that with its constant and uneven motion keeps the occupant in perpetual terror of falling. From this uneasy seat he must answer all the fanciful questions that the whim of the president or his own condition suggests. Metaphysics, astronomy, natural sciences, may all enter into the examination; and as the questions are asked without previous notice, the replies are not always satisfactory. Although the Ritual prescribes the greatest decorum and gravity to be observed during the ceremony, that the neophyte may be properly impressed, and prohibits all rough usage and buffoonery, this is to be understood by the gloss of another Ritual, which says that “this test of the stool of reflection is instituted for the purpose of discovering how far the physical torture which the candidate is made to suffer in his uneasy seat influences the clearness of his ideas.”

If after this examination the patient still perseveres in his resolution to enter the Masonic fraternity, he is admonished to prepare for other trials. First, he must swear to keep absolute silence on all Masonic secrets. This oath is to be taken over a cup of water. “If your intention is pure, you may drink with safety. If in your heart you are a traitor, tremble at the instant and terrible effects of the potion.” The fatal cup is then presented to him. This is a chalice‐shaped vessel, having the cup movable on a pivot in the base, and separated vertically into two divisions. In one there is fresh water, and this side is presented to the candidate. In the other there is a bitter mixture. When the candidate, still blindfolded, has taken hold of the cup, the president invites him to drink, and at the same time to swear after himself in the following terms: “I promise the faithful observance of all Masonic obligations, and if I prove false to my oath”—here he is made to taste the fresh water, and then the cup is turned so that the next draught must be taken from the side containing the bitter mixture, and the president continues with the remainder of the oath to be repeated by the recipient—“I consent to have the sweetness of this water turned into gall, and its salutary effect changed to poison.” Here the countenance of the candidate undergoes the expected change, and at the sight of the fatal grimace the president, striking a terrible blow on the table with his mallet, cries out, “Ha! what do I see? What means that distortion of your face? Away with the profane!” The poor candidate is removed back some paces, and then the president addresses him: “If your purpose is to deceive us, retire at once. Soon it will be too late. We would know your perfidy, and then it were better for you never to have seen the light of day. Think well on it. Brother Terrible, seat him on the stool of reflection. Let him there consider what he must do.” When the candidate has been on his uneasy seat for some time, the president asks him if he means to persevere. If he persists, the Terrible brother is told to accompany him on his _first journey_ and protect him in its dangers. The Ritual proceeds:

“The Expert shall conduct the candidate through this first journey, making it as difficult as possible, with thrusts, ascents, descents, wind, thunder; in such a way that he can have no idea of the ground he goes over, and all in a manner calculated to leave a deep impression on the aspirant.”

We really cannot go on without apologizing to the reader for detaining him over this contemptible mummery. It is humiliating to human nature that men who make the loftiest professions of respect for its dignity should debase themselves to such a depth of absurdity. And this, too, when they matriculate in their school of perfection. Out of a mad‐house and a Masonic lodge folly like this is inconceivable.

To return to our journey. It is a farce to an onlooker, but it is a serious matter to the patient. He still supposes himself in the cavern, and is forced to make several rounds of the lodge, passing over boards that move under him on wheels, to boards adjusted to take a see‐saw motion, and from these to others that suddenly yield under his weight in trap‐door fashion. He is perpetually getting directions to stoop, to raise his right foot, to raise his left, to leap; and corresponding obstructions are put in his way at every movement. He is made to mount an interminable ladder, like a squirrel in a cage, and, when he must think himself as high as a church‐steeple, is told to fling himself down, and falls a couple of feet. Perspiring and out of breath, confused, terrified, and fatigued, his ears are filled with the most horrible noises. Shrieks and cries of pain, wailing of children, roaring of wild beasts, are heard on every side. All the theatrical appliances to produce thunder, rain, hail, wind, and tempest are employed in well‐appointed lodges; and in the others the ingenuity of the merry brethren supplies the want of machinery. The first journey is finished when the brethren are tired of the amusement, and then the candidate makes a second journey without the obstacles, and during this he only hears the clashing of swords. A third journey is made in peace, and at last the candidate passes thrice over an ignited preparation of sulphur, and his purification by earth, water, air, and fire is complete.

Now comes a Masonic instruction which we shall quote from the Ritual:

“ ‘Do you believe,’ asks the Venerable, ‘in a Supreme Being?’ The answer of the candidate is usually in the affirmative. And then the president may reply: ‘This answer does you honor. If we admit persons of all persuasions, it is because we do not pry into the conscience. We believe that the incense of virtue is acceptable to the Deity, in whatever form it is offered. Our toleration proceeds not from atheism, but from liberality and philosophy.’ ”

But mark what follows:

“If the candidate in his reply says he does not believe in God, the president is to say: ‘Atheism is incomprehensible. The only division possible among candid men is on the question whether the First Cause is spirit or matter. But a materialist is no atheist.’ ”

This is a specimen of Masonic theology, expressed in guarded terms, to respect the weaker susceptibilities of an assembly of _apprentices_; for we must remember that we are assisting at an initiation to the first grade, which is conducted in presence of the youngest Masons. Still, no veil can conceal the boldness of the declaration, and the apology of materialism will surely not protect the dullest adept who remembers the first lessons of his catechism from taking scandal at its effrontery. But if he is to graduate in the higher honors, he must sooner or later get an inkling of what is in reserve, and it is as well that from the very first grade he should be able without much help to proceed to the development of the Masonic idea of God—nature and that universe of which he himself is a part—to pantheism pure and simple. Indeed, the _Rivista della Massoneria_ of the 1st of August, 1874, ventures a little further: “All are aware that this formula (Great Architect of the Universe) by common consent has no exclusive meaning, much less a religious one. It is a formula that adapts itself to every taste, even an atheist’s.”(178)

After this it is scarcely necessary to read on in the Ritual:

“ ‘What is deism?’ asks the president. Having heard the answer, he is to subjoin: ‘Deism is belief in God without revelation or worship. It is the religion of the future, destined to supersede all other systems in the world.’ ”

The catechising proceeds in a similar strain through a multiplicity of questions, which are all treated with a studied ambiguity of language, affirming and denying, saying and unsaying in a breath, leaving nothing unimplied, to satisfy advanced impiety, and softening down the bolder expressions that would grate on the ears of a novice.

When the examination is over, the marking of the new brother is to be proceeded with. He is told to prepare to receive the impression of a hot iron on his person, and is requested to mention on what part he would prefer to be branded. The Masons then go through the preparations of lighting a fire, blowing with a bellows, turning the iron with tongs, discussing the redness of the heated instrument, all in the hearing of the patient, who, still blind‐folded, stands pale and trembling, in spite of his resolution to go through the operation. The diversion this torture affords the lodge may well be imagined. Of course there is no branding, but the rituals suggest different methods of producing the sensation. One recommends violent friction of the part indicated for branding, and then the sudden application of a piece of ice. Another directs the hot wick of a candle just blown out to be pressed against the skin. Sometimes the president declares himself satisfied with the resignation of the neophyte, and dispenses with the operation. Generally the ceremonies of the Ritual are considerably curtailed in practice; not even Masons can endure their tedious trifling.

After this the oath is to be administered. The candidate is warned of the sacred, inviolable, perpetual nature of the obligation he is about to assume; and when he has signified his willingness to be bound by it, he is told that as the time is approaching when he will be admitted to the secrets of the order, the order requires of him a guarantee—to consist in the manifestation of some secret confided to him, that he is not at liberty to reveal. If the candidate agrees, he is to be sharply reprimanded; if he does not consent, the president praises his discretion. The latter then proceeds to inform the candidate that the oath he is about to take requires him to give all his blood for the society. When the candidate assents, his word is at once put to the test, and he is asked if he is really to allow a vein to be immediately opened. This proposal usually draws out a remonstrance, and the victim’s ordinary objection is the weakness of his health, or the probable derangement of his digestion by such an operation following so soon after dinner. In the lodge, however, this is provided for. The surgeon gravely advances, feels the patient’s pulse, and infallibly declares that he lies, that the blood‐ letting can do him no harm, and positively assures him he will be the better for it. The bleeding is performed in this manner: The surgeon binds the arm, and pricks the vein with a tooth‐pick or such like. An assistant drops on it a small stream of tepid water, which trickles over the arm of the patient into a vessel held below. The counterfeit is perfect. The arm is bandaged, arranged in a sling, and the poor man, blindfolded, half‐ naked, terrified, wearied, branded, and bled, is at length conducted to the _altar_, or table of the presiding master, to seal his initiation with the final oath. There, on his knees, holding in his left hand the points of an open compass against his breast, with his right on the sword of the president (or, according to another ritual, on a Bible, a compass, and a square), he takes the oath, which we give in its naked impiety, as found in the Ritual secretly printed at Naples in 1869:

“I, N. N., do swear and promise of my own free‐will, before the Great Architect of the Universe, and on my honor, to keep inviolable silence on all the secrets of Freemasonry that may be communicated to me, as also on whatever I may see done or hear said in it, under pain of having my throat cut, my tongue torn out, my body cut into pieces, burned, and its ashes scattered to the wind, that my name may go down in execrated memory and eternal infamy. I promise and swear to give help and assistance to all brother Masons, and swear never to belong to any society, under whatever name, form, or title, opposed to Masonry; subjecting myself, if I break my word, to all the penalties established for perjury. Finally, I swear obedience and submission to the general statutes of the order, to the particular regulations of this lodge, and to the Supreme Grand Orient of Italy.”

When the profane has finished the oath, the president asks, “What do you seek?” and the other is to answer, “I seek light.” The most merciless trick of all follows. The bandage is quickly removed from his eyes. Unaccustomed for hours to the faintest light, they are suddenly exposed to the dazzling glare of a great artificial flame started before his face. He is blinded once more by the change, and closes his eyes against the pain caused by the brilliancy; and when at last he opens them to look about him, it is to see the fierce attitudes of the Masons, each pointing his sword at his face. Few pass this ordeal without exhibiting signs of terror; some attempt to escape, some beg their lives, and some protest they have done with Freemasonry. But no one who has reached this point is permitted to depart without being received, and the novice is comforted with the assurance that all is over. The president, addressing the new apprentice, says:

“Fear not those swords that surround you: they threaten only the perjurer. If you are faithful to Masonry, they will protect you. If you betray it, no corner of the earth will protect you against these avenging blades. Masonry requires in every Mason belief in a Supreme Being, and allows him out of the lodge to worship as he pleases, provided he leaves the same liberty to others. Masons are bound to assist each other by every means when occasion offers. Freemasons are forbidden to mix themselves up in conspiracies. But were you to hear of a Mason who had engaged in any such enterprise, and fallen a victim to his imprudence, you should have compassion on his misfortune, and the Masonic bond would make it your duty to use all your influence and the influence of your friends to have the rigor of punishment lessened on his behalf.”

Our candidate by this lime has somewhat recovered from his confusion. He is now led up to the president, who, striking him thrice on the head with his mallet, then with the compass, and lastly with the sword, declares him Apprentice Mason and active member of the lodge. He is invested with the insignia, and put in possession of the Masonic signs and passwords. The description of these would be tedious, and we shall only notice the _guttural sign_. This is made by bringing to the throat the right hand, with thumb extended and the other fingers closed together to represent a square; the whole intended to recall the imprecation in the oath. To this allusion is made in one of the drinking songs of the Masons, translated from the French for the brethren in Italy, although the verse has been left out in the Italian edition:

Dedans la barque Du Nautonnier Charon Si je m’embarque Je lui dirai: Patron A cette marque Reconnais un Maçon.

Of the sacred word _Jachin_ there will be occasion to speak again.

When the function is over, the lodge is cleared, tables are spread, and the brethren sit down to a refreshment which one, at least, has fairly earned.

Admission to the first three grades of Masonry is easily obtained. Among the Apprentices, Fellowcraft, and Master‐Masons the official language always speaks of charity, toleration, and philanthropy. We have seen sufficient reason to question the sincerity of these expressions in the mouths of the Masons, and the explanations we have heard from themselves are far from reassuring. As the society contemplates the gradual formation of the requisite character in its members, and as most of these at their first entry have not altogether lost every natural sense of duty, as understood by the profane, their advance to _perfection_ is generally slow, and the great bulk never get beyond the symbolic grades. If they are promoted, it is _pro forma_ in the succeeding grades termed _capitular_, which are the perfection of symbolism, and are completed in the Rosicrucian Knight at the eighteenth grade. From this point promotion is difficult. The degrees that follow up to the thirtieth are called _philosophic_, and in them the adept is taught plainly, without symbol or artifice, the practice of true Masonic virtue. Vengeance and death are the passwords, the poniard the symbol of action. After this the other degrees are purely administrative, and the Mason of the thirty‐first, thirty‐ second, or thirty‐third grade learns nothing that was not revealed when he was admitted Knight Kadosh in the thirtieth.

In the nineteenth, or first of the philosophic grades, the Ritual says:

“It is not difficult to comprehend that the society of Freemasons, speaking plainly, is just a permanent conspiracy against political despotism and religious fanaticism. The princes who unfortunately were admitted into Masonry, were not slow in reducing it to a society of beneficence and charity, and maintained that religion and politics were foreign to its purpose. They even succeeded in having inserted among the statutes that no discussion was to be tolerated in the lodges on these subjects.”

In the Ritual of the twenty‐ninth degree:

“How would not the Masonic mysteries have degenerated, if, according to the programme of the common herd of Masons, the adept was never to occupy himself with politics or religion!”

And the actual Grand‐Master of the Neapolitan Masons, Domenico Angherà, in a secret history of the society in that Orient, clandestinely printed in 1864, relates with satisfaction that the work of the Carbonari and Buoni Cugini in 1820‐21 was conceived and directed by the Masonic lodges, and carried out by their own adepts under the other designations, and triumphantly boasts that in those days “the mallets of the Masons beat harmonious time to the axes of the Carbonari.” In 1869 the Grand‐Master Frapolli, Deputy in the Chambers, in the opening discourse at the Masonic gathering held that year in Genoa, acknowledged that “during the previous fifty years of tyranny Freemasonry in Italy was replaced by the Carbonari.” He said that on the first reconstruction of the order at Turin, in 1861, the motto was adopted of “A personal God and a constitutional monarchy,” but that this was found to be a stifling limitation, by which the Italian lodges would not submit to be fettered; and in 1864 a new Grand Orient was established which better corresponded to the scope. Up to the occupation of Rome in 1870 the aim of the brotherhood was to “elevate the conscience.” Now they may safely advance a step. Mauro Macchi, another Deputy, and member of the Supreme Council of Freemasons, in the _Masonic Review_ of the 16th of February, 1874, thus expresses his idea of the present practical scope of the society:

“The keystone of the whole system opposed to Masonry was and is that ascetic and transcendental sentiment which carries men beyond the present life, and makes them look on themselves as mere travellers on earth, leading them to sacrifice everything for a happiness to begin in the cemetery. As long as this system is not destroyed by the mallet of Masonry, we shall have society composed of poor, deluded creatures who will sacrifice all to attain felicity in a future existence.”

A Catholic, he says, who mortifies his passions, is consistent and logical, for to him life is a pilgrimage and an exile, and his career is but a preparation for a future state; but this the grand‐master refuses to accept as the type of human perfection.

Let us pass to an inspection of the Ritual of the thirtieth grade of the Scottish Rite, called Chevalier Kadosh, or Knight of the White and Black Eagle, printed at Naples, without indication of printer’s name, in 1869. Here the real ends of Masonry, and the horrible means it directs to their attainment, are exposed without veil or mystery. As Angherà in his preface says:

“Here the great drama of Masonry reaches its _dénoûement_. Only Masons of strong capacity and devoted attachment penetrate thus far. The other grades are but a sanctuary of approach; this, the thirtieth, is the inmost sanctuary, for which the rest is only a preparation.”

The infamous nature of the conspiracy which it discloses would justify our treating it at greater length, if the limits of an article did not oblige us to hasten to a close. We cannot afford to wade through the tiresome series of mystifying ceremonies without which nothing Masonic can be legally performed. Mithric rites, the Temple of Memphis, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Numa, the Templars, Manicheans, Rabbinic phrases, and lore from the Talmud, Arabic, and Hebrew, are jumbled together to give an air of antiquity to this most modern of widespread impostures. Our business is to cull out of the mass of profanities a few samples of the perfection required of the “holy,” “consecrated,” “purified” knight; for such is the force of the Hebrew Kadosh. Angherà has not proceeded far, when in a note he takes care to inform us that the two sacred passwords, Jachin and Booz, which Masons of the first two grades are taught to repeat and understand as _stability_ and _force_, and whose initial letters, J and B, are inscribed on the Masonic _columns_, read as they ought to be, backwards, are two obscene words in the corrupt language of the Maltese Arabs.

The initiation, whenever it is symbolic, recalls the execution of James de Molai, Grand‐Master of the Templars, and holds up to execration Clement V. and Philip the Fair, with Noffodei, the false brother. To emancipate society from the double despotism of priest and king is the duty of the aspirant. The passwords for him are now _Nekam_, vengeance, _Makah_, death, and the answer _Bealim_, to traitors. He is told that his duty is to mark all the murders of friends of liberty, political and religious, committed by the satellites of despotism, and to avenge the victims of tyranny; to bind himself, in common action with the other knights, to annihilate, once for all, the despots of the human race—in a word to establish political and religious liberty where it does not exist, and defend it where it is established, with arms if need be. When the theory of these doctrines has been sufficiently impressed upon him, he is conducted by the grand‐master before a skull crowned with laurel, and repeats as he is told: “Honor and glory to persecuted innocence; honor and glory to virtue sacrificed to vice and ambition.” Next he is shown a skull crowned with a tiara, a dagger is placed in his hand, and he is made to exclaim, “Hatred and death to religious despotism!” In the same way, before a skull on which is placed a kingly diadem, he pronounces “Hatred and death to political despotism!” Twice must the aspirant repeat this ceremony, and on the last occasion casts crown and tiara on the ground.(179) Four times he binds himself by oath to combat political and religious oppression, to put down religious fanaticism, to overturn political tyranny, to propagate the principles of Masonry, to disseminate liberal ideas, to maintain the rights of man and the sovereignty of the people. Each time the holy name of God is called to witness, but we know now the value of the invocation—the universe is the Mason’s God.

“ ‘Do you believe in another world?’ asks the grand‐master, who himself resumes, ‘There are not two worlds. We are a compound of matter and spirit. These two substances return to their origin: this transformation does not remove them out of the universal world, of which we form part. What is the future life? The future life is the life of our descendants, who are to profit by our discoveries.’ ”

Such, then, is the “religion of the future,” by which it is the appointed task of Masonry to supersede Christianity; such the “progress,” “civilization,” “perfectibility,” which humanity is to achieve under Masonic guidance. We have not painted the association in colors of our own; we have merely produced its official documents, and in the hated light they leave their own photograph. When society falls under the influence of such an organization, its demoralization is rapid and complete. Its circulars regulate the popular elections and control the votes of parliaments. “Public opinion” is at its beck, the press is its active instrument. We could quote its instructions to the Italian Deputies on the Roman question, and a communication of the Grand‐Master of Italy, sent to all the foreign Grand Lodges, advising a united attack, through the public mind, on the Carlist movement in Spain. Its theories of assassination and open rebellion are seldom carried out on its own direct responsibility. Out of the Masonic lodges arise a multitude of minor sects, ostensibly independent, but really directed by the brethren. To these the practical work is committed. As Carbonari, Socialists, Communists, Internationalists, Mazzinians, they execute orders received from their common centre. If successful, the result is claimed for the parent association; if unfortunate, they are disavowed. It is usual to say that Freemasonry in firmly‐established constitutional states is comparatively harmless. We are not prepared to affirm that in countries like the United States or Great Britain the wicked principles of Continental European Masonry are developed to the same extent indiscriminately in all the lodges. Where the initiation is supposed never to advance beyond the three symbolic degrees, the anti‐Catholic principle of religious indifference is perhaps its most dangerous characteristic. But this alone is sufficiently repulsive; and the fraternization which binds together every branch of the association can excuse no individual member from moral complicity in its worst deeds, wherever perpetrated.

With that keen forecast of danger to the Christian family which has ever been the characteristic attribute of the Holy See, the popes, from the first origin of Masonry, saw through its flimsy disguise of benevolent professions, and over and over again, and chiefly on the eve of those terrible anti‐social outbursts that have so frequently convulsed Europe since the formation of the society, raised their prophetic voices, foretelling the impending storm, denouncing its source, and condemning in the strongest terms and under the severest penalties all connection with these secret associations. Princes and peoples disregarded the warning, and both have suffered for their neglect. Would that at least they had profited by the lesson! But these eternal enemies of order, emboldened by their success, are only preparing for a new strife. The state is already almost everywhere at their control; the church of God everywhere resists. Against her they now concentrate their warfare. False professions serve no purpose with the civil government in their own hands, and they have learned that their hypocrisy does not avail with the church. They drop the mask. No longer careful to conceal their aim, they make it a public boast. “Protestantism,” writes B. Konrad from Germany in the _Bauhütte_, a Masonic paper, “without discipline, faith, or spiritual or moral life, broken up into hundreds of sects, offers only the spectacle of a corpse in dissolution. It is not an enemy to oppose us. Our adversary is the Roman‐ Catholic‐Papal‐Infallible Church, with its compact and universal organization. This is our hereditary, implacable foe. If we are to be true and honest Freemasons, and wish to promote our society, we must absolutely cry out with Strauss: We are no longer Christians; we are Freemasons and nothing else. Amateur Freemasons are no advantage to humanity, and no credit to our society. Christians or Freemasons, make your choice.”

The church of God fears them not. Her pastors may mourn over the corruption of morals, the perversion of youth, the irreparable loss of many souls; but amid the dissolution and universal ruin which infidelity and revolution are preparing for society, she will stand erect, unshaken, not shorn of her strength; and when the inevitable revulsion brings repentant nations to her feet, she will be ready as ever to pour the balm of religious consolation on their wounds, to bind up their shattered members, to set humanity once more on the path of true perfectibility, not to be attained through the impious philosophy of midnight conventicles, but in the light of the Sun of Justice, preached on the housetops, to the formation of true Christian brotherhood.

Crown Jewels.

Let’s crown our King with what will show His royal power and treasure— Sharp thorns! ’Tis done! His blood doth flow, Of both the might and measure.

Are You My Wife? Chapter II.

By The Author Of “A Salon In Paris Before The War,” “Number Thirteen,” “Pius VI.,” Etc.