i. Abstinence, in suppressing the vegetative functions, frees

both the nervous influx and the blood which were distributed among the digestive organs. 2. Contemplation gathers together the contingent of pain dispersed through all the body, to fix and concentrate it on certain points which it sees, admires, loves, in Jesus Christ. It suppresses all the functions of the life of relation to devote itself exclusively to the object of its passion. The bloody flux, which has been drawn to the surface of the skin by the great functional activity, follows to the end the nervous influx which is constantly directed towards certain points, and the stigmatization is effected.”[265]

Of the ecstasy, according to M. Charbonnier, “abstinence is the principal, contemplation the secondary, cause.” We cannot, indeed, enter into all the details furnished by the author of this strange theory. In order to arrive at a judgment regarding it, we know of nothing better than to cite the conclusions of the reader of the report on the work itself:

“All this,” says M. Warlomont, “forms a whole which must have cost the author long and laborious research. As far as the inquiries of physiology are concerned, the source, respectable though it may be, on which he has relied, must be a cause for regret. His principal, almost his only, authority is that of Longet, who is now many years dead. But the questions relative to nutrition--those precisely which are at stake--have, since Longet, been placed in an absolutely new light. The work which we have just analyzed is altogether a work of the imagination. The demonstration of the _à priori_ thesis which the author has set up he has pursued by every means, clearing out of his road the obstacles of nature which embarrass it, and creating at will new functions whereon to apply his organs; all this written in a lively, imaginative style, and bearing the impress of conviction. There is only one thing which is sadly wanting--experimental proof. A few simple experiments on animals, logically carried out, would have informed him how they withstand a progressive abstinence, and what changes this abstinence effects in their organs and functions. It is to be regretted that he has not instituted these experiments.”[266]

If the theory advanced by M. Charbonnier, based on such doubtful physiological facts, finds no weight with the learned representative of the Academy of Medicine, it is not because he himself admits the conclusions arrived at in the study of M. Lefebvre on Louise Lateau. For him, indeed, the events taking place at Bois d’Haine, apart from the question of fasting, which has not been positively established, and which, on that account, rightly passes beyond scientific discussion,[267] are exempt from all fraud and deception. But let M. Warlomont himself speak:

“After having analyzed,” he says, “the memoir which the Academy has confided to our examination, and having refuted it principally in the portions which concern Louise Lateau, it remains for us in our turn to give our own ideas relative to a fact of such interest which has formed the subject of the memoir.

“And first of all, are the facts cited real? According to our thinking, the simulation of the ecstasies is simply impossible, accompanied as they are by functional troubles the provocation for which would pass quite beyond the empire of the will. As for the actual spontaneity of the stigmata, we have demonstrated this experimentally.”

And now for the chief part of the report. It is that in which the learned academician attempts to give a physiological explanation of the facts. For him ecstasies are a species of double life, of a second condition, such as may be presented in ordinary and extraordinary nervous states, as well as in others: (_a_) in consequence of material injury to the brain; (_b_) during the existence of well-determined neurotic disorders; (_c_) under the influence of certain special appliances (magnetism, hypnotism); (_d_) spontaneously, without the intervention of any external provocation (as somnambulism or extraordinary neurotic affections).

After having examined each of these points in detail, the author thus continues:

“This point established, what of ecstasies? Well, whatever we may do, it is impossible for us not to class them in the same order of facts, not to see in them the influence of a neurotic perturbation analogous to that which controls neurotic diseases. It is in both cases the passage of a human being into a state of second condition, characterized by the suspension, more or less complete, of the exercise of the senses, with a special concentration of all the cerebral powers towards a limited object. Among the ecstatics, as among the hypnotics, there prevails a perturbation, diminution, or abolition of external sensibility. All is concentrated in a new cerebral functional department.”

So far for the ecstasies. Passing next to the production of stigmata, the report admits in principle the theory of Alfred Maury. That is to say, the imagination plays the principal _rôle_ in the production of these phenomena. But to meet the brilliant member of the Institute, he calls to his aid the physiological laws and most recent discoveries, in order to show how the imagination can, by the irritation of certain given parts, provoke a veritable congestion of those parts, and then a hemorrhage.

“In virtue of what mechanism,” he asks, “are blisters first produced, and bleeding afterwards? We have established the genesis of stigmatic angiomata.[268] The attention has given place to pain, and pain to repeated touchings; from this proceeds the congestion which has brought on the arrest of the blood in the capillaries, and, as a consequence, their enlargement. Then comes the rush of blood, giving place to congestive motions, determined by a hemorrhagic diathesis, and the phenomena disclose themselves in all their simplicity; the leucocytes[269] will pass across the capillaries, will discharge themselves under the skin, and the blister is the result. The accumulation of blood continuing in proportion to the enlargement of the capillaries, the fleshly tegument will end by bursting; then the blood itself, whether by traversing the channels created by the previous passage of the leucocytes, or by the rupture of the vessels, the likelihood of which can be sustained, ends by an external eruption, and the hemorrhage follows.”

But M. Warlomont goes still farther. He says that not only are stigmata and ecstasies capable of explanation when taken apart from one another, but that by their union they constitute what in pathology is called aggregate of symptoms. According to this, stigmata and ecstasies would constitute an altogether unique morbid state, to which the professor gives the following name and definition: “Stigmatic neuropathy is a nervous disease, having its seat in the base of the _medulla oblongata_, the first stage of which consists in the paralysis of the vaso-motor centre, and the second in its excitation.” Presented in this way, the report of the distinguished member of the Academy was not only a report, but a veritable original work. Thus this book, wherein the author had joined loyalty of procedure to elegance of style and deep erudition, produced a profound sensation. The theory which he advances might well leave certain doubts with the reader relative to the solidity of the bases on which it leans, but by its method it exercised a real fascination on the mind. M. Warlomont’s conclusions were, as far as the interpretation of the facts went, diametrically opposed to those of the book which M. Lefebvre had published several years before, and it was not without a very great curiosity that the public awaited the reply of the latter.

The reply was not long in coming. M. Lefebvre’s discourse occupied, so to say, exclusively the sessions of May 29 and June 26. After having rendered due homage to the courtesy and science of the distinguished reader of the report, the Louvain professor hesitated not to sustain the first conclusions advanced in his book, and to demonstrate the small foundation of the theory of his adversary on this question. It is to be regretted that the limits at my disposal do not allow me to enter into all the physiological details and pathological considerations on which M. Lefebvre builds his conclusions. I regret it the more because the brilliant words of the orator exercise a very special impression by the clearness of their exposition, the logic of their reasoning, and the exquisite charm which they give to even the driest questions.

First, as to the stigmatic hemorrhages, we cannot be astonished, after having followed the proofs which the learned orator gives us, to find him lay down the following conclusions:

“1. M. Warlomont is driven to admit a single vaso-motor centre; the most recent researches are against this localization: the vaso-motor centres are several and disseminated.

“2. The distinguished reader of the report constructs his doctrine of the action of the imagination on a series of hypotheses.

“The two chief ones are: that the imagination has the power, every Friday morning, of completely paralyzing the vaso-motor centre and the vaso-constrictor nerves; and after midday, by a contradictory action, to excite violently this centre, and consequently to close up the vaso-constrictors--pure suppositions which have not only not been demonstrated by the author, but which seem to me absolutely anti-physiological.

“3. Even admitting these hypotheses as well founded, it is an established fact that the complete paralysis of the vaso-motor centres and of the vaso-constrictor nerves is never followed by bleeding on the surface of the skin; the experience of all physiologists agrees on this point.

“4. This experience proves, on the contrary, that in such cases there are sometimes produced suffusions of blood in the mucous membranes; such suffusions never show themselves in Louise Lateau.

“5. A series of hypotheses still more complicated than those laid down as premises by the distinguished reader of the report might be conceded--to wit, the paralysis of the arteries and the simultaneous constriction of the veins. Experiment again proves that even under these conditions bleeding on the surface of the skin is not produced.

“6. M. Warlomont, in parting from the hypotheses which I have just combated, admits that the bleeding produced by the influence of the imagination is a bleeding by transudation. But the characteristics of transudation, studied in the light of modern physiology, are completely opposed to those of the stigmatic bleeding of Louise Lateau.

“7. Finally--and this argument alone will suffice to overthrow the thesis of the distinguished reader of the report--clinical observation, in accordance with physiological induction, proves that in circumstances where the imagination exercises its greatest violence it never produces bleeding on the surface of the skin.”

Regarding ecstasies, the orator, after having examined the different states with which the reader of the report to the Academy compared the ecstasies of Louise Lateau, concludes by saying:

“I believe I have demonstrated that the analysis of second conditions, brought out with so much skill by the distinguished gentleman, does not give the key to the ecstasy of Louise Lateau. But, setting aside these states of nervous disease, should not the imagination be made to bear all the burden of the ecstasy, as it does of the stigmatization?”

After examining this question, the orator concludes in the negative. In finishing his beautiful discourse he says:

“Our honorable colleague, in studying the causes of the stigmatization and ecstasy, has given to them a physiological interpretation. On this ground I have separated from him, and I believe I have demonstrated that that interpretation is not only insufficient, but also erroneous. I believed for a moment that M. Warlomont was about to offer an acceptable scientific theory. I do not say a theory complete and adequate--I am not so exacting; I know too well that we do not know the all of anything. If our eminent colleague had proposed to us a physiological interpretation, satisfying the most moderate demands of science, I should have accepted it, not with resignation, but with joy and eagerness; and believe me, gentlemen, my religious convictions would have suffered no shock thereby.

“Our learned colleague, whom you have charged with examining the events of Bois d’Haine, has not, then, in my opinion, given to them their physiological interpretation. Other physicians have attempted the same task; I name two of them, because their works have been produced within these walls.

“First of all, Dr. Boëns. In withdrawing his memoir from the order of the day of the Academy, he has withdrawn it from our discussion. Nevertheless, I believe I am not severe in affirming that the considerations which claimed his attention, and the irony of which he has been so prodigal in my own regard, have thrown but little light on the events of Bois d’Haine. Dr. Charbonnier has submitted to your appreciation a work of a more scientific character. M. Warlomont has examined it with the attention which it deserves, and has refuted it. I am thus dispensed from returning to it.

“I maintain, then, purely and simply, the conclusions of my study: The stigmatization and the ecstasies of Louise Lateau are real and true facts, and science has not furnished their physiological interpretation.”

M. Crocq spoke after M. Lefebvre. Like M. Warlomont, the learned Brussels professor believes that the interpretation of the facts positively established about Louise Lateau belongs to pathological physiology. The theory of M. Crocq differs but little from that of M. Warlomont. He attaches more importance to abstinence than the learned reader of the report, and thus comes nearer to M. Charbonnier; he believes, also, that the bleeding is altogether caused by a rupture of the capillaries. Apart from these small distinctions, it may be said of him, as of M. Warlomont, that he is of opinion that the imagination, by its influence on the nervous system, is the principal cause of the ecstasies and stigmata. Here are the rest of his conclusions:

“I. The state of Louise Lateau is a complex pathological state, characterized by the following facts:

“1. Anæmia and weakness of constitution, arising from privations endured since childhood.

“2. Nervous exaltation produced by anæmia and directed in a determined sense by the education and religious tendencies of Louise.

“3. Ecstasies constituting the supreme degree of this exaltation.

“4. Bleeding, having for its starting point anæmia and exaltation of the vaso-motor nervous system.

“5. Relative abstinence, considerably exaggerated by the sick girl, conformably to what is observed among many persons who suffer from nervous disorders.

“II. This state offers nothing contrary to the laws of pathological physiology; it is consequently useless to go outside of that in search of explanation.

“III. It has the same characteristics as all the analogous cases related by physicians and historians; mysticism altogether, save cases of jugglery and mystification, ought to enter into the province of pathology, which is vast enough to contain it; and all the phenomena explain themselves perfectly by taking as starting point the principles which I have laid down.”

If we had to advance our own opinion on this important question, we should say that, after the report in which M. Warlomont had treated his subject with so much method and science, there remained few new arguments which could be applied to the physiological theory of the phenomena of mystics. It should be considered, however, no small advantage for the latter physician to feel himself supported by M. Crocq, who had brought to the debates the weight of his profound erudition and vast experience.

III.

By all impartial judges the case might be regarded as understood. It was so in effect. The different orators who succeeded each other in the tribune of the Academy had brought to their respective discourses the strongest possible array of facts and of arguments. I shall astonish no one, then, by saying that M. Warlomont could not allow the victorious discourse of his colleague of Louvain to pass without some observations. It is impossible for us here to give a _résumé_ of his discourse. In the main it added no new proof to the substance of the debate, and confined itself to the criticism of certain details.

It is enough for us to say that in this discourse the learned reader of the report to the Academy gave new proof of the brilliancy of his mind and the adroitness of his gifts.

M. Lefebvre, on his side, felt himself to be too much master of the situation to need emphasizing his triumph any further. This is what he did in the session of October 9, 1875. Without precisely entering into the heart of the debate, he brought out more strongly certain of the arguments which he had already used; he employed them to refute some of the assertions made in the discourses of his adversaries, held up certain inaccuracies, and concluded, as he had the right to do, by the following words, which give an exact idea of the state of the question:

“Let us resume. M. Warlomont has studied with earnestness and candor the events of Bois d’Haine. He has stated, as I have done, the reality of the stigmatization and ecstasy; he has demonstrated, as I have, that these phenomena are free from any deception. M. Crocq, after having examined the facts on the spot, has arrived at the same conclusions. The learned reader of the committee’s report has built up a scientific theory of the stigmatization and ecstasy; the eminent Brussels professor has, in his turn, formulated an interpretation very nearly approaching to that of M. Warlomont, but which differs from it, nevertheless, on certain points. I have sought, on my side, a physiological explanation of these extraordinary facts, and I have arrived at the conclusion that science could furnish no satisfactory interpretation of them. I have expounded at length before the Academy the reasons which prevent me from accepting the theories of my two honorable opponents; but my position is perfectly correct. I confine myself to recognizing my powerlessness to interpret the facts of Bois d’Haine. M. Warlomont takes another attitude. He pretends that we have a scientific explanation of these phenomena. We have not one--we have had three or four; which is the true one? Is it that of M. Boëns? Is it that of M. Charbonnier, to which, beyond doubt, you attach some importance, since you have voted that it be printed? Is it that of the learned reader of your report? Begin by choosing. As for me, I hold fast to my first conclusions: The facts of Bois d’Haine have not received a scientific interpretation.”

After certain remarks made at the same session by MM. Vleminckx, Crocq, Lefebvre, Masoin, Boëns, the general discussion closed. The printing of M. Charbonnier’s memoir was decided on and a vote of thanks to the author passed. With this should have ended the task of the Academy; and those who had hoped for a physiological interpretation of the facts of Bois d’Haine, as the outcome of these discussions, were in a position to felicitate themselves on the result; for by its absolute silence the Academy allowed a certain freedom of choice.

But during the session of July 10, 1875, which a family affliction prevented M. Lefebvre from assisting at, two members proposed orders of the day on the discussion of Bois d’Haine. Nevertheless, by a very proper sentiment, which the distinguished president, M. Vleminckx, was the first to advance, those orders of the day were not carried at that date.

That of M. Kuborn was thus conceived:

“The Academy, considering--

“That the phenomena really established about the young girl of Bois d’Haine are not new and are explicable by the laws of pathological physiology;

“That the prolonged abstinence which has been argued about has not been observed by the committee;

“That no supervision, therefore, having been established, and there having been no chance of establishing it, the proper thing was not to pause on the consideration of this fact, but to consider it as not having come up--

“The Academy follows its order of the day as far as concerns the question of the stigmatization and exstasy.”

Here is the order of the day proposed by M. Crocq:

“The Academy, considering--

“That the phenomena established about Louise Lateau are not beyond a physiological explanation;

“That those which are not established ought no longer to occupy our attention--

“Declares the discussion closed, and passes to the order of the day.”

The same resolutions, the small foundation for which, after the discourses which had been made, every impartial mind ought to recognize, were again brought up in the session of October 9.

M. Vleminckx, having induced the authors of the orders of the day to modify their wording in such a manner as to render them acceptable, M. Fossion proposed the following form, more soothing than its predecessors:

“The Royal Academy of Medicine declares that the case of Louise Lateau has not been completely scrutinized and cannot serve as a base for serious discussion; consequently, it closes the discussion.”

M. Laussedat, after some preliminary remarks, finally proposed the order of the day pure and simple, which was adopted.

The bearing of this vote will escape the mind of no one. In setting aside the orders of the day which pretended that what had been positively established in the question of Bois d’Haine might be solved by science, the Academy has fully confirmed the conclusions of M. Lefebvre’s book.

Meanwhile, in ending, let us return to Bois d’Haine, to that young girl who has become more than ever the object of the veneration of some, the study of others, and the wonder of all.

Since 1868 Louise Lateau presents the phenomena weekly of the bloody stigmata and the ecstasies, to which later on was added abstinence from food.

Her first and chief historian, M. Lefebvre, after having watched the young girl, affirms since 1869: She, whom a certain portion of the public considers as a cheat or an invalid, really presents the phenomena which are reported of her. These phenomena are exempt from trickery, and it is impossible to explain them by the laws of physiology and pathology. We omit the question of fasting, which remains to be studied.

Seven years after the appearance of the first phenomena, at the time when the commotion which they produced had, so to say, reached its height, the leading learned body in Belgium examined the mysterious scenes in the humble house of Bois d’Haine, and, through MM. Crocq and Warlomont, made an inquiry into the reality and sincerity of the facts, and brings in a verdict that the facts are real and free from all fraud.

Finally, this same Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, by its vote, avows in the face of the world that, if it ought not to recognize a supernatural cause in the facts about Louise Lateau, as little can it demonstrate their natural origin and physiological genesis.

Such is the actual state of this extraordinary question.

ST. JEAN DE LUZ.

“Il s’imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand, Philip Quatre qui s’avance Dans l’Ile de la Conférence.”

--_La Fontaine._

Few towns are set in so lovely a frame as St. Jean de Luz, with its incomparable variety of sea, mountain, river, and plain. In front is the dark blue bay opening into the boundless sea. On the north are the cliffs of Sainte Barbe. At the south are the Gothic donjon and massive jetty of Socoa, behind which rises gradually a chain of mountains, one above the other, from wooded or vine-covered hills, dotted here and there with the red-and-white houses of the Basque peasantry and the summer residences of the wealthy merchants of St. Jean de Luz, till we come to the outer ramparts of La Rhune with its granite cliffs and sharp peaks, the Trois Couronnes with their jagged outline, and still farther on a long, blue line of mountains fading away into the azure sea. It is from La Rhune you can best take in all the features of the country. To go to it you use one of the modest barks that have replaced the sumptuous galleys of Louis Quatorze, and ascend to Ascain, a pretty hamlet, from which the summit of La Rhune is reached in two hours. It is not one of the highest in the Pyrenean chain, being only three thousand feet above the sea, but it is an isolated peak, and affords a diversified view of vast extent. To the north are the green valleys of Labourd, with the steeples of thirty parishes around; Bayonne, with the towers of its noble cathedral; and the vast pine forests of the mysterious Landes. To the west is the coast of Spain washed by the ocean. East and south are the mountains of Béarn and Navarre, showing peak after peak, like a sea suddenly petrified in a storm.

Such is the magnificent frame in which is set the historic town of St. Jean de Luz. It is built on a tongue of land washed by the encroaching sea on one hand and the river Nivelle on the other. The situation is picturesque, the sky brilliant, the climate mild. It seems to need nothing to make it attractive. The very aspect of decay lends it an additional charm which renewed prosperity would destroy. The houses run in long lines parallel with the two shores, looking, when the tide is high, like so many ships at anchor. At the sight of this floating town we are not surprised at its past commercial importance, or that its inhabitants are navigators _par excellence_. Its sailors were the first to explore the unknown seas of the west, and to fish for the cod and whale among the icebergs of the arctic zone. In the first half of the XVIIth century thirty ships, each manned by thirty-five or forty sailors, left St. Jean de Luz for the cod-fisheries of Newfoundland, and as many for Spitzbergen in search of whales. The oaks of La Rhune were cut down for vessels. The town was wealthy and full of activity. Those were the best days of ancient Lohitzun. But though once so renowned for its fleets, it has fallen from the rank it then occupied. Ruined by wars, and greatly depopulated by the current of events, its houses have decayed one after another, or totally disappeared before the encroachments of the sea. Reduced to a few quiet streets, it is the mere shadow of what it once was. Instead of hundreds of vessels, only a fishing-smack or two enliven its harbor. And yet there is a certain air of grandeur about the place which bespeaks its past importance, and several houses which harmonize with its historic memories. For St. Jean de Luz was not only a place of commercial importance, but was visited by several of the kings of France, and is associated with some of the most important events of their reigns. Louis XI. came here when mediating between the kings of Aragon and Castile. The château of Urtubi, which he occupied, is some distance beyond. Its fine park, watered by a beautiful stream, and the picturesque environs, make it an attractive residence quite worthy of royalty. The ivy-covered wall on the north side is a part of the old manor-house of the XIIth century; the remainder is of the XVIIth. The two towers have a feudal aspect, but are totally innocent of feudal domination; for the Basque lords, even of the middle ages, never had any other public power than was temporarily conferred on them by their national assemblies.

It was at St. Jean de Luz that Francis I., enthusiastically welcomed by the people after his deliverance from captivity in Spain, joyfully exclaimed: “_Je suis encore roi de France_--I am still King of France!” It likewise witnessed the exchange of the beautiful Elizabeth of France and Anne of Austria--one given in marriage to Louis XIII. and the other to Philip of Spain amid the acclamations of the people.

Cardinal Mazarin also visited St. Jean de Luz in 1659 to confer with the astute Don Luis de Haro, prime minister of Philip IV., about the interests of France and Spain. The house he inhabited beside the sea still has his cipher on the walls, as it has also the old Gobelin tapestry with which his apartments were hung. He was accompanied by one hundred and fifty gentlemen, some of whom were the greatest lords in France. With them were as many attendants, a guard of one hundred horsemen and three hundred foot-soldiers, twenty-four mules covered with rich housings, seven carriages for his personal use, and several horses to ride. He remained here four months. His interviews with the Spanish minister took place on the little island in the Bidassoa known ever since as the Isle of Conference, which was never heard of till the treaty of the Pyrenees. All national interviews and exchanges of princesses had previously taken place in the middle of the river by means of _gabares_, or a bridge of boats.

It was this now famous isle which Bossuet apostrophized in his _oraison funèbre_ at the burial of Queen Marie Thérèse:

“Pacific isle, in which terminated the differences of the two great empires of which you were the limit; in which were displayed all the skill and diplomacy of different national policies; in which one statesman secured preponderance by his deliberation, and the other ascendency by means of his penetration! Memorable day, in which two proud nations, so long at enmity, but now reconciled by Marie Thérèse, advanced to their borders with their kings at their head, not to engage in battle, but for a friendly embrace; in which two sovereigns with their courts, each with its peculiar grandeur and magnificence, as well as etiquette and manners, presented to each other and to the whole universe so august a spectacle--how can I now mingle your pageants with these funeral solemnities, or dwell on the height of all human grandeur in sight of its end?”

The marriage of Louis XIV. with the Spanish Infanta, to which the great orator refers, is still the most glorious remembrance of St. Jean de Luz. The visits of Louis XI., Francis I., and Charles IX. have left but few traces in the town compared with that of the _Grand Monarque_. The majestic presence of the young king surrounded by his gay, magnificent following, here brought in contrast with the dignity, gloom, and splendor of the Spanish court, impressed the imagination of the people, who have never forgotten so glorious a memory.

Louis XIV. arrived at St. Jean de Luz May 8, 1660, accompanied by Anne of Austria, Cardinal Mazarin, and a vast number of lords and ladies, among whom was the _Grande Mademoiselle_. They were enthusiastically welcomed by the ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and shouts of joy. Garlands of flowers arched the highway, the pavement was strewn with green leaves, and Cantabrian dances were performed around the cortége. At the door of the parish church stood the clergy in full canonicals, with the _curé_ at their head to bless the king as he went past. He resided, while there, in the château of Lohobiague, the fine towers of which are still to be seen on the banks of the Nivelle. It is now known as the House of Louis XIV. Here he was entertained by the widowed _châtelaine_ with the sumptuous hospitality for which the family was noted. A light gallery was put up to connect the château with that of Joanocnia, in which lodged Anne of Austria and the Spanish Infanta. Here took place the first interview between the king and his bride, described by Mme. de Motteville in her piquant manner. From the gallery the Infanta, after her marriage, took pleasure in throwing handfuls of silver coin to the people, called _pièces de largesses_, struck by the town expressly for the occasion, with the heads of the royal pair on one side and on the other St. Jean de Luz in a shower of gold, with the motto: _Non lætior alter_.

The château of Joanocnia, frequently called since that time the château of the Infanta, was built by Joannot de Haraneder, a merchant of the place, who was ennobled for his liberality when the island of Rhé was besieged by the English in 1627, and about to surrender to the Duke of Buckingham for want of supplies and reinforcements. The Comte de Grammont, governor of Bayonne, being ordered by Richelieu to organize an expedition at once for the relief of the besieged, issued a command for every port to furnish its contingent. St. Jean de Luz eagerly responded by sending a large flotilla, and Joannot de Haraneder voluntarily gave the king two vessels, supplied with artillery, worthy of figuring in the royal navy. For this and subsequent services he was ennobled. His arms are graven in marble over the principal fire-place of the château--a plum-tree on an anchor, with the motto:

“Dans l’ancre le beau prunier Est rendu un fort riche fructier.”

This château, though somewhat devoid of symmetry, has a certain beauty and originality of its own, with its alternate rows of brick and cream-colored stone, after the Basque fashion, its Renaissance portico between two square towers facing the harbor, and the light arches of the two-story gallery in the Venetian style. Over the principal entrance is a marble tablet with the following inscription in letters of gold:

“L’Infante je reçus l’an mil six cent soixante. On m’appelle depuis le chasteau de l’Infante.”

The letter L and the _fleur-de-lis_ are to be seen as we ascend the grand staircase, and two paintings by Gérôme after the style of the XVIIth century, recalling the alliance of France and Spain and the well-known _mot_ of Louis XIV.:

“Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées!”

All the details of the residence of the royal family here, as related by Mme. de Motteville and Mlle. de Montpensier, are full of curious interest. The former describes the beautiful Isle of Conference and the superb pavilion for the reunion of the two courts, with two galleries leading towards France and Spain. This building was erected by the painter Velasquez, who, as _aposentador mayor_, accompanied Philip IV. to the frontier. This fatiguing voyage had an unfavorable effect on the already declining health of the great painter, and he died a few weeks after his return.

During the preliminary arrangements for the marriage Louis led a solemn, uniform life. Like the queen-mother, who was always present at Mass, Vespers, and Benediction, he daily attended public services, sometimes at the Recollects’ and sometimes at the parish church. He always dined in public at the château of Lohobiague, surrounded by crowds eager to witness the process of royal mastication. In the afternoon there were performances by comedians who had followed the court from Paris; and sometimes Spanish mysteries, to which Queen Anne was partial, were represented, in which the actors were dressed as hermits and nuns, and sacred events were depicted, to the downright scandal of the great mademoiselle. The day ended with a ball, in which the king did not disdain to display the superior graces of his royal person in a _ballet compliqué_. Everything, in short, was quite in the style of the _Grand Cyrus_ itself.

The marriage, which had taken place at Fontarabia by procuration, was personally solemnized in the parish church of St. Jean de Luz by the Bishop of Bayonne in the presence of an attentive crowd. The door by which the royal couple entered was afterwards walled up, that it might never serve for any one else--a not uncommon mark of respect in those days. A joiner’s shop now stands against this Porta Regia. The king presented the church on this occasion with a complete set of sacred vessels and ecclesiastical vestments.

The church in which Louis XIV. was married is exteriorly a noble building with an octagonal tower, but of no architectural merit within. There are no side aisles, but around the nave are ranges of galleries peculiar to the Basque churches, where the separation of the men from the women is still rigorously maintained. The only piece of sculpture is a strange _Pietà_ in which the Virgin, veiled in a large cope, holds the dead Christ on her knees. A rather diminutive angel, in a flowing robe with pointed sleeves of the time of Charles VII., bears a scroll the inscription of which has become illegible.

Behind the organ, in the obscurity of the lower gallery of the church, hangs a dark wooden frame--short but broad--with white corners, which contains a curious painting of the XVIIth century representing Christ before Pilate. It is by no means remarkable as a work of art; for it is deficient in perspective, there is no grace in the drapery, no special excellence of coloring. The figures are generally drawn with correctness, but the faces seem rather taken from pictures than from real life. But however poor the execution, this painting merits attention on account of its dramatic character. The composition represents twenty-six persons. At the left is Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, seated in a large arm-chair beneath a canopy, pointing with his left hand towards the Saviour before him. In his right hand he holds a kind of sceptre; his beard is trimmed in the style of Henri Quatre; he wears a large mantle lined with ermine, and on his head a _toque_, such as the old presidents of parliament used to wear in France.

Below Pilate is the clerk recording the votes in a large register, and before him is the urn in which they are deposited.

In front of the clerk, but separated from him by a long white scroll on which is inscribed the sentence pronounced by Pilate, is seated our Saviour, his loins girded with a strip of scarlet cloth, his bowed head encircled by luminous rays, his attitude expressive of humility and submission, his bound hands extended on his knees.

In the centre of the canvas, above this group, is the high-priest Caiaphas standing under an arch, his head thrown back, and his hands extended in an imposing attitude. He wears a cap something like a mitre, a kind of stole is crossed on his breast, his long robe is adorned with three flounces of lace. His face is that of a young man. The slight black mustache he wears is turned up in a way that gives him a resemblance to Louis XIII. It is evidently a portrait of that age.

At the side of Pilate, and behind Christ, are ranged the members of the Jewish Sanhedrim, standing or sitting, in various postures, with white scrolls in their hands, which they hold like screens, bearing their names and the expression of their sentiments respecting the divine Victim. Their dress is black or white, but varied in form. Most of them wear a _mosette_, or ermine cape, and the collar of some order of knighthood, as of S. Michael and the S. Esprit. They are all young, have mustaches, and look as if they belonged to the time of Louis Treize. On their heads are turbans, or _toques_.

Through the open window, at the end of the pretorium, may be seen the mob, armed with spears, and expressing its sentiments by means of a scroll at the side of the window: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend. Crucify him! crucify him! His blood be on us and on our children.”

The chief interest of the picture centres in these inscriptions, which are in queer old French of marvellous orthography. At the bottom of the painting, to the left, is the following:

“Sentence, or decree, of the sanguinary Jews against Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

Over Pilate we read:

“PONTIUS PILATE JUDEX.”

The sentiments of the high-priests and elders, whose names we give in the original, are thus expressed:

“1. SIMON LEPROS. For what cause or reason is he held for mutiny or sedition?

“2. RABAN. Wherefore are laws made, I pray, unless to be kept and executed?

“3. ACHIAS. No one should be condemned to death whose cause is not known and weighed.

“4. SABATH. There is no law or right by which one not proved guilty is condemned; wherefore we would know in what way this man hath offended.

“5. ROSMOPHIN. For what doth the law serve, if not executed?

“6. PUTÉPHARES. A stirrer-up of the people is a scourge to the land; therefore he should be banished.

“7. RIPHAR. The penalty of the law is prescribed only for malefactors who should be made to confess their misdeeds and then be condemned.

“8. JOSEPH D’ARAMATHEA. Truly, it is a shameful thing, and detestable, there be no one in this city who seeks to defend the innocent.

“9. JORAM. How can we condemn him to death who is just?

“10. EHIERIS. Though he be just, yet shall he die, because by his preaching he hath stirred up and excited the people to sedition.

“11. NICODEMUS. Our law condemns and sentences to death no man for an unknown cause.

“12. DIARABIAS. He hath perverted the people; therefore is he guilty and worthy of death.

“13. SAREAS. This seditious man should be banished as one born for the destruction of the land.

“14. RABINTH. Whether he be just or not, inasmuch as he will neither obey nor submit to the precepts of our forefathers, he should not be tolerated in the land.

“15. JOSAPHAT. Let him be bound with chains and be perpetually imprisoned.

“16. PTOLOMÉE. Though it be not clear whether he is just or unjust, why do we hesitate: why not at once condemn him to death or banish him?

“17. TERAS. It is right he should be banished or sent to the emperor.

“18. MESA. If he is a just man, why do we not yield to his teachings: if wicked, why not send him away?

“19. SAMECH. Let us weigh the case, so he have no cause to contradict us. Whatever he does, let us chastise him.

“20. CAÏPHAS PONTIFEX. Ye know not well what ye would have. It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

“21. THE PEOPLE TO PILATE. If thou let this man go, thou art not the friend of Cæsar. Crucify him! crucify him! His blood be on us and on our children!”

On the large scroll in the centre of the picture is the sentence of Pilate:

“I, Pontius Pilate, pretor and judge in Jerusalem under the thrice powerful Emperor Tiberius, whose reign be eternally blessed and prospered, in this tribunal, or judicial chair, in order to pronounce and declare sentence for the synagogue of the Jewish nation with respect to Jesus Christ here present, by them led and accused before me, that, being born of father and mother of poor and base extraction, he made himself by lofty and blasphemous words the Son of God and King of the Jews, and boasted he could rebuild the temple of Solomon, having heard and examined the case, do say and declare on my conscience he shall be crucified between two thieves.”

This picture is analogous to the old mysteries of the Passion once so popular in this region, in which the author who respected the meaning of the sacred text was at liberty to draw freely on his imagination. It was especially in the dialogue that lay the field for his genius. However naïve these sacred dramas, they greatly pleased the people. A painting similar to this formerly existed in St. Roch’s Church at Paris, in which figured the undecided Pilate in judicial array, Caiaphas the complacent flatterer of the people, and the mob with its old _rôle_ of “Crucify him! crucify him!”

We must not forget a work of art, of very different character, associated with the history of St. Jean de Luz. It is a curious piece of needle-work commemorating the conferences of the two great statesmen, Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro, and evidently designed by an able artist, perhaps by Velasquez himself. It is a kind of _courte-pointe_ (it would never do to call it by the ignoble name of coverlet!) of linen of remarkable fineness, on which are embroidered in purple silk the eminent personages connected with the treaty of the Pyrenees, as well as various allegorical figures and accessory ornaments, which make it a genuine historic picture of lively and interesting character. This delicate piece of Spanish needle-work was wrought by the order of Don Luis de Haro as a mark of homage to his royal master. He presented it to the king on his feast-day, May 1, 1661, and it probably adorned the royal couch. But the better to comprehend this work of art--for such it is, in spite of its name--let us recall briefly the events that suggested its details.

Philip IV. ascended the Spanish throne in 1621, when barely sixteen years of age. His reign lasted till 1665. He had successively two ministers of state, both of great ability, but of very different political views. In the first part of his reign the young monarch gave his whole confidence to the Count of Olivares, whose authority was almost absolute till 1648. But his ministry was far from fortunate. On the contrary, it brought such humiliating calamities on the country that the king at length awoke to the danger that menaced it. He dismissed Olivares and appointed the count’s nephew and heir in his place, who proved one of the ablest ministers ever known in Spain. He was a descendant of the brave Castilian lord to whom Alfonso VII. was indebted for the capture of Zurita, but who would accept no reward from the grateful prince but the privilege of giving the name of Haro to a town he had built. It was another descendant of this proud warrior who was made archbishop of Mexico in the latter part of the XVIIIth century, and was so remarkable for his charity and eloquence as a preacher.

Don Luis not only had the military genius of his ancestor, but the prudence of a real statesman, and he succeeded in partially repairing the disasters of the preceding ministry. He raised an army and equipped a powerful squadron, by which he repulsed the French, checked the Portuguese, brought the rebellious provinces into subjection, and effected the treaty of Munster; which energetic measures produced such an effect on the French government as to lead to amicable relations between the two great ministers who, at this time, held the destiny of Europe in their hands, and to bring about a general peace in 1659.

It was with this object Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro agreed upon a meeting on the _Ile des Faisans_--as the Isle of Conference was then called--which led to the treaty of the Pyrenees.

As a reward for Don Luis’ signal services, particularly the peace he had cemented by an alliance so honorable to the nation, Philip IV., in the following year, conferred on him the title of duke, and gave him the surname _de la Paz_.

It was at this time Don Luis had this curious _courte-pointe_ wrought as a present to the king. He was the declared patron of the fine arts, and had established weekly reunions to bring together the principal artists of Spain, some of whom probably designed this memorial of his glory. It was preserved with evident care, and handed down from one sovereign to another, till it finally fell into the possession of the mother of Ferdinand VII., who, wishing to express her sense of the fidelity of one of her ladies of honor, gave her this valuable counterpane. In this way it passed into the hands of its present owner at Bayonne.

On the upper part of this covering the power of Spain is represented by a woman holding a subdued lion at her feet. In the centre are Nuestra Señora del Pilar and S. Ferdinand, patrons of the kingdom, around whom are the eagles of Austria, so closely allied to Spain. And by way of allusion to the _Ile des Faisans_, where the recent negotiations had taken place, pheasants are to be seen in every direction. Cardinal Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro are more than once represented. In one place they are presenting an olive branch to the powers they serve; in another they are advancing, side by side, towards Philip IV., to solicit the hand of his daughter for Louis XIV. Here Philip gives his consent to the marriage, and, lower down, Louis receives his bride in the presence of two females who personify France and Spain. The intermediate spaces are filled up with allusions to commerce with foreign lands and the progress of civilization at home. Not only war, victory, and politics have their emblems, but literature, beneficence, and wealth. But there are many symbols the meaning of which it would require the sagacity of a Champollion to fathom.

This is, perhaps, the only known instance of a prime minister directing his energies to the fabrication of a counterpane. Disraeli, to be sure, has woven many an extravagant web of romance with Oriental profusion of ornament, but not, to our knowledge, in purple and fine linen, like Don Luis de Haro. We have seen one of the gorgeous coverlets of Louis XIV., but it was wrought by the young ladies of St. Cyr under the direction of Mme. de Maintenon; and there is another in the Hôtel de Cluny that once belonged to Francis I. The grand-daughter of Don Luis de Haro, the sole heiress of the house, married the Duke of Alba, carrying with her as a dowry the vast possessions of Olivares, Guzman, and Del Carpio. The brother-in-law of the ex-Empress Eugénie is a direct descendant of theirs.

Opposite St. Jean de Luz, on the other side of the Nivelle, is Cibourre, with its solemn, mysterious church, and its widowed houses built along the quay and straggling up the hill of Bordagain. Prosperous once like its neighbor, it also participated in its misfortunes, and now wears the same touching air of melancholy. The men are all sailors--the best sailors in Europe--but they are absent a great part of the year. Fearless wreckers live along the shore, who brave the greatest dangers to aid ships in distress. In more prosperous days its rivalry with St. Jean de Luz often led to quarrels, and the islet which connects the two places was frequently covered with the blood shed in these encounters. The convent of Recollects, now a custom-house, which we pass on our way to Cibourre, was founded in expiation of this mutual hatred, and very appropriately dedicated to _Notre Dame de la Paix_--Our Lady of Peace. The cloister, with its round arches, is still in good preservation, and the cistern is to be seen in the court, constructed by Cardinal Mazarin, that the friars might have a supply of soft water.

The Basques are famed for their truthfulness and honesty, the result perhaps of the severity of their ancient laws, one of which ordered a tooth to be extracted every time a person was convicted of lying! No wonder the love of truth took such deep _root_ among them. But had this stringent law been handed down and extended to other lands, what toothless communities there would now be in the world!

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

II.

THE PULSATIONS OF TIME.

The deduction we arrive at from the argument which we have laid down is that the history of the world is a consistent one, and not a series of loose incidents strung together. It is as much this morally, it is as truly the evolution and unwinding of a high moral law and of a great spiritual truth, as the life of the plant from the seed to the ripe fruit is the development of a natural growth. This last is governed by laws with which we are only partially acquainted; whereas the moral law and the spiritual truth are revealed to us by the divine scheme of creation and redemption. There is nothing existing, either in the natural or in the spiritual law, and especially in this last, which is not more or less, in one way or in another, by assertion or by negation, a revelation of the divine Being.

He reveals himself directly by his volitions and indirectly by his permissions. And we can only be one with him when we have learnt to accept both and to submit to both; not in the spirit of quietism or fatalism, but as actively entering into his intentions, accepting what he wills, and bearing what he permits. There is no harmony possible between the soul and God until we have arrived at this; and the history of the world is the history of man’s acquiescence in, or resistance to, the supreme will of God. The first disruption of the will of man from the will of God, in the fall of man, wove a dark woof into the web of time; and every act of ours which is not according to the will of God weaves the same into our own lives, because it is a rupture of the law of harmony which God has instituted between himself as creator and us as creatures. Were that harmony unbroken, man would rest in God as in his centre; for, being finite, he has no sufficiency in himself, but for ever seeks some good extrinsic to himself. The same applies to all creation, whose ultimate end and highest good must always be some object beyond, and above itself; and that object is none other than God, “quod ignorantes colitis,”[270]--the finite striving after the Infinite. Thus the whole divine government of the world is a gradual unfolding of the divine Will, according as we are able to receive it. And the degree of receptivity in mankind, at various periods of the world’s history, and in different localities, accounts for the variety in the divine dispensations, and for the imperfection of some as compared with others. The “yet more excellent way”[271] could not be received by all at all times. The promise was given to Abraham. But four hundred and thirty years elapsed before its fulfilment, for the express purpose of being occupied and spent in the institution of the law as a less perfect dispensation, and which was given because of transgressions--“propter transgressiones posita est”[272]--thus showing the adaptive government of God: the gradual building up of the city of the Lord, whose stones are the living souls of men, which are “hewed and made ready,”[273] but so that there shall be “neither hammer, nor axe, nor tool of iron heard” while it is building. For God does not force his creature. He pours not “new wine into old bottles,” but waits in patience the growth of his poor creatures, and the slow and gradual leavening of the great mass. A time had been when God walked with man “at the afternoon air”;[274] and whatever may be the full meaning of this exquisitely-expressed intercourse, at least it must have been intimate and tender. But when the black pall of evil fell on the face of creation, the light of God’s intercourse with man was let in by slow degrees, like single stars coming out in the dark firmament. The revelations, like the stars, varied in magnitude and glory, lay wide apart from each other, rose at different intervals of longer or shorter duration, and conveyed, like them, a flickering and uncertain light, until the “Sun of Justice arose with health in his wings,”[275] and “scattered the rear of darkness thin.” The degree of light vouchsafed was limited by the capacity of the recipient; and that capacity has not always been the same in all ages, any more than in any one age it is the same in all the contemporary men, or in each man the same at all periods of his life. It is thus that we arrive at the explanation of an apparent difference of tone, color, and texture, so to speak, in the various manifestations of God to man. The manifestation is limited to the capacity of the recipient; and not only is it limited, but to a certain extent it becomes, as it were, tinged by the properties of the medium through which it is transmitted to others. It assumes characteristics that are not essentially its own. For so marvellous is the respect with which the Creator treats the freedom of his creature that he suffers us to give a measure of our own color to what he reveals to us, so that it may be more our own, more on our level, more within our grasp; as though he poured the white waters of saving truth into glasses of varied colors, and thus hid from us a pellucidity too perfect for our nature. And thus it happens that to us who dwell in the light of God’s church, with the seven lamps of the seven sacraments burning in the sanctuary, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob hardly seems to us the same God as our God. We see him through the prism of the past, amid surroundings that are strange to us, in the old patriarchal life that seems so impossible a mode of existence to the denizens of great cities in modern Europe.

This is equally true throughout the history of the world. It is also true of every individual soul; and it is true of the same soul at different periods of its existence. He is the same God always and everywhere. But there is a difference in the kind of reception which each soul gives to that portion of divine knowledge and grace which it is capable of receiving and which it actually does receive. For they are “divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music.”[276] They differ in capacity and they differ in material; and the great God, in revealing himself, does so by degrees. He has deposited, as it were, the whole treasure of himself in the bosom of his spouse, the church; but the births of new grace and further developed truth only come to us as we can bear them and when we can bear them. The body of truth is all there; but the dispensing of that truth varies in degree as time goes on. God governs in his own world; but he does so behind and through the human instruments whom he condescends to employ. And as, in the exercise of his own free-will, man chose the evil and refused the good, so has the Almighty accommodated himself to the conditions which man has instituted. Were he to do otherwise, he would force the will of his creature, which he never will do, because the doing it would have for result to deprive that creature of all moral status and reduce him to a machine. From the moment that we lose the power of refusing the good and taking the evil, from the moment that any force really superior to that which has been put into the arsenals of our own being robs us of the faculty of selection, we lose all merit and consequently all demerit. The Creator, when he made man, surrounded him with the respect due to a being who had the power of disposing of his own everlasting destiny. Nor has he ever done, nor will he do, anything which can entrench on this prerogative. The whole system of grace is a system divinely devised to afford man aid in the selection he has to make. There lies an atmosphere of grace all around our souls, as there lies the air we breathe around our senses. The one is as frequently unperceived by us as the other.[277] We are without consciousness as regards its presence, as we are without direct habitual consciousness of the act of breathing and of our own existence, except as from time to time we make a reflective modification in our own mind of the idea of the air and of the fact of our inhaling it. We are unconscious that it is the divine Creator who is for ever sustaining our physical existence. We are oblivious of it for hours together, unless we stop and think. It is the same with the presence of grace.

And though “exciting” grace, as theology calls it, begins with the illustration of the intellect, it does not follow that we are always by any means conscious of this illustration. It is needless to carry out the theological statement in these pages. What we have said is enough to bring us round to our point, which is that the action of grace on the individual soul, and the long line of direct and indirect revelations of God’s will from the creation to the present hour, though always the same grace and always the same revelation, receive different renderings according to the vehicle in which they are held--much as a motive in music remains the same air, though transposed from one key to another. Not only, therefore, does man, as it were, give a color of his own to the revelation of God, but he has the sad faculty of limiting its flow and circumscribing its course, even where he cannot altogether arrest it. We are “slow of heart to believe,” and therefore is the time delayed when the still unfulfilled promises may take effect. Our Lord declares that Moses _permitted_ the Hebrews to put away their wives, because of the hardness of their hearts; “but from the beginning it was not so.”[278] God’s law had never in itself been other than what the church has declared it to be. The state of matrimony, as God had ordained it, was always meant to be what the church has now defined. But man was not in a condition to receive so perfect a law; and thus the condition of man--that is, the hardness of his heart--had the effect of modifying the apparent will of God, as revealed in what we now know to be one of the seven sacraments. The Hebrews were incapable of anything more than a mutilated, or rather a truncated, expression of the divine will, as it was represented to them in the law of Moses on the married state. Nor could we anywhere find a more perfect illustration of our argument. In the first place, it is given us by our Lord himself; and, in the second, it occurs on a subject which, taken in its larger sense, involves almost every other, lies at the root of the whole world of matter, and of being through matter, and may be called the representative idea of the creation. Now, if on such a question as this mankind, at some period of their existence, and that a period which includes ages of time, and covers, at one interval or another, the whole vast globe, could only _bear_ an imperfect and utterly defective rendering, how much more must there exist to be still further developed out of the “things new and old” which lie in the womb of time and in the treasures of the church, but which are waiting for the era when we shall be in a condition to receive them! The whole system of our Lord’s teaching was based on this principle. He seems, if we may so express it, afraid of overburdening his disciples by too great demands upon their capacity. He says with reference to the mission of S. John the Baptist: “_If_ you will receive it, he is Elias that is to come,”[279] and in the Sermon on the Mount he points out to them the imperfection of the old moral code, as regarded the taking of oaths and the law of talion. Now, the moral law, as it existed in the mind of God, could never have varied. It must always have been “perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.” But it passed through an imperfect medium--the one presented by the then condition of mankind--and was modified accordingly.

We hold, therefore, in what we have now stated, a distinct view of the way in which God governs the world; not absolutely, not arbitrarily, but _adaptively_. And where we see imperfection, and at times apparent retrogression, it is the free will of man forcing the will of God to his own destruction, “until he who hindereth now, and will hinder, be taken out of the way.”[280]

If this be true of God’s direct revelations of himself, and of his moral law as given from time to time to mankind, according as, in their fallen state, they could receive it--if, in short, it be true of his direct volitions--it is also true of his permissions. If it hold good of the revelations of his antecedent will, it holds good of the instances (so far as we may trace them in the history of the world) of his consequent will; that is, of his will which takes into consideration the facts induced by man in the exercise of his own free will, which is so constantly running counter to the antecedent will of God. The divine permissions form the negative side of the revelation of God. They are his permissive government of the world, not his direct government. The direct government is the stream of revelation given to our first parents, to the patriarchs and lawgivers of Israel, and now, in a more direct and immediate way, through our Blessed Lord in his birth, death, and resurrection, by the church in the sacraments, and through her temporal head, the vicar of Christ.

Even now, when he has consummated his union with his church, and that she is the true organ of the Holy Ghost, and thus the one true and infallible medium and interpreter of God’s direct government of the world, he also governs it by the indirect way of his overruling providence. The events which occur in history have ever a double character. They have their mere human aspect, often apparently for evil alone; and they have their ultimate result for good, which is simply the undercurrent of God’s will working upwards, and through the actions of mankind. Events which, on the face of them, bear the character of unmitigated evils, like war, have a thousand ultimate beneficial results. War is the rude, cruel pioneer of the armies of the Lord; for where the soldier has been the priest will follow. Persecutions kindle new faith and awake fresh ardor. Pestilence quickens charity and leads to improvements in the condition of the poor. Nor do we believe that it is only in this large and general, unsympathetic, and sweeping manner that God allows good to be worked out of evil. We have faith in the intercession of the Mother of Mercy; and as ultimate good may arise to whole races of mankind out of terrible calamities, so, we are persuaded, there is a more intimate, minute, and loving interference to individual souls wherever there is huge public calamity. The field of battle, the burning city, the flood, and the pestilence are Mary’s harvest fields, whither she sends her angels, over whom she is queen, with special and extraordinary graces, to gather and collect those who might otherwise have perished, and, in the supreme moment which is doubtless so often God’s hour, to win trophies of mercy to the honor and glory of the Precious Blood.

Unless we believe in God’s essential, actual, and unintermittent government of the world, we cannot solve the riddle of the Sphinx, and her cruel, stony stare will freeze our blood as we traverse the deserts of life. If we believe only in his direct government, we shall find it chiefly, if not solely, in his church; and the area is sadly limited! If we acknowledge his essential providence in his permissions, if we make sure of his presence in what appears its very negation, then alone do we arrive at the solution of life’s problems; and even this, not as an obvious thing, but as a constant and ever-renewed act of faith in the under-flowing gulf-stream of divine love, which melts the ice and softens the rigor of the wintry epochs in the world’s history. If we admit of this theory, which is new to none of us, though dim to some, we let in a flood of light upon many of the incidents described in the Old Testament, and specially spoken of as done by the will of God, but which, to our farther-advanced revelation of God, read to us as unlike himself. The light of the later interpretation has been thrown over the earlier fact; but in the harmony of eternity, when we are freed from the broken chord of time, there will be no dissonant notes.

There can be no more wonderful proof of God’s unutterable love than the way in which he has condescended to make the very sins of mankind work to his own glory and to the farther revelation of himself. From the first “_felix culpa_” of our first parents, as the church does not hesitate to call it, down to the present hour--down even to the secret depths of our own souls, where we are conscious of the harvests of grace sprung from repentant tears--it is still the great alchemist turning base metal in the crucible of divine love into pure gold.

It is one of the most irrefragable proofs of the working of a perpetual providence that can be adduced.

Granted that there are no new creations, but that creation is one act, evolving itself by its innate force into all the phenomena which we see, and into countless possible others which future generations of beings will see, nothing of this can prevent the fact that the moral development of the status of mankind, the revelations of divine truth, and consequently of the Deity, through the flow of ages, has ever been a bringing of good out of evil which no blind, irresponsible law could produce. There is no sort of reason why evil should work into its contrary good, except the reason that God is the supreme good, and directs all apparent evil into increments of his glory, thereby converting it into an ultimate good. We must remember, however, that this does not diminish our culpability, because it does not affect our free-will. It does not make evil another form of good. It is no pact with the devil. It is war and victory, opposition and conquest. It is justice and retribution, and it behooves us to see whether we are among those who are keeping ourselves in harmony with the eternal God in his direct government of the world; in harmony (so far as we know it) with his antecedent will; or whether we are allowing ourselves to drift away into channels of our own, working out only the things that he permits, but which he also condemns, and laying up for ourselves that swift devouring flame which will “try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

* * * * *

We have thus arrived at two different views of God’s government of the world--his direct government and his indirect or permissive government. We now come to what we may call his inductive teaching of the world--the way in which truths are partially revealed to us, and come to us percolating through the sands of time, as mankind needs them and can receive them.

Our Lord himself gives us an example of this inductive process when he speaks of “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” as being “not the God of the dead, but of the living,” thus showing that the Jews held, and were bound to hold, the doctrine of immortality by an inductive process. The teaching of the old law was symbolic and inductive. The histories of the Old Testament are of the same character. They are written with no apparent design. They are the simple account of such incidents as the historian thought himself bound to record; acting, as he did, under the divine impulse, which underlay his statements without fettering his pen. He was not himself half conscious of the unspeakable importance of his work. Consequently, there is no effort, hardly even common precaution and foresight, in his mode of chronicling events. He glances at incidents without explaining them, because while he wrote they were present to his own experience, and would be to that of his readers. A writer in our day would allude to a person having performed a journey of fifty miles in an hour’s time without thinking it necessary to explain that people travel by steam. In another part he would advert to railroads, and the rapidity of locomotion as their result, equally without a direct reference to the individual who effected fifty miles in an hour. To the reader of three thousand years hence the one incidental allusion will explain and corroborate the other, and thus, by internal evidence, prove the authenticity and consistency of the history. Unintentional coincidences crop up as the pages grow beneath his hand, and to the careful student of Scripture throw light unlooked for on the exactitude and veracity of the narrative. And the substratum of the whole of the Old Testament history is the gradual growth of one family out of all the families of mankind, into which, as into a carefully prepared soil, the seed of divine truth was to be sown. Through all the variety of the Old Testament writers the same underlying design exists; and though this was a special stream of revelation unlike any that now exists or that is now required (for reasons which are obvious to every Catholic who knows what the church is), yet they form an indication of the way in which the divine Creator is for ever governing the world and preparing it with a divine foresight for his ultimate purpose. The Holy Ghost speaks now through a direct organ, which organ is the church. Formerly God spoke through historic events and multitudinous incidents in connection with one race of people. But this very fact authorizes us to believe that the same _character_ of government exists throughout the whole universe in a greater or less degree, and that God is preparing the way for the ultimate triumph of the sacred Humanity and of his spouse the Church, on the far-off shores of sultry Africa, in the inner recesses of silent China, among the huge forests which skirt the Blue Mountains, or amid the glittering glories of the kingdoms of ice.

There is nothing more depressingly sad, more deeply to be regretted, and more difficult to explain than the almost hopeless narrowness of most people in their appreciation of divinely-ordained facts. We live like moles. We throw up a mound of dusky earth above and around us, within which we grope and are content. The treasures of sacred lore, the depths of spiritual science, the infinite variety of Scriptural information, with the divinely-pointed moral of every tale, are things which most of us are content to know exist, and to think no more about. The very lavishness with which God has given us all that we want for the salvation of our souls seems to have stifled in our ungenerous natures the longing to know and to do more. When the Evangelist said that the world would not hold the books that might be written on the sacred Humanity alone, he must have had an intuition, not so much of the material world and material volumes, as of the world of narrowed minds and crippled hearts who would be found stranded on the shores of our much-vaunted civilization and progress.

Few things are more remarkable in the tone and character of modern Catholic writers than the small amount of use they make of Scripture: so strangely in contrast with the old writers, and with even the great French spiritual authors of a century and a half ago. Their pages are rich with Scriptural lore. Their style is a constant recognition of the government and designs of God as shown to us in our past and present, and as we are bound to anticipate them in the future. In our time this has given place to emotional devotion; a most excellent thing in its way, but only likely to have much influence over our lives when it is grounded on solid theology and directed by real knowledge. No doubt it is so in the minds of the authors themselves; but we fear it is rare in those of their ordinary readers, who thus drink the froth off the wine, but are not benefited by the strengthening properties of the generous liquid itself. Nor will they be until they have made up their minds to believe and understand that conversion is not an isolated fact in their lives, but a progressive act involving all the intellect, all the faculties, be they great or small (for each one must be full up to his capacity), and all the heart, mind, and soul. The whole man must work and be worked upon in harmony; and we must remember that it _is_ work, and not merely feeling, consolation, emotion, prettiness, and ornament, but an intellectual growth, going on _pari passu_ with a spiritual growth, until the whole vessel is fitted and prepared for the glory of God.

We think we may venture to say that few things will conduce more to this than the study of the divine Scriptures under the light and teaching of the Catholic Church. In them we find a profound revelation of the character of God. We are, as we read them interpreted to us by the lamp of the sanctuary, let down into awful depths of the divine Eternal Mind. We watch the whole world and all creation working up for the supreme moment of the birth of Jesus; while in the life of our Blessed Lord himself we find, condensed into those wonderful thirty-three years, the whole system of the church--the spiritual fabric which is to fill eternity, the one God-revealing system which is finally to supersede all others.

Unhappily many persons are under the delusion that narrowness and ignorance are the same as Christian simplicity, and that innocence means ignorance of everything else, as well as of evil. These are the people who are afraid to look facts in the face, and to read them off as part of the God-directed history of the world. These are they to whom science is a bugbear. They hug their ignorance as being their great safeguard, and wear blinkers lest they should be startled by the events which cross their path. Grown men and women do it for themselves and attempt it for their children, and meanwhile those to whom we ought to be superior are rushing on with headlong daring, carrying intellectual eminence, and originality, and investigation of science, all before them; while we, who should be clad in the panoply of the faith, and afraid of nothing, are putting out the candles and shading the lamps, that we may idly enjoy a shadow too dense for real work.

And yet is not the earth ours? Is not all that exists our heritage? To whom does anything belong if not to us, the sons of the church, the sole possessors of infallible truth, the only invulnerable ones, the only ever-enduring and ever-increasing children of the light? The past is ours; the present should be ours; the future is all our own. Our triumph may be slow (and it is slower because we are cowards), but it is certain. Are we not tenfold the children of the covenant, the sons of the Father’s house, the heirs of all? We alone are in possession of what all science and art must ultimately fall back upon and harmonize with. There is no success possible but what is obtained, and shall in the future be obtained, in union with the church of God. Have we forgotten, are we ever for a moment permitted to forget, that the church of God is not an accident, nor a cunningly-devised, tolerably able, partially infirm organization, but that she is the spouse of the God-Man, the one revelation of God, perfect and entire, though but gradually given forth; that all the harmonies of science are fragments of the harmony of God himself, of his pure being, of the _Qui Est_; and that the harmony of the arts is simply the human expression of the harmony of the _Logos_, the human utterances of the articulations of the divine Word, as they come to us in our far-off life-like echoes from eternity?

Even the great false religions of the past, and of the present in the remote East, are but man’s discord breaking the harmony of truth while retaining the key-note: the immortality of the soul and the perfection of a future state in the deep thoughts of Egypt, the universality of God’s providential government of the world in Greek mythology, the union of the soul with God in Brahminism, and the One God of Mahometanism. Each has its kernel of truth, its ideal nucleus of supernatural belief, which it had caught from the great harmony of God in broken fragments, and enshrined in mystic signs. Even now, as we look back upon them all, we are bound to confess that they stand on a totally different ground from the multitudinous sects of our day, which break off from the one body of the church and drift off into negation or Protestantism. Far be it from us to insinuate that any, the lowest form of Christianity, the weakest utterance of the dear name of Jesus, is not ten thousand fold better than the most abstruse of the old Indian or Egyptian religions. Wherever the name of Jesus is uttered, no matter how imperfectly, there is more hope of light and of salvation than in the deepest symbols of heathen or pagan creeds. It may be but one ray of light, but still it is light--the real warming, invigorating light of the sun, and not the cold and deleterious light of the beautiful moon, who has poisoned what she has borrowed.[281] Nevertheless, and maintaining this with all the energy of which we are capable, it is still true that each one of the great false religions, which at various times and in divers places have swayed mankind, was rather the overgrowth of error on a substantial truth than the breaking up of truth into fragmentary and illogical negation, which is the characteristic of all forms of secession from the Catholic unity of the church. The modern aberrations from the faith are a mere jangle of sounds, while the old creeds were the petrifaction of truth. The modern forms of faith outside the church are a negation of truth rather than a distortion. Consequently, they are for ever drifting and taking Protean shapes that defy classification.

They have broken up into a hundred forms; they will break up into a thousand more, till the whole fabric has crumbled into dust. They have none of the strong hold on human nature which the old religions had, because they are not the embodiment of a sacred mystery, but rather the explaining away of all mystery. They are a perpetual drifting detritus, without coherence as without consistency; and as they slip down the slant of time, they fall into the abyss of oblivion, and will leave not a trace behind, only in so far that, vanishing from sight, they make way for the fuller establishment of the truth--the eternal, the divine, spherical truth, absolute in its cohesion and perfect in all its parts.

The hold which heathen and pagan creeds have had upon mankind conveys a lesson to ourselves which superficial thinkers are apt to overlook. It is certain they could not have held whole nations beneath their influence had not each in its turn been an embodiment of some essential truth which, though expressed through error, remains in itself essentially a part of truth. They snatched at fragments of the natural law which governs the universe, or they embodied in present expression the inalienable hopes of mankind. They took the world of nature as the utterance neither of a passing nor of an inexorable law, but of an inscrutable Being, and believed that the mystical underlies the natural. Untaught by the sweet revelations of Christianity, their religion could assume no aspect but one of terror, silent dread, and deep horror. Their only escape from this result was in the deterioration that necessarily follows the popularization of all abstract ideas, unless protected by a system at once consistent and elastic, like that which is exhibited in the discipline of the Catholic Church. They wearied of the rarefied atmosphere of unexplained mystery. They wanted the tangible and evident in its place. Like the Israelites, they lusted after the flesh-pots of Egypt; and their lower nature and evil passions rebelled against the moral loftiness of abstract truth. The multitude could not be kept up to the mark, and needed coarser food. The result was inevitable. But as all religion involves mystery, instead of working upward through the natural law to the spiritual and divine law, they inverted the process, and grovelled down below the natural law, with its sacramentalistic character, to the preternatural and diabolic. Mystery was retained, but only in the profanation of themselves and of natural laws, until they had passed outside all nature, and, making a hideous travesty of humanity, had become more vile and hateful than the devils they served.

Thus the Romans vulgarized the Greek mythology; and that which had remained during a long period as a beautiful though purely human expression of a divine mystery, among a people whose religion consisted mainly in the worship of the beautiful, and who themselves transcended all that humanity has ever since beheld in their own personal perfection of beauty, became, when it passed through the coarser hands of the Romans, a degenerate vulgarity, which infected their whole existence, in art and in manners, quite as effectually as in religion. Then Rome flung open her gates to all the creeds of all the world, and the time-honored embodiments of fragmentary but intrinsic truth met together, and were all equally tolerated and equally degenerated. All!--except the one whole and perfect truth: the Gospel of Salvation. That was never tolerated. That alone could not be endured, because the instinct of evil foresaw its own impending ruin in the Gospel of peace.

It was a new thing for mankind to be told that a part of the essence of religion was elevated morality and the destruction of sin in the individual. Whatever comparative purity of life had co-existed with the old religions was hardly due to their influence among the multitude, though it might be so with those whose educated superiority enabled them to reason out the morality of creeds. While the rare philosopher was reading the inmost secret of the abstract idea on which the religion of his country was based, and the common pagan was practising the most degraded sorcery and peering into obscene mysteries, without a single elevation of thought, suddenly the life of the God-Man was put before the world, and the whole face of creation was gradually changed.

But as the shadows of the past in the old religions led up to the light, so shall the light of the present lead up to the “perfect day.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

SEARCH FOR OLD LACE IN VENICE.

One is almost ashamed to mention Venice now, or any other of those thousand-and-one bournes of hackneyed travel and staples of hackneyed books. There is probably no one claiming a place in a civilized community who does not know Venice almost as well as do her own children, and who could not discourse intelligently of the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace, and the Rialto Bridge, of St. Mark’s and the brazen horses. Still, when one has read multitudinous poems about gondolas and gondoliers, and any amount of descriptions of the Grand Canal, with its palaces of various styles of architecture, and some few dramas about the grand and gloomy, the secret and awful, doings of ancient Venetian life, even then there are nooks in the place and incidents in the doings which escape notice. A traveller arriving at Venice is hardly surprised at the water-street, with which pictures have already made him familiar, but the mode of entering a covered gondola--crab-fashion--is not so familiar, and he generally butts his head against the low ceiling, eliciting a laugh from his gondolier and the good-humored bystanders, before he learns the native and proper way of backing into his seat. So, too, in rowing slowly and dreamily about from church to church, full of artistic marvels or wonderful historical monuments, he feels to a certain degree at home. He has seen all this before; the present is but a dream realized. But there are now and then unexpected sights--though, it must be confessed, not many--and of course such are the most interesting, even if they are by no means on a level with those more famous and more beautiful.

From Venice to Vicenza is but a short distance by rail, and Vicenza boasts of Roman ruins, and mediæval churches, and a Palladian theatre; but on our day’s trip there, in early spring, we certainly dwelt more on the aspect of the woods and plains, with their faint veil of yellow green already beginning to appear, the few flowers in the _osteria_ garden, and the box hedges and aloes in the cemetery. The beauty of the Venetian and Lombard plains lies more in their mere freshness than in their diversity; it is entirely a beauty of detail, a beauty fit for the minuteness of Preraphaelite art rather than for the sweeping brush of the great masters of conventional landscape painting. But coming from Venice every trace of verdure was grateful to the eye, and we felt as one who, having been confined in a beautiful, spacious room, filled with treasures and scented with subtle perfume, might feel on coming suddenly into the fresh air of a prairie. By contrast, the suggestion of fresh air and open space draws us at once to our subject--a search after old lace in one of the cities known to possess many treasures in that line.

Like all other industries in Venice, the sale of lace thrives chiefly on the fancy of the foreign visitors. The natives are generally too poor to buy much of it, and, indeed, much of what is in the market is the product of forced sacrifices made by noble but impoverished families of Venetian origin. It is a sad thing to see the spoils of Italy still scattered over the world, as if the same fate had pursued her, with a few glorious intervals of triumph and possession, ever since the barbarian ancestors of her _forestieri_ rifled her treasure-houses under the banners of Celtic, Cimbrian, and Gothic chieftains. What Brennus, Alaric, and Genseric began the Constable of Bourbon and the great Napoleon continued by force; but what is still sadder is to see the daily disintegration of other treasure-houses whose contents are unwillingly but necessarily bartered away to rich Englishmen, Americans, and Russians. Pictures, jewelry, lace, goldsmith’s work, artistic trifles--precious through their material and history, but more so through the family associations which have made them heirlooms--too often pass from the sleepy, denuded, dilapidated, but still beautiful Italian palace to the cabinet or gallery or museum of the lucky foreign connoisseur, or even--a worse fate--into the hands of men to whom possession is much, but appreciation very little.

While at Venice we were so lazy as never to go sight-seeing, which accounts for the fact that we missed many a thing which visitors of a few days see and talk learnedly about; and if the business activity of an old lace-seller had not brought her to the hotel, our search after lace might never have been made. She brought fine specimens with her, but her prices were rather high, and, after admiring the lace, she was dismissed without getting any orders. But she came again, and this time left her address. We wanted some lace for a present, and fancied that the proverbial facility for taking anything rather than nothing, which distinguishes the Italian seller of curiosities, would induce her to strike some more favorable bargain in her own house, where no other customer would be at hand to treasure up her weakness as a precedent.

It was not easy to find the house. Many intricate little canals had to be traversed (for on foot we should probably have lost our way over and over again); and as we passed, many a quaint court, many a delicate window, many a sombre archway, and as often the objects which we, perhaps too conventionally, call picturesque--such as the tattered clothes drying on long lines stretched from window to window; heaps of refuse piled up against princely gateways; rotten posts standing up out of the water, with the remnants of the last coat of paint they ever had, a hundred years ago; gaudy little shrines calculated to make a Venetian _popolana_ feel very pious and an “unregenerate” artist well-nigh frantic--met our sight. At last the house was reached, or at least the narrow quay from which a _calle_, or tiny, dark street, plunged away into regions unknown but inviting. Our gondolier was wise in the street-labyrinth lore of his old city, and up some curious outside stairs, and then again by innumerable inside ones, we reached the old woman’s rooms. Of these there were two--at least, we saw no more. Both were poor and bare, and the old lace seller was wrinkled, unclean, good-humored, and eager. She talked volubly, not being obliged to use a foreign tongue to help herself out, but going on with her soft, gliding, but quick Venetian tones. Travelling in Italy and coming in contact with all classes of the people is apt sadly to take down one’s scholarly conceit in knowing the language of Dante and Petrarch; for all the classicism of one’s school-days goes for very little in bargaining for lace, giving orders in a shop or market, or trying not to let boat-and-donkey-men cheat you to your face. There is this comfort: that if you often cannot understand the people, they can almost invariably understand you (unless your accent be altogether outrageous), which saves John Bull and his American cousin the ignominy of being brought an umbrella when they have asked for mushrooms, and actually taken the trouble to give a diagram of that vegetable.

The prices were kept so obstinately above our means that all purchase of lace was impossible; but the old woman was untiring in displaying her stores of antique treasures, and we felt sufficiently rewarded for our expedition. She herself was worth a visit; for, like many ancient Italian matrons, and not a few nearer home, she was one of that generation of models whom you would have sworn has endured from the days of Titian and Vandyke, immortally old and unchangeably wrinkled. You see such faces in the galleries, with the simple title “Head of an old man”--or old woman, as the case may be--attributed to some famous painter; and these weird portraits attract you far more than the youth, and beauty, and health, and prosperity of the Duchess of Este, the baker’s handsome daughter, or the gorgeous Eastern sibyl. Again, you do not care to have any allegorical meaning tacked on to that intensely human face; you would be disgusted if you found it set down in the catalogue as “a Parca,” a magician, or a witch. You seem to know it, to remember one which was like it, to connect it with many human vicissitudes and common, though not the less pathetic, troubles. She is probably poor and has been hard-working; wifehood and motherhood have been stern realities to her, instead of poems lived in luxurious houses and earthly plenty; her youth’s romance was probably short, fervid, passionate, but soon lapsed into the dreary struggle of the poor for bare life. Chance and old age have made her look hard, though in truth her heart would melt at a tender love-tale like that of a girl of fifteen, and her brave, bright nature belies the lines on her face. Just as women live this kind of life nowadays, so they did three and five hundred years ago; so did probably those very models immortalized by great painters; so did others long before art had reached the possibility of truthful portraiture.

Our old friend the lace-seller, though she has given occasion for this rambling digression, did not, however, at the time, suggest all these things to our mind.

If she herself was a type of certain models of the old masters, her wares were also a reminder of famous people, scenes, and places of Venice. They were all of one kind, all of native manufacture, and, of course, all made by hand. In a certain degenerate fashion this industry is still continued, but the specimens of modern work which we saw were coarse and valueless in comparison with those of the old. There were collars and cuffs in abundance, such as both men and women wore--large, broad, Vandyked collars like those one sees in Venetian pictures; flounces, or rather straight bands of divers widths, from five to twenty inches, which had more probably belonged to albs and cottas. They suggested rich churches and gorgeous ceremonial in a time when nobles and people were equally devoted to splendid shows, prosperity and loftiness, and a picturesque blending of the religious and the imperial. Chasubles stiff with gems and altars of precious stones seem to harmonize well with these priceless veils, woven over with strange, hieroglyphic-looking, conventional, yet beautiful forms; intricate with tracery which, put into stone, would immortalize a sculptor; full of knots, each of which is a miniature masterpiece of embroidery; and the whole the evident product of an artist’s brain. This lace has not the gossamer-like beauty of Brussels. It is thick and close in its texture, and is of that kind which looks best on dark velvets and heavy, dusky cloths--just what one would fancy the grave Venetian signiors wearing on state occasions. It matches somehow with the antique XVth and XVIth century jewelry--the magnificent, artistic, heavy collars of the great orders of chivalry; it has something solid, substantial, and splendid about it. Such lace used to be sold to kings and senators, not by a paltry yard measure, but by at least twice its weight in gold; for the price was “as many gold pieces as would cover the quantity of lace required.” Now, although this princely mode of barter is out of fashion, old Venetian “point” is still one of the costliest luxuries in the world, and the rich foreigners who visit Venice usually carry away at least as much as will border a handkerchief or trim a cap, as a memento of the beautiful and once imperial city of the Adriatic. The modern lace--one can scarcely call it _imitation_, any more than Salviati’s modern Venetian glass and mosaic can be so called--seems to be deficient in the beauty and intricacy of design of the old specimens; it is so little sought after that the industry stands a chance of dying out, at least until after the old stock is exhausted and necessity drives the lace-makers to ply their art more delicately.

Some modern lace, the English Honiton and some of the Irish lace, is quite as perfect and beautiful, and very nearly as costly, as the undoubted specimens the history of which can be traced back for two or three hundred years. But from what we saw of Venetian point, the new has sadly degenerated from the old, and exact copying of a few antique models would be no detriment to the modern productions. To the unlearned eye there is no difference between Venetian glass three or four hundred years old, carefully preserved in a national museum, and the manufactures of last month, sold in Salviati’s warerooms in Venice and his shop in London. Connoisseurs say they _do_ detect some inferiority in the modern work; but as to the lace, even the veriest tyro in such lore can see the rough, tasteless, coarse appearance of the new when contrasted with the old.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SUPPOSED MIRACLES: AN ARGUMENT FOR THE HONOR OF CHRISTIANITY AGAINST SUPERSTITION, AND FOR ITS TRUTH AGAINST UNBELIEF. By Rev. J. M. Buckley. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1875.

Mr. Buckley is a Methodist minister, who seems to be a sensible, honest, and straightforward person, strong in his convictions, ardently religious, and yet abhorring the excesses of credulity and irrational enthusiasm. The substance of his pamphlet was delivered by him as an address before a meeting of Methodist ministers, and is principally directed against some pretences to miraculous powers and wonderful cure-working within his own denomination. So far as this goes, his effort is quite successful, particularly in regard to a certain Rev. Mr. Platt, who professes to have been cured of an obstinate infirmity by the prayers, accompanied by the imposition of hands, of a lady by the name of Miss Mossman. His particular object led him, however, to advance some general propositions respecting real and supposititious miracles, and to sustain these by arguments and appeals to so-called facts, real or assumed, having a much wider range and application than is embraced by his special and immediate purpose. As an _argumentum ad hominem_, his plea may have been quite sufficient and convincing to his particular audience; but as addressed to a wider circle in the form of a published pamphlet, it appears to be somewhat deficient in the quality and quantity of the proofs alleged in support of its great amplitude and confidence of assertion. It is also defective in respect to the definition and division of the subject-matter. To begin with his definition of miracle: “A true miracle is an event which involves the setting aside or contradiction of the established and uniform relations of antecedents and consequents; such event being produced at the will of an agent not working in the way of physical cause and effect, for the purpose of demonstration, or punishment, or deliverance.” This definition errs by excess and defect--by excess, in including the scope or end as a part of the essence; by defect, in excluding effects produced by an act of divine power which is above all established and uniform relations of antecedents and consequents. This last fault is not of much practical importance in respect to the question of the miracles by which a divine revelation is proved, or of ecclesiastical miracles; because those which are simply above nature, called by S. Thomas miracles of the first order--as the Incarnation and the glorification of the body of Christ--are very few in number, and are more objects than evidences of faith. The first error, however, confuses the subject, and opens the way to a summary rejection of evidence for particular miracles on the _à priori_ ground that they have not that scope which has been defined by the author as necessary to a true miracle. It is evident that God cannot give supernatural power to perform works whose end is bad or which are simply useless. But we cannot determine precisely what end is sufficient, in the view of God, for enabling a person to work a miracle, except so far as we learn this by induction and the evidence of facts which are proved. Mr. Buckley affirms positively that the end of miracles was solely the authentication of the divine legation of Christ and his forerunners in the mission of making known the divine revelation. Consequently from this assumption, he asserts that miracles ceased very early in the history of Christianity. He also professes to have “shown, by the proof of facts, that miracles have ceased. If the great Reformation in Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland, if Methodism, had no miracles; if the missionaries of the Cross [_i.e._, Protestant] are powerless to work them; and if the best men and women of all branches of the [Protestant] church are without this power, then indeed must they have ceased.” No one will dispute the logical sequence or material truth of this conclusion, so far as it does not extend beyond its own premises. He has made it, however, a general conclusion, and promises to prove it by “conclusive and irresistible proof.” He is therefore bound to prove that miracles had ceased from an early epoch in the universal church, including the whole period before the XVIth century, and in respect to all Christian bodies except Protestants from that time to the present. In respect to the former period, his whole proof consists in a statement that no person of candor and judgment who has read the ante-Nicene fathers will conclude it probable that miracles continued much beyond the beginning of the IId century, and in the assertion “that they have ceased we have proved to a demonstration.” In respect to supposed miracles during the latter period in the Catholic Church, the proof that none of them are true miracles is contained in the statement that “the opinion of the Protestant world is settled” on that head. Very good, Mr. Buckley! Such logical accuracy, united with the intuitive insight of genius, is a conclusive proof that the “assistances which our age enjoys” have amazingly shortened and simplified the tedious processes by which “that indigested heap and fry of authors which they call antiquity” were obliged to investigate truth and acquire knowledge. The reverend gentleman tells us that “I have for some years past been reading, as I have found leisure, that magnificent translation of the ante-Nicene fathers published by T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh, in about twenty five volumes. To say that I have been astonished is to speak feebly.” Probably the astonishment of Origen, Justin Martyr, and Irenæus would be no less, and would be more forcibly expressed, if they could resume their earthly life and peruse the remarkable address before us. If its author will read the account of the miracles of SS. Gervasius and Protasius given by S. Ambrose, the _City of God_ of S. Augustine, the _Ecclesiastical History_ of Ven. Bede, and Dr. Newman’s _Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles_, we can promise him that he will experience a still greater degree of astonishment than he did on the perusal of the ante-Nicene fathers. Mr. Buckley appears to be in _bona fide_, and is probably a much better man than many whose knowledge is more extensive. The hallucination of mind which produces in him the belief that he stands on a higher intellectual plane than Clement of Alexandria and Cyprian in ancient times, or Petavius, Kleutgen, Bayma, and “Jesuits” in general, is so simply astounding, and the credulity requisite to a firm assent to his own statements as “demonstrations” is so much beyond that which was, in the olden time, shown by believing in the “phœnix,” that he must be sincere, though very much in need of information. We cannot help feeling that he is worthy of knowing better, and would be convinced of the truth if it were set before him fairly. It is plain that he has no knowledge of the evidence which exists of a series of miracles wrought in the Catholic Church continuously from the times of the apostles to our own day, and which cannot be rejected without subverting the evidence on which the truth of all miracles whatsoever is based. The number of these which are considered by prudent Catholic writers to be quite certain or probable is beyond reckoning, though still very small in comparison with ordinary events and the experiences of the whole number of Catholics in all ages. Those of the most extraordinary magnitude are relatively much fewer in number than those which are less wonderful, as, for instance, the raising of the dead to life. Nevertheless, there are instances of this kind--_e.g._, those related of S. Dominic, S. Bernard, S. Teresa, and S. Francis Xavier--which, to say the least, have a _primâ facie_ probability. One of another kind is the perpetually-recurring miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of S. Januarius. The miraculous and complete cure of Mrs. Mattingly, of Washington, is an instance which occurred in our own country, and which, among many other intelligent Protestants, John C. Calhoun considered as most undoubtedly effected by miraculous agency. We mention one more only--the restoration of the destroyed vision of one eye by the application of the water of Lourdes, in the case of Bourriette, as related by M. Lasserre. We are rather more cautious in professing to have demonstrated the continuance of miracles than our reverend friend has been in respect to the contrary. We profess merely to show that his demonstration requires a serious refutation of the arguments in favor of the proposition he denies, and to bring forward some considerations in proof of the title which these arguments have to a respectful and candid examination. Moreover, though we cannot pretend to prove anything, _hic et nunc_, by conclusive evidence and reasoning, we refer to the articles on the miracle of S. Januarius, and to the translation of M. Lasserre’s book, in our own pages, as containing evidence for two of the instances alluded to, and to the works of Bishop England for the evidence in Mrs. Mattingly’s case.

Besides those supernatural effects or events which can only be produced by a divine power acting immediately on the subject, there are other marvellous effects which in themselves require only a supermundane power, and are merely preternatural, using nature in the sense which excludes all beyond our own world and our human nature. Other unusual events, again, may appear to be preternatural, but may be proved, or reasonably conjectured, to proceed from a merely natural cause. Here is a debatable land, where the truth is attainable with more difficulty, generally with less certainty, and where there is abundant chance for unreasonable credulity and equally unreasonable scepticism to lose their way in opposite directions. Mr. Buckley summarily refers all the strange phenomena to be found among pagan religions to jugglery and fanaticism. Spiritism he dismisses without a word of comment, implying that he considers it to be in no sense preternatural. We differ from him in opinion in respect to this point also. We have no doubt that many alleged instances of preternatural events are to be explained by natural causes, and many others by jugglery and imposture. We cannot, for ourselves, find a reasonable explanation of a certain number of well-proved facts in regard to both paganism and spiritism, except on the hypothesis of preternatural agency. The nature of that agency cannot be determined without recurring to theological science. Catholic theology determines such cases by referring them to the agency of demons. Mr. Buckley is afraid to admit that the alleged “miracles were real and wrought by devils.” “If so,” he continues, “we may ask, in the language of Job, Where and what is God?” We answer to this that God does not permit demons to deceive men to such an extent as to cause the ruin of their souls, except through their own wilful and culpable submission to these deceits. It makes no difference whether the delusion produced is referred to jugglery or demonology in respect to this particular question.

THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM. Part Third. By T. W. Allies. London: Longmans & Co. 1875.

Mr. Allies dedicates this volume, in very beautiful and appropriate terms, to Dr. Newman, who, he says in classic and graceful phrase, having once been “the Hector of a doomed Troy,” is now “the Achilles of the city of God.” The particular topic of the book is the relation of Greek philosophy to the Christian church. A remarkable chapter on the foundation of the Roman Church, in which great use is made of the discoveries of archæologists, precedes the treatment of the Neostoic, Neopythagorean, and Neoplatonic schools, with cognate topics. One of the most interesting and novel chapters is that on Apollonius of Tyana, whose wonderful life, as related by Philostratus, the author regards as a philosophic and anti-Christian myth invented by the above-mentioned pagan writer, with only a slight basis of historical truth. Mr. Allies has studied the deep, thoughtful works of those German authors who give a truly intelligent and connected history of philosophy, and his work is a valuable contribution to that branch of science, as well as to the history of Christianity. One of the most irresistible proofs of the divine mission and divine personality of Jesus Christ lies in the blending of the elements of Hellenic genius and culture, Jewish faith, and Roman law into a new composite, by a new form, when he founded his universal kingdom. A mere man, by his own natural power, and under the circumstances in which he lived, could not have conceived such an idea, much less have carried it into execution. The most ineffably stupid, as well as atrociously wicked, of all impostors and philosophical charlatans are those apostate Christians who strive to drag Christianity down to the level of the pagan systems of religion and philosophy, and reduce it to a mere natural phenomenon. Mr. Allies shows this in a work which combines erudition with a grace of style formed on classic models, and an enlightened, fervent Catholic spirit, imbibed from the fathers and doctors of the church. At a time when the popular philosophy is decked in false hair and mock-jewels, as a stage-queen, it is cheering to find here and there a votary of that genuine philosophy whose beauty is native and real, and who willingly proclaims her own subjection and inferiority by humbly saying, _Ecce ancilla Domini_.

THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 1. January, 1876. Philadelphia: Hardy & Mahony.

A very large number of the most highly gifted and learned Catholics throughout Christendom, both clergymen and laymen, are at present employed in writing for the reviews of various classes which have existed for a greater or lesser period of time within the present century. Much of the very best literature of the age is to be found in their articles, and a very considerable part of this is of permanent value. In solid merit of matter and style, and in adaptation to the wants of the time, the best of these periodicals have improved steadily, and we may say of some of them that they hardly admit of any farther progress. The advantage of such periodicals is not only very great for their readers, but almost equally so for those who are engaged in contributing to their contents. The effort and practice of writing constantly for the public react upon the writers. Each one is encouraged and instructed in the most useful and effective method of directing his studies and giving verbal expression to their results, so as to attain the practical end he has in view--that of disseminating and diffusing knowledge over as wide an extent as possible. The combination of various writers, each having one or more specialties, under a competent editorial direction secures variety and versatility without prejudice to unity, and corrects the excesses or defects of individuality without checking originality, thus giving to the resulting work in some respects a superiority over that which is the product of one single mind, unless that mind possesses the gifts and acquisitions in _modo eminenti_ which are usually found divided among a number of different persons. To conduct a review alone is a herculean task, and Dr. Brownson has accomplished a work which is really astonishing in maintaining, almost by unaided effort, through so many years, a periodical of the high rank accorded by common consent to the one which bore his name and will be his perpetual monument. That, at the present juncture, a new review is necessary and has a fine field open before it; that in its management ecclesiastical direction and episcopal control are requisite for adequate security and weight with the Catholic public; and that full opportunity for efficient co-operation on the part of laymen of talent and education is most desirable, cannot admit of a moment’s doubt. It is therefore a matter of heart-felt congratulation that the favorable moment has been so promptly seized and the vacant place so quickly occupied by the gentlemen who have undertaken the editing and the publishing of the _American Catholic Quarterly_. It is probably known to most, if not all, of our readers that the editors are Dr. Corcoran, professor in the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Philadelphia; Dr. O’Connor, the rector of that institution; and Mr. Wolff, who has long and ably edited the Philadelphia _Catholic Standard_. It would be difficult to find in the United States an equally competent triad. The publishers, who have already the experience acquired by the management of a literary magazine and a newspaper, will, we may reasonably hope, be able to sustain the financial burden of this greater undertaking in a successful manner, if they receive the support which they have a right to expect, by means of their subscription list. The first number of the new review presents a typographical face which is quite peculiar to itself and decidedly attractive. Its contents, besides articles from each of the editors, are composed of contributions from three clergymen and two laymen, embracing a considerable variety of topics. The clerical contributors are the Right Reverend Bishops Lynch and Becker, and the Rev. Drs. Corcoran, O’Connor, and McGlynn. The lay contributors are Dr. Brownson, John Gilmary Shea, and Mr. Wolff. The names of F. Thébaud, Dr. Marshall, and General Gibbon are among those announced for the next number. We extend a cordial greeting with our best wishes to the _American Catholic Quarterly Review_.

MANUAL OF CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATIONS.

The Indian question continues to be one of the most troublesome in our national politics. Its only real solution--and we believe this to be President Grant’s opinion--is to Christianize the Indians. The task is undoubtedly a hard one, but it would be far less so if wolves in sheep’s clothing had not been sent among them. The only successful attempt at civilizing the Indians has been made by Catholic missionaries. But under the administration of the Indian Bureau, the utter rottenness of which has been so recently exposed, missions and reservations have been thrown to this religious agency and that without the slightest regard for the wishes of those who, it is to be supposed, were most to be benefited by the operation--the Indians themselves. In this way flourishing Catholic missions were turned over to the Methodist or other denominations, and the representations of the missionaries, as well as of the chiefs and tribes themselves, were of no avail whatever to alter so iniquitous a proceeding. This little manual gives a brief sketch of the status of Catholic Indians and working of the Bureau of Indian Missions. It contains also an earnest appeal to the Catholic ladies of the United States from the “Ladies’ Catholic Indian Missionary Association of Washington, D. C.,” urging contributions and the formation of similar associations throughout the country to aid in sustaining the Catholic Indian missions.

A CORRECTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD:

I have just received, through the Catholic Publication Society, the following card from Mr. Gladstone:

“Mr. Gladstone desires to send with his compliments his thanks to the Society for a copy, which he has received, of Dr. Clarke’s interesting paper on _Maryland Toleration_. Having simply cited his authorities, and used them, as he thinks, fairly, he will be glad to learn, if he can, the manner in which they meet the challenge conveyed in the latter portion of this paper. Mr. Gladstone’s present object is to say he would be greatly obliged by a _reference_ to enable him to trace the “irreverent words” imputed to him on page 6, as his _Vatican Decrees_ have no page 83, and he is not aware of having penned such a passage.

“4 CARLTON GARDENS, LONDON, Jan. 24, 1856.”

Mr. Gladstone is right in disclaiming the words imputed to him in this instance. They are, on investigation, found to be the words of the Rev. Dr. Schaff. The Messrs. Harper, the American publishers of Mr. Gladstone’s tracts, are largely responsible for the mistake, by having inserted in their publication a tract of Dr. Schaff, paged in common, and all covered by the outside title of “_Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion. Gladstone_,” and by the title-page giving the authorship “By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.” To a writer making selections as needed from different portions of this book the mistake was easy and natural; and though the authorship of Dr. Schaff’s _History of the Vatican Decrees_ containing the passage in question is given, it is not so given as easily to reach the eye, and is obscured by the introduction of Dr. Schaff’s tract into a volume under Mr. Gladstone’s name, and by paging Dr. Schaff’s _History_ in common with Mr. Gladstone’s _Vaticanism_. On page 83 of _this_ publication of the Messrs. Harper the “irreverent words” are found. I am only too much gratified at Mr. Gladstone’s disowning them, and hasten, on my part, to make this correction through your columns, in which my reply to Mr. Gladstone on _Maryland Toleration_ first appeared, and to beg his acceptance of this _amende honorable_.

RICH. H. CLARKE

51 CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK, February 10, 1876.

* * * * *

In a notice, which appeared in last month’s CATHOLIC WORLD, of certain works published by Herder, Freiburg, it was stated that the publications of that house are imported by the firm of Benziger Bros. Mr. Herder has a branch house in St. Louis, Missouri, where all his publications may be procured.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The First Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Landreth’s Rural Register and Almanac, 1876.

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Queen Mary_: A Drama. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1875.

[2] It is proper to state that the present criticism is not by the writer of the article on Mr. Tennyson in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, 1868.

[3] The preceding article was ready for the printers before a copy fell into our hands of _Mary Stuart_--a drama by Sir Aubrey de Vere--a poem which it had not been our good fortune to have read before. The public would seem to have exhibited an appreciation of this work we should scarcely have expected from them, for it is, we believe, out of print. For ourselves, we must say that for poetical conception, appreciation and development of the several personages of the drama, it appears to us to be very much superior to _Queen Mary_.

[4] The title of captal (from _capitalis_) was formerly a common one among Aquitaine lords, but was gradually laid aside. The Captals de Buch and Trente were the last to bear it.

[5] In the Journal of the Sisters of Charity of that time we read:

“Jan. 22.--M. Vincent arrived at eleven o’clock in the evening, bringing us two children; one perhaps six days old, the other older. Both were crying.…”

“Jan. 25.--The streets are full of snow. We are expecting M. Vincent.”

“Jan. 26.--Poor M. Vincent is chilled through. He has brought us an infant.…”

“Feb. 1.--The archbishop came to see us. We are in great need of public charity! M. Vincent places no limit to his ardent love for poor children.”

And when their resources are exhausted, the saint makes the following pathetic appeal to the patronesses: “Compassion has led you to adopt these little creatures as your own children. You are their mothers according to grace, as their mothers by nature have abandoned them. Will you also abandon them in your turn? Their life and death are in your hands. I am going to take your vote on the point. The charity you give or refuse is a terrible decision in your hands. It is time to pronounce their sentence, and learn if you will no longer have pity on them.”--_Sermon of S. Vincent to the Ladies of Charity_ in 1648.

[6] _The Earl of Castlehaven’s Review_; or, His Memoirs of His Engagement and Carriage in the Irish Wars. Enlarged and corrected. With an Appendix and Postscript. London: Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun in St. Paul’s Churchyard. 1684.

[7] This was the title given at one time by the French courtiers to Frederick I.

[8] Their first condition for a suspension of arms was a payment to them of £25,000 per month. These were in large part the same forces who afterwards sold their fugitive king for so many pounds sterling to the Parliament, violating the rights of sanctuary and hospitality, held sacred by the most barbarous races. It is curious to observe the supreme boldness with which Macaulay and the popular writers of the radical school essay to gloss over the dishonorable transactions affecting the parliamentary side in this contest between the King and Commons. The veriest dastards become heroes; and the first canting cut-throat is safe to be made a martyr of in their pages for conscience’ sake and the rights of man.

[9] _Apol. vii._

[10] _Fundam. Phil._ lib. vii. c. 7.

[11] _Phil. Fundam._ lib. vii. c. 7.

[12] Italian proverb: “If not true, it deserves to be true.”

[13] Written during the Pope’s exile, 1848

[14] _The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry against the Church and State._ Translated from the German, with an Introduction. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1875. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society.)

[15] S. Mark xiii. 22.

[16] “Vos ergo videte; ecce, prædixi vobis omnia.”--Ib. 23.

[17] “Videte, vigilate, et orate: nescitis enim, quando tempus sit.”--Ib. 33.

[18] “Vigilate ergo … ne, cum venerit repente, inveniat vos dormientes.”--Ib. 35, 36.

[19] “Quod autem vobis dico, omnibus dico: Vigilate!”--Ib. 37.

[20] “Sine parabola autem non loquebatur eis; seorsum autem discipulis suis disserebat omnia.”--S. Mark iv. 34.

[21] “Vobis datum est nosse mysterium regni Dei: illis autem, qui foris sunt, in parabolis omnia fiunt.”--Ib. 11.

[22] “Nescitis parabolam hanc; et quomodo omnes parabolas cognoscetis.”--Ib. 13.

[23] “Nisi venerit discessio primum, et revelatus fuerit homo peccati, filius perditionis, qui adversatur et extollitur supra omne, quod dicitur Deus, aut quod colitur ita ut in templo Dei sedeat, ostendens se, tamquam sit Deus.… Et nunc quid detineat, scitis, ut reveletur in suo tempore. Nam mysterium jam operatur iniquitatis, tantum ut qui tenet nunc, teneat, donec de medio fiat. Et tunc revelabitur ille iniquus (ὁ άνομος), quem Dominus Jesus interficiet spiritu oris sui, et destruet illustratione adventus sui cum; cujus est adventus secundum operationem Satanæ in omni virtute, et signis et prodigiis mendacibus, et in omni seductione iniquitatis iis, qui pereunt; eo quod caritatem veritatis non receperunt, ut salvi fierent. Ideo mittet illis Deus operationem erroris, ut credant mendacio, ut judicentur omnes, qui non crediderunt veritati, sed consenserunt iniquitati.”--2 Thess. ii. 3-11.

[24] “Spiritus autem manifeste dicit, quia in novissimis temporibus discedent quidam a fide, attendentes spiritibus erroris et doctrinis dæmoniorum; in hypocrisi loquentium mendacium, et cauteriatam habentium suam conscientiam.”--1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.

[25] “Hoc autem scito, quod in novissimis diebus instabunt tempora periculosa: erunt homines seipsos amantes, cupidi, elati, superbi, blasphemi, parentibus non obedientes, ingrati, scelesti, sine affectione, sine pace, criminatores, incontinentes, immites sine benignitate, proditores, protervi, timidi, et voluptatum amatores magis quam Dei, habentes speciem quidem pietatis, virtutem autem ejus abnegantes.”--2 Tim. iii. 1-5.

[26] “Venient in novissimis diebus in deceptione illusores, juxta proprias concupiscentias ambulantes.”--2 Peter iii. 3.

[27] “In novissimo tempore venient illusores, secundum, desideria sua ambulantes in impietatibus. Hi sunt, qui segregant semetipsos, animales, Spiritum non habentes.”--S. Jud. 18, 19.

[28] “Filioli, novissima hora est, et sicut audistis, quia Antichristus venit, et nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt: unde scimus, quia novissima hora est.… Hic est Antichristus qui negat Patrem et Filium.”--1 S. John ii. 18, 22.

[29] “Et omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum, ex Deo non est; et hic est Antichristus, de quo audistis, quoniam venit, et nunc jam in mundo est.”--Ib. iv. 3.

[30] “Si quis habet aurem, audiat.”--Apoc. xiii. 9.

[31] “Hic sapientia est. Qui habet intellectum computet numerum bestiæ.”--Ib. 18

[32] _Histoire de la Révolution Française_, v. ii. c. 3.

[33] _The Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, p. 123.

[34] Ibid. 124.

[35] Those in this country who respect religion, law, and the peace of society should not be imposed upon by the aspect of Freemasonry here. The principles and modes of acting of the society are those we have described. The application of them depends wholly on time, place, and circumstances. The ordinary observer sees nothing in the members of the craft here but a number of inoffensive individuals, who belong to a _soi-disant_ benevolent association which, by means of secret signs, enables them to get out of the clutches of the law, procure employment and office, and obtain other advantages not possessed by the rest of their fellow-citizens. But then the innocent rank and file are the dead weight which the society employs, on occasion, to aid in compassing its ulterior designs. Here there are no civil or religious institutions which stand in their way, and their mode of action is to sap and mine the morals of the community, on which society rests, and with which it must perish. Of what it is capable, if it seems needful to compassing its ends, any one may understand by the fiendish murder of William Morgan. This murder was decided on at a lodge-meeting directed by Freemason officials, _in pursuance of the rules of the craft_, and was perpetrated by Freemasons bearing a respectable character, who had never before been guilty of a criminal action, who were known, yet were never punished nor even tried, but died a natural death, and who do not appear to have experienced any loss of reputation for their foul deed. (See Mr. Thurlow Weed’s recent letter to the New York _Herald_.)

[36] Before we proceed to expose the even yet more hideous loathsomeness of this vile association, a few words of explanation are necessary. In all we write we have in view an organization--its constitution and motives--and that only. The individual responsibility of its several members is a matter for their own conscience; it is no affair of ours. We believe that the bulk of the association, all up to the thirtieth degree, or “Knights of the White Eagle,” or “Kadosch,” are in complete ignorance of the hellish criminality of its objects. Even the Rosicrucian has something to learn; although to have become that he must have stamped himself with the mark of Antichrist by the abandonment of his belief in Christ and in all revealed religion. But the vast majority, whose numbers, influence, and respectability the dark leaders use for the furtherance of their monstrous designs, live and die in complete ignorance of the real objects and principles of the craft. We ourselves know an instance of an individual, now reconciled to the church, who was once a Master Mason, and who to this moment is in utter ignorance of them. They are sedulously concealed from all who have not dispossessed themselves of the “prejudices of religion and morality.” The author of the work to which we are indebted for almost all our documentary evidence mentions the case of one who had advanced to the high grade of Rosicrucian, but who, not until he was initiated into the grade of Kadosch, was completely stunned and horrified by the demoniacal disclosures poured into his ears. Most of the Freemasons, however, have joined the body as a mere philanthropic institution, or on the lower motive of self-interest. Nor is it possible to convince these people of the fearful consequences to which they are contributing. Of course, but few of these, it is to be hoped, are involved in the full guilt of the “craft.” Every Catholic who belongs to it is in mortal sin. For the rest, we cannot but hope and believe that an overwhelming majority are innocent of any sinister motives. But it is impossible to exonerate them entirely. For, first, the “craft” is now pursuing its operations with such unblushing effrontery that it is difficult for any but illiterate people to plead entire ignorance; and next, no one can, without moral guilt, bind himself by terrible oaths, for the breaking of which he consents to be assassinated, to keep inviolable secrets with the nature of which he is previously unacquainted. It cannot but be to his everlasting peril that any one permits himself to be branded with this “mark of the beast.”

[37] _Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, pp. 51, 52.

[38] Ib. p. 65.

[39] Ib. 207.

[40] Ib. pp. 196-8.

[41] This journal, at the time of the first initiation of the Prince of Wales into the “craft,” in an article on that event, heaped contempt and ridicule on the whole affair. A recent article on the young man’s initiation as Master may satisfy the most exacting Mason.

[42] The writer refers to the highest grades.

[43] _Secret Warfare of Freemasonry_, pp. 232, 233.

[44] _Utopia._ By Sir Thomas More.

[45] A sort of divan, not unusual in the East at the present day. The sultan, when receiving a visit of ceremony, sits on a sort of sofa or post-bed. Traces of it were also found in the “palaces” of Ashantec.

[46] “The new spirit made its appearance in the world about the XVIth century. Its end is to substitute a new society for that of the Middle Ages. Hence the necessity that the first modern revolution should be a religious one.… It was Germany and Luther that produced it.”--Cousin, _Cours d’hist. de la philos._, p. 7, Paris, 1841.

[47] “Non a prætoris edicto, ut plerique nunc, neque a duo decim Tabulis, ut superiores, sed penitus ex intima philosophia haurienda est juris disciplina.”--Cic., _De legib._ lib. i.

[48] Cic., _de fin. bon. et malor._ i. 11.

[49] Plato, _Des lois_, liv. i.

[50] “Illud stultissimum (est), existimare omnia justa esse, quæ scripta sint in populorum institutis et legibus.”--_De legibus._

[51] “Neque opinione sed natura constitutum esse jus.”--Ibid.

[52] “Sæculis omnibus ante nata est, (ante) quam scripta lex ulla, aut quam omnino civitas constituta.”--Ibid.

[53] “Quidam corum quædam magna, _quantum divinitus adjuti sunt_, invenerunt.”--S. Aug., _Civit. Dei_, i. ii. c. 7.

“Has scientias dederunt philosophi et illustrati sunt; Deus enim illis _revelavit_.”--S. Bonavent., _Lum. Eccl._, Serm. 5.

[54] The two following paragraphs are taken freely from the treatise _De legibus_, passim.

[55] The following paragraph is also taken from Cicero.

[56] “Erat lux vera quæ illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum.”--S. Joan., i. 9.

[57] “Et vita erat lux hominum … in tenebris lucet, et tenebræ eam non comprehenderunt.”--Id.

[58] _Cont. gent._ iv. 13.

[59] V. Lassalle, _Das System der erworbenen Rechte_, i. 2, not. à la pag. 70.

[60] _Considerat. sur la France._

[61] _Arbeiter Programm._, v. Ferd. Lassalle.

[62] _Du suffrage universel et de la manière de voter._ Par H. Taine. Paris: Hachette, 1872.

[63] Bergier, after Tertullian.

[64] De Maistre, _Princip. générat._

[65] _Reflections on the Revolution in France._

[66] _Corresp. entre le Comte de Mirabeau et le Comte de la Marck._ Paris: Le Normant. 1851.

[67] _Politique._ l. i. c.

[68] _De civit. Dei._ 19.

[69] _De rebus publ. et princip. institut._, l. iii. c. 9.

[70] _Reflections on the French Revolution._

[71] “Universa propter semetipsum operatus est Dominus.”--Proverbs xvi. 4.

[72] _Polit._, vii. 2.

[73] Id. ibid. c. 1.

[74] Aristotle knew no other state than the city.

[75] Isaias xxxiii. See also the words of Jesus to Pilate: “Tu dicis quia Rex ego sum.”

[76] “Dabo legem in visceribus eorum.”--Jer. xxxi.

[77] _Viri protestantici ad summum Pontificem appellatio._--Londini, Wyman et fil, 1869.

[78] M. Em. Montaigut, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.

[79] M. Le Play.

[80] De Maistre, _Considerat. sur la France_.

[81] _Fundam. Phil._, book vii. ch. 6.

[82] Sicut punctum se habet ad lineam, ita se habet nunc ad tempus. Si imaginemur punctum quiescere, non poterimus imaginari ipsum esse causam lineæ: si vero imaginemur ipsum moveri, licet in ipso nulla sit dimensio, nec aliqua divisio per consequens, per naturam tamen motus sui relinquitur aliquid divisibile.… Illud tamen punctum non est de lineæ essentia; quia nihil unum et idem realiter omnimodis indivisibile potest simul in diversis partibus ejusdem continui permanentis esse.… Punctum ergo mathematice imaginatum, quod motu suo causat lineam, necessario nihil lineæ erit: sed erit unum secundum rem, et diversum secundum rationem; et hæc diversitas, quæ consistit in motu suo, realiter est in linea, non identitas sua secundum rem.… Eodem vero modo instans, quod est mensura mobilis sequens ipsum, est unum secundum rem, quum nihil pereat de substantia ipsius mobilis, cuius instans est mensura inseparabilis, sed diversum et diversum secundum rationem. Et hæc ejus diversitas est tempus essentialiter.

[83] Quia motus primus unus est, tempus est unum, mensurans omnes motus simul actos.--Opusc. 44, _De tempore_, c. 2.

[84] Stans et movens se non videntur differre secundum substantiam, sed solum secundum rationem. Nunc autem æternitatis est stans, et nunc temporis fluens; quare non videntur differre nisi ratione sola--_De tempore_, c. 4.

[85] Ista non possunt habere veritatem secundum ea, quæ determinata sunt. Visum est enim, quod æternitas et tempus essentialiter differunt. Item quæcumque se habent ut causa et causatum, essentialiter differunt; nunc autem æternitatis, quum non differat ab æternitate nisi sola ratione, est causa temporis, et nunc ipsius, ut dictum est. Quare nunc temporis et nunc æternitatis essentialiter differunt. Præterea nunc temporis est continuativum præteriti cum futuro; nunc autem æternitatis non est continuativum præteriti cum futuro, quia in æternitate non est prius nec posterius, nec præteritum, nec futurum, sed tota æternitas est tota simul. Nec valet ratio in oppositum, quum dicitur quod stans et fluens non differunt per essentiam. Verum est in omni eo quod contingit stare et fluens esse; tamen stans quod nullo modo contingit fluere, et fluens, quod nullo modo contingit stare, differunt per essentiam. Talia autem sunt nunc æternitatis, et nunc temporis.--Ibid.

[86] _Summa Theol._, p. 1, q. 46, a. 2.

[87] Novitas mundi non potest demonstrationem recipere ex parte ipsius mundi. Demonstrationis enim principium est quod quid est. Unumquodque autem secundum rationem suæ speciei abstrahit ab hic et nunc; propter quod dicitur quod universalia sunt ubique et semper. Unde demonstrari non potest quod homo, aut cœlum, aut lapis non semper fuit.--Ibid.

[88] Sicut enim si pes ab æternitate semper fuisset in pulvere, semper subesset vestigium, quod a calcante factum nemo dubitaret, sic et mundus semper fuit, semper existente qui fecit.--Ibid.

[89] Et hoc utile est ut consideretur, ne forte aliquis quod fidei est demonstrare præsumens rationes non necessarias inducat, quæ præbeant materiam irridendi infidelibus existimantibus nos propter eiusmodi rationes credere quæ fidei sunt.--Ibid.

[90] Uno modo dicitur æternitas mensura durationis rei semper similiter se habentis, nihil acquirentis in futuro et nihil amittentis in præterito et sic propriissime sumitur æternitas. Secundo modo dicitur æternitas mensura durationis rei habentis esse fixum et stabile, recipientis tamen vices in operationibus suis; et æternitas sic accepta propria dicitur ævum: ævum enim est mensura eorum, quorum esse est stabile, quæ tamen habent successionem in operibus suis, sicut intelligentiæ. Tertio modo dicitur æternitas mensura durationis successivæ habentis prius et posterius, carentis tamen principio et fine, vel carentis fine et tamen habentis principium; et utroque modo ponitur mundus æternus, licet secundum veritatem sit temporalis: et ista impropriissime dicitur æternitas; rationi enim æternitatis repugnat prius et posterius.--Opusc., _De tempore_, c. 4.

[91] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, May, 1875, page 234 et seq.

[92] Deus aut prior est mundo natura tantum, aut et duratione. Si natura tantum; ergo quum Deus sit ab æterno, et mundus est ab æterno. Si autem est prior duratione, prius autem et posterius in duratione constituunt tempus; ergo ante mundum fuit tempus: quod est impossibile.--_Summa Theol._, p. 1, q. 46, a. 1.

[93] Deus est prior mundo duratione: sed per prius non designat prioritatem temporis, sed æternitatis. Vel dicendum, quod designat prioritatem temporis imaginati, et non realiter existentis; sicut quum dicitur: supra cœlum nihil est, per _supra_ designat locum imaginarium tantum, secundum quod possibile est imaginari dimensionibus cælestis corporis dimensiones alias superaddi.--Ibid.

[94] _Fundam. Philos._, book vii. ch. 10.

[95] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1874, p. 272, and January, 1875, p. 487.

[96] A new interest attaches to this church, in the eyes of American Catholics, since it has been made the Title of the Cardinal-Archbishop of New York.

[97] There is a vague tradition among the Penobscot Indians in Maine that a Jesuit father crossed from the head-waters of the Kennebec to the valley of the Passumpsic, east of the Green Mountains, at an earlier date.

[98] _Hist. Maryland_, vol. ii. p. 352.

[99] _History United States_, vol. i. p. 238.

[100] Id. p. 241.

[101] Id. p. 244.

[102] Id. p. 247.

[103] _History United States_, vol. i. p. 248.

[104] Chalmers’ _Annals_, vol. i. pp. 207, 208.

[105] Story, _Com. on the Constitution_, sec. 107.

[106] _Sketches of the Early History of Maryland_ by Thomas W. Griffith, pp. 3, 4.

[107] Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._, vol. i. p. 238.

[108] _The Brit. Emp. in America_, vol. i. pp. 4, 5.

[109] _Hist. Md._, p. 232.

[110] Father Andrew White’s _Narrative_, Md. Hist. Soc., 1874, p. 32.

[111] _Sketches_, etc., p. 5.

[112] Davis’ _Day-Star of Am. Freedom_, p. 149.

[113] _History of Maryland_, p. 24.

[114] Bozman’s _History of Maryland_, p. 109.

[115] _History of United States_, vol. i. p. 241.

[116] _History of Maryland_, p. 24.

[117] _Maryland Toleration_, p. 36.

[118] _History of Maryland_, p. 33.

[119] _History of United States_, p. 257.

[120] _Maryland Toleration_, p. 40.

[121] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 36.

[122] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 38.

[123] _History of Maryland_, vol. ii. p. 85.

[124] _History of the United States_, p. 252.

[125] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 138.

[126] Rev. Ethan Allen says this continued until 1649, when Kent was erected into a county.--_Maryland Toleration_, p. 36.

[127] _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 143.

[128] Id. p. 160.

[129] The document at length, with the signatures, is given in numerous histories of Maryland, and will be found in Davis’s _Day-Star of American Freedom_, p. 71.

[130] Kent’s _Commentaries on Am. Law_, vol. ii. pp. 36, 37.

[131] Reprinted from advance sheets of _The Prose Works of William Wordsworth_. Edited, with preface, notes, and illustrations, by the Rev. Alex. B. Grosart; now for the first time published, by Moxon, Son & Co., London. These works will fill three volumes, embracing respectively the political and ethical, æsthetical and literary, critical and ethical, writings of the author, and, what will interest American readers especially, his Republican Defence.

[132] Afterwards Father Faber of the Oratory. His “Sir Launcelot” abounds in admirable descriptions.

[133] “For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow,” (dedicatory stanzas to “The White Doe of Rylstone”).

[134] See his sonnet on the seat of Dante, close to the Duomo at Florence (_Poems of Early and Late Years_).

[135] “Evening Voluntary.”

[136] _A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets_ (Pickering). The dedication closed thus: “I may at least hope to be named hereafter among the friends of Wordsworth.”

[137] It may be well to remark here that in this century the word _domestic_ was familiarly used to designate one who was attached to the house and fortunes of another.

[138] Mme. Louise, Duchess of Angoulême, and mother of Francis I.

[139] By the statutes of præmunire, all persons were forbidden to hold from Rome any _provision_ or power to exercise any authority without permission from the king, under penalty of placing themselves beyond his protection and being severely punished.

[140] Wolsey’s customary designation of Anne Boleyn.

[141] This corresponded to the court of marshalsea in England.

[142] During the memorable conclave at which Pius IX. was elected, this office was held by Monsignor Pallavicino, who caused to be struck, according to his right, a number of bronze and silver medals with his family arms quartering those of Gregory XVI. Above his prelate’s hat on the obverse were the words _Sede Vacante_, and on the reverse the inscription _Alerames ex marchionibus Pallavicino sacri palatii apostolici præfectus et conclavis gubernator_ 1846.

[143] It dates from the year 1535, when Paul III. permitted his majordomo Boccaferri to assume on his coat-of-arms, as an additament of honor (in the language of blazonry), one of the lilies or _fleurs-de-lis_ of the Farnese family. If the subject prefer to do so, he may bear the Pope’s arms on a canton, carry them on an inescutcheon, or impale instead of quartering them.

[144] While writing this, we hear of the elevation to the purple of the majordomo Monsignor Pacca, whom we have had the honor, when a private chamberlain to the Pope, of knowing and of serving under. He was one of the most popular prelates at the Vatican for his urbanity and attention to business. He is a patrician of the bluest blood of Beneventum and nephew to the celebrated Cardinal Pacca, so well known for his services to Pope Pius VII. and for his interesting _Memoirs_.

[145] The grated prison for such offenders was a chamber deep down among the vaults of the Cellarium Majus of the Lateran.

[146] This office still exists, and is one of the important charges at the papal court which is always held by a layman. It was hereditary in the famous Conti family until its extinction in the last century, when it passed, after a considerable interval, on the same condition into that of Ruspoli as the nearest representative of that ancient race.

[147] Ambassadors and foreign ministers accredited to the Holy See claim the right of presentation or of access through the Cardinal Secretary of State.

[148] It is well to observe that briefs are not sealed with the _original_ ring, which does not go out of the keeper’s custody except the Pope demand it, but with a fac-simile preserved in the _Secreteria de Brevi_. Since June, 1842, red sealing-wax, because too brittle and effaceable, is no longer used; but in its stead a thick red ink, or rather pigment, is employed.

[149] In England, by a similar fiction, the king (or queen) is imagined to preside in the Court of King’s Bench.

[150] The first convent of the Dominicans in Rome, at Santa Sabina on the Aventine, was in part composed of a portion of the Savelli palace, in which Honorius, who belonged to this family, generally resided, so that their founder could not help remarking the misbehavior of the loungers about the court. He did not go out of his way to find fault.

[151] There was a somewhat similar office of very ancient institution at the imperial court of Constantinople, the holder of which was called _Epistomonarcha_.

[152] Peter Filargo was a Greek from the island of Candia, which may account for his love of what at a pontiff’s table corresponded to the symposium of the ancients--a species of after-dinner enjoyment, when, wine being introduced, philosophical or other agreeable subjects were discussed.

[153] The special significance of this title given to Cardinal McCloskey is that his predecessor in the see of New York and its first bishop, Luke Concanen, who was consecrated in Rome on April 24, 1808, was a Dominican, and had been for a long time officially attached to the convent and church of the _Minerva_, which was the headquarters of his order.

[154] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, August, 1875, p. 625.

[155] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, September, 1874, p. 729.

[156] THE CATHOLIC WORLD, March, 1874, p. 766.

[157] See the two articles on “Substantial Generations” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, April and May, 1875.

[158] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for February, 1874, pp, 584. 585.

[159] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, May, 1874, p. 178.

[160] In the Aristotelic theory, a third kind of movement, _ratione termini_, was admitted--that is, movement towards dimensive quantity, as when an animal or a tree grows in bulk. But bodies acquire greater bulk by accession of new particles, and this accession is carried on by _local_ movement. Hence it seems to us that the _motus ad quantitatem_ is not a new kind of movement.

[161] S. Thomas explains this point in the following words: Quum magnitudo sit divisibilis in infinitum, et puncta sint etiam infinita in potentia in qualibet magnitudine, sequitur quod inter quælibet duo loca sint infinita loca media. Mobile autem infinitatem mediorum locorum non consumit nisi per continuitatem motus; quia sicut loca media sunt infinita in potentia, ita et in motu continuo est accipere infinita quædam in potentia.--_Sum. Theol._, p. 1, q. 53, a. 2. This explanation is identical with our own, though S. Thomas does not explicitly mention the infinitesimals of time.

[162] _Music of Nature._

[163] This was an anachronism in costume which in our day would not be pardonable, but it was common enough until within half a century ago. The queen of James I., Anne of Denmark, insisted upon playing the part of Thetis, goddess of the ocean, in a “monstrous farthingale” (in modern speech, a very exaggerated crinoline.)

[164] Puttenham, _Art of Poesie_, pub. in 1589, quoted in Ritson.

[165] Probably some coarse lace or net

[166] _The Complete Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation._

[167] Harmless

[168] Agnes Strickland’s _Lives of the Queens of England_.

[169] _Penny Magazine_, 1834.

[170] This word has no English equivalent; it means the casting out of the heart--a hyperbolical manner of expressing the most excessive nausea.

[171] The Council of Trent decreed nothing on the subject of the authority of the church: that of the Vatican had to supply the omission. The struggle with Protestantism on this subject reached its last stage in the definition of the dogma of Papal Infallibility decreed by the church assembled at the Council of the Vatican.

[172] In its numbers of April 22 and May 16 last the _Unità Cattolica_ passed a high eulogium on the work of Father Hecker. “There is in this work,” says the Abbé Margotti, “a great boldness of thought, but always governed by the faith, and by the great principle of the infallible authority of the Pope.”

[173] “A Song of Faith.” 1842. Besides that poem, my father published two dramatic works, viz. _Julian the Apostate_ (1823) and _The Duke of Mercia_, 1823. In 1847, his last drama, _Mary Tudor_, was published. He was born at Curragh Chase, Ireland, on the 28th of August, 1788, and died there on the 28th of July, 1846.--A. DE VERE.

[174] Dr. Schenck said: “It had been a maxim that the fool of the family should go into the ministry, and he was sorry to say that there were many of those who had groped their way into it. It had been stated that a minister would often pay twice before he would be sued.… Rev. Dr. Newton said that he would stand a suit before he would pay twice. The speaker replied that he was glad there was some pluck in these matters” (_Report in the Philadelphia Press_).

[175] Short for Frederika.

[176] From the German.

[177] Father Faber’s _Bethlehem_.

[178] London: Pickering, 1875. This pamphlet has been already translated into German under the title _Anglicanismus, Altkatholicismus und die Vereinigung der christlichen Episcopal-Kirchen_. Mainz: Kirchheim. 1875.

[179] Father Schouvaloff (Barnabite), April 2, 1859.

[180] Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, p. 110.

[181] Second Edition, with a Letter of Mgr. Mermillod, a Special Preface, and an Appendix. London: Washbourne.

[182] Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, p. 94.

[183] We are authorized by Father Tondini to remark that, for the purpose of his argument, he has confined himself to speaking of the non-popular election of _bishops_; but in case any one should say that Mr. Gladstone referred not to bishops only, but also, and very largely, to clergy, besides that Mr. Gladstone’s expressions do not naturally lead the reader to make any exception for himself, Father Tondini is able to show that even with respect to the inferior clergy Mr. Gladstone’s statement is inaccurate.

[184] In the appendix to the second edition of _The Pope of Rome_, etc., will be found a prayer composed of texts taken from the Greco-Sclavonian Liturgy, where are quoted some of the titles given by the Greco-Russian Church to S. Peter, and, in the person of the great S. Leo, even to the Pope. This appendix is also to be had separately, under the title of _Some Documents Concerning the Association of Prayers_, etc., London, Washbourne, 1875.

[185] See “Future of the Russian Church” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 1875 (amongst others).

[186] _Expostulation_, p. 30.

[187] “More than once,” says Father Tondini in a note on this subject--“more than once, in reading defences of the Catholic Church, written with the best intentions, we could not resist a desire that in the ‘Litanies of the Saints,’ or other prayers of the church, there might be inserted some such invocation as this: _A malis advocatis libera nos, Domine_.’--‘From mischievous advocates, O Lord! deliver us.’ We say this most earnestly, the more so that it applies also to ourselves. Many a time, when preparing our writings, we have experienced a feeling not unlike that of an advocate fully convinced of the innocence of the accused, but dreading lest, by want of clearness or other defect in putting forth his arguments, he might not only fail to carry conviction to the mind of the judges, but also prejudice the cause he wishes to defend. Never, perhaps, is the necessity of prayer more deeply felt.”

[188] With regard to the powers of the sovereign over the episcopate we quote the following from the London _Tablet_ for March 27, 1875: “Among other tremendous stumbling-blocks against the claims for the Church (of England) by the High Church party a candid writer in the _Church Herald_ is ‘sorely staggered by the oath of allegiance, according to which we have the chief pastors of the church declaring in the most solemn manner that they receive the spiritualities of their office _only_ from the queen, and are bishops by her grace only.’”

In connection with the foregoing we cannot refrain from citing a passage from Marshall, which is as follows: “Any bishops can only obtain spiritual jurisdiction in one of two ways--either by receiving it from those who already possess it, in which case their (the English bishops’) search must extend beyond their own communion, or by imitating the two lay travellers in China of whom we have somewhere read, who fancied they should like to be missionaries, whereupon the one ordained the other, and was then in turn ordained by _him_, to the great satisfaction of both.”

[189] See _Contemporary Review_ for July.

[190] Since writing the above we happened to see the following case in point, in the _Church Times_ of September 10, 1875, in which a clergyman, signing himself “a priest, _not_ of the Diocese of Exeter,” writes a letter of remonstrance against the violent abuse heaped by “a priest of the Diocese of Exeter” against the late learned and venerable Vicar of Morwenstow, Mr. Hawker, who, on the day before his death, made his submission to the Catholic Church. From this letter, which contains many candid and interesting admissions, we quote the following: “In these days, when we have among us so many dignitaries and popular preachers of the Established Church who in their teaching deny all sacramental truth, while others cannot repeat the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds without a gloss, and others again boldly assert that ‘the old religious ideas expressed in the Apostles’ Creed must be thrown into afresh form, if they are to retain their hold on the educated minds of the present generation, it appears monstrous that a clergyman whose faithful adhesion to the Prayer Book during a ministry of forty years was notorious should be denounced as a ‘blasphemous rogue and a scoundrel’ _because_ he held opinions which are considered by some individual members of either church as denoting ‘a Roman at heart,’ or, in the exercise of a liberty granted to everyone, thought fit to correspond with influential members of the Church of Rome.”

[191] _Expostulation_, page 21; iv. “The third proposition.”

[192] “Cooks and controversialists seem to have this in common: that they nicely appreciate the standard of knowledge in those whose appetites they supply. The cook is tempted to send up ill-dressed dishes to masters who have slight skill in, or care for, cookery; and the controversialist occasionally shows his contempt for the intelligence of his readers by the quality of the arguments or statements which he presents for their acceptance. But this, if it is to be done with safety, should be done in measure.”--Gladstone, _Vaticanism_, pp. 82, 83.

[193] In the German edition of Father Tondini’s pamphlet, the abstract of this document is given in the original German, as it is to be seen in the _Bonner Zeitung_ of June 15, 1871.

[194] S. Cyprian (so confidently appealed to by the Old Catholics), speaking of Novatian, and, as it were, of Dr. Reinkens’ consecration, says: “He who holds neither the unity of spirit nor the communion of peace, but separates himself from the bonds of the church and the hierarchical body, cannot have either the power or the honor of a bishop--he who would keep neither the unity nor the peace of the episcopate.”--S. Cyprian, _Ep. 52_. Compare also _Ep. 76_, _Ad magnum de baptizandis Novationis_, etc., sect. 3.

[195] “Je suis entré dans une de ces lignées ininterrompues par l’ordination que j’ai reçue des mains de Mgr. Heykamp, _évêque des vieux Catholiques de Deventer_.”--_Lettre Pastorale de Mgr. l’Evêque Joseph Hubert Reinkens, Docteur en Théologie._ Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher, 1874, p. 11.

[196] _Programma of Old-Catholic Literature_, libr. Sandoz et Fischbacher. Paris.

[197] “Pastoral Letter” (_Programma_, etc.), p. 7.

[198] Silbernagl (Dr. Isidor), _Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand sämmtlicher Kirchen des Orients_. Landshut, 1865, pp. 10, 11.

[199] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, January-April, 1875.

[200] See _The Pope of Rome and the Popes of the Orthodox Church_, 2d ed., pp. 97, 98. Washbourne, London.

[201] King, _The Rites_, etc., p. 295. Quoted in _The Pope of Rome_, etc., p. 98. See also for what concerns the election of the Russian bishops the _Règlement ecclésiastique de Pierre le Grand_, avec introduction, notes, etc., par le R. P. Cæsarius Tondini. Paris: Libr. de la Soc. bibliographique.

[202] “The idea,” says Polevoi, “that spiritual matters do not appertain to the authority of the sovereign was still so deeply rooted in men’s minds that, in the very first session of the Spiritual College, some members _dared_ (osmelilis) to ask the emperor: ‘Is then the Patriarchal dignity suppressed, although nothing has been said about it?’ ‘I am your Patriarch!’ (_Ya Vash Patriarkh!_) angrily (_gnevno_) exclaimed Peter, striking his breast. The questioners were dumb.”

“This account of Peter’s _coup d’état_,” adds Father Tondini, “was printed at St. Petersburg in the year 1843, and, be it observed, not without the approbation of the censors.” See _Pope of Rome_, etc., p. 107.

[203] “These principles have, by the constant aggression of curialism, been in the main effaced, or, where not effaced, reduced to the last stage of practical inanition. We see before us the pope, the bishops, the priesthood, and the people. The priests are _absolute_ over the people; the bishops over both; the pope over all.…”--_Vaticanism_, p. 24.

[204] See French manifesto.

[205] See London _Tablet_, August 21.

[206] See _Annales Catholiques_, September 25.

[207] See London _Tablet_, Aug. 21.

[208] We wonder that it does not occur to Dr. von Döllinger’s disciples to make some calculation, from the number of changes his views have undergone during the last five years, as to how many they had better be prepared for, according to the ordinary _rule of proportion_, for the remaining term of his probable existence--_e.g._, four changes in five years should prepare them for eight in ten, and for a dozen should the venerable professor live fifteen years more. They should, further, not forget to ascertain, if possible, for how long _they themselves_ are _afterwards_ to continue subject to similar variations in their opinions; for one would suppose they hope to stop somewhere, some time.

[209] _Echo Universel._

[210] See _Annales Catholiques_, 23 Septembre, 1873. Paris: Allard.

[211] Ernest Naville (a Protestant), _Priesthood of the Christian Church_.

[212] The bell of S. Louis’ Church, Buffalo, N. Y.

[213] Among the Spanish subjects in the colonies, there was a class corresponding to the Loyalists of the American Revolution. One of these was Don Miguel Moreno, a magistrate belonging to a most respectable colonial family, and the honored father of His Eminence the present Archbishop of Valladolid, who was born in Guatemala on Nov. 24, 1817, and is therefore, in a strict sense of the word, the first American who has been made a cardinal.

[214] Message of December 2, 1823.

[215] It is curious to contrast the tedious trials that Rome endured before being able to appoint bishops to independent Spanish America, with her ease in establishing the hierarchy in the United States. Yet the Spaniards and Loyalists, who sometimes forgot that political differences should never interfere with religious unity, might have found a precedent for this aversion in the case of their northern brethren. In a sketch of the church in the United States, written by Bishop Carroll in 1790, it is said that “during the whole war there was not the least communication between the Catholics of America and their bishop, who was the vicar-apostolic of the London district. To his spiritual jurisdiction were subject the United States; but whether he would hold no correspondence with a country which he, perhaps, considered in a state of rebellion, or whether a natural indolence and irresolution restrained him, the fact is he held no kind of intercourse with priest or layman in this part of his charge.”--B. U. Campbell “Memoirs, etc. of the Most Rev. John Carroll,” in the _U. S. Catholic Magazine_, 1845.

[216] He was translated by Leo XII. in 1825 to the residential see of Città di Castello.

[217] Cardinal Wiseman has made a slip in saying (_Last Four Popes_, p. 308) that the refusal to receive Mgr. Tiberi gave rise to “a little episode in the life of the present pontiff.” Tiberi went as nuncio to Madrid in 1827, consequently long after Canon Mastai had returned from Chili. It was in the case of the previous nuncio, Giustiniani that a “passing coolness,” occasioned the apostolic mission to South America.

[218] Artand (_Vie de Léon XII._) indicates in a note to p. 129, vol. i., the sources whence he obtained these views of the late Prime Minister, which are given in full.

[219] In 1836 Mgr.--afterwards Cardinal--Gaetano Baluffi, Bishop of Bagnorea, was sent to this country as first internuncio and apostolic delegate. He published an interesting work on his return to Italy, giving an account of religion in South America from its colonization to his own time: _L’America un tempo spagnuola riguardata sotto l’aspetto religioso dall’ epoca del suo discoprimento, sino al 1843_. (Ancona, 1844.)

[220] _Dublin Review_, vol. xxiv., June, 1848. The full title of this rare work (of which there is no copy even in the Astor Library) is as follows: _Storia delle Missioni Apostoliche dello stato del Chile, colla descrizione del viaggio dal vecchio al nuovo monde fatto dall’ autore_. Opera di Giuseppe Sallusti. Roma, 1827, pel Mauri.

[221] This was Gen. Bernard O’Higgins, a gentleman of one of the distinguished Irish families which took refuge in Spain from the persecutions of the English government. He was born in Chili of a Chilian mother. His father had been captain-general of what was called the kingdom of Chili, and was afterwards Viceroy of Peru. The younger O’Higgins was a very superior man, taking a principal part in asserting the independence of his native land, of which he became the first president; but unfortunately he died in 1823, a few months before the arrival of the apostolic mission.

[222] Palma boasts of its ancient title of _Muy insigne y leal ciudad_, and that its habitants have been distinguished “_en todos tiempos por su filantropia con los naufragos_”--a specimen of which we give.

[223] In the southern hemisphere _January_ comes in summer.

[224] Cordova was formerly the second city in the viceroyalty. It had an university, erected by the Jesuits, which was once famous. An ex-professor of this university wrote a book which has been called “most erudite,” but which is extremely rare. There is no copy in the Astor Library, although it is an important work for the information it gives about religion in South America under Spanish rule. The title is _Fasti Novi Orbis et ordinationum Apostolicarum ad Indias pertinentium breviarium cum adnotationibus_. Opera D. Cyriaci Morelli presbyteri, olim in universitate Neo-Cordubensi in Tucumania professoris. Venetiis, 1776.

[225] _Pio IX._ Por D. Jaime Balmes, Presbitero, Madrid, 1847.

[226] The _Annuario Pontificio_ of 1861 called it Americano Ispano-Portoghese, but the name was since changed to the present one.

[227] This clergyman came to the notice of the Pope from the fact that an uncle of his, a very worthy man, had been one of Canon Mastai’s great friends in Chili, and was named and confirmed Archbishop of Santiago, but resigned the bulls. His nephew was made an apostolic prothonotary in 1859. It was reported that Mgr. Eyzaguirre gave eighty thousand scudi to the South American College out of his own patrimony. We have enjoyed the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him.

[228] _Protestantism and Catholicism in their bearing upon the Liberty and Prosperity of Nations._ A study of social economy. By Emile de Laveleye. With an introductory letter by the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. London: 1875.

[229] _The Old Faith and the New_, p. 86.

[230] _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_, p. 220.

[231] _Minas_ in _Evangeline_, probably as a guide to the pronunciation. Haliburton also gives this spelling, but it is now abandoned for the old Acadian French form.

[232] They even went so far as to deliberate whether these people could be considered human beings or not; but the church, always the true and faithful guardian of the rights of humanity, immediately raised her voice in their favor, and was first to render, by the mouth of Pope Paul III., a decision which conferred on them, or rather secured them, all their rights.

[233] Campeggio, before he became cardinal, had been married to Françoise Vastavillani, by whom he had several children. We are more than astonished at the ignorance or bad faith of Dr. Burnet, who takes advantage of this fact to accuse the cardinal of licentiousness.

[234] This young man carried also the letters from Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, which had been referred to the cardinal during the course of the trial. They are still to be seen in the library of the Vatican.--Lingard’s _History of England_.

[235] _Gentilism: Religion previous to Christianity._ By Rev. Aug. J. Thébaud, S.J. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

[236] It is, however, something more than a hypothesis. The confirmation it receives from the fact that since the prevalence amongst so large a portion of mankind of an uniformity of rite and dogma, and the universality of brotherhood occasioned thereby, what seemed to be obstacles have become means of intercommunion, to such an extent that the whole World has become, as it were, one vast city, gives it the force of a demonstration.

[237] _Gentilism_, p. 67.

[238] _Gentilism_, p. 65.

[239] _Gentilism_, p. 110.

[240] _Gentilism_, p. 124.

[241] Ib. pp. 152, 153.

[242] S. Matthew xvi. 4.

[243] 3 Kings xix. 11, 12.

[244] Deuteronomy xxxiii. 27.

[245] In the _Cité Mystique_ of the Blessed Marie d’Agreda there are one or two passages which indicate a belief that the Blessed Virgin was more than once admitted to the Beatific Vision before her Assumption. Of course the assertion is not of faith. Possibly it may admit of a more modified explanation. On the other hand, Our Lady being equally free from original as from actual sin, it is more rash to attempt to limit her privileges than to suppose them absolutely exceptional.

[246] Romans xi. 34.

[247] In other words, theirs is a more imperfect being than ours; though whether its imperfection is to exclude all idea of their having a fuller development whereby and in which they will be indemnified for their sinless share in fallen man’s punishment is still an open question.

[248] We say liberalism, but we might say Freemasonry; for, as we all know, Masonry is merely organized liberalism.

[249] _The Idea of a University_, p. 469.

[250] _Notes of a Traveller_, pp. 402, 403.

[251] _Lay Sermons_, p. 61.

[252] _The Social Condition_, etc., vol. i. p. 420.

[253] The following language amply sustains our assertion: “Des Teufels Braut, Ratio die schöne Metze, eine verfluchte Hure, eine schäbige aussätzige Hure, die höchste Hure des Teufels, die man mit ihrer Weisheit mit Füszen treten, die man todtschlagen, der man, auf dass sie hässlich werde einen Dreck in’s Angesicht werfen solle, auf das heimliche Gemach solle sie sich trollen, die verfluchte Hure, mit ihrem Dünkel, etc, etc.”

[254] “Aber die Wiedertaufer machen aus der Vernunft ein Licht des Glaubens, dass die Vernunft dem Glauben leuchten soll. Ja, ich meine, sie leuchtet gleich wie ein Dreck in einer Laterne.”

[255] _Der Culturkampf in Preussen und seine Bedenken_--“Considerations on the Culture-Struggle in Prussia”--von J. H. von Kirchmann. Leipzig, 1875.

[256] _Culturkampf_, pp. 5-7. For an account of the Falk Laws and persecution of the church in Germany, see CATHOLIC WORLD for Dec., 1874, and Jan., 1875.

[257] Page 9.

[258] Tacit. _Annal._, xv. 44.

[259] _Culturkampf_, pp. 16-19.

[260] The above article is a translation of one which appeared in the _Revue Générale_ of Brussels, December, 1875, and was written by Dr. Dosfel. In THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1871, a complete analysis of Dr. Lefebvre’s work on Louise Lateau, quoted so largely in the discussion before the Academy, was given. The article now presented to our readers gives a calm, impartial statement of the case of Louise Lateau as it stands to-day before the scientific investigation of the Academy.--ED. CATH. WORLD.

[261] _Louise Lateau._ Etude médicale. Par Lefebvre. Louvain: Peeters.

[262] Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, in his work, _Les Stigmatisées_.

[263] _Bulletin of the Academy_ for the year 1875. Third series, Book ix., No. 2, p. 145.

[264] _Maladies et facultés diverses des mystiques._ Par le Dr. Charbonnier, p. 10, et suiv.

[265] The same work.

[266] Report of M. Warlomont, _Mémoires de l’Académie de Médecine_, p. 212.

[267] Professor Lefebvre had himself declared that, to invest the matter with a rigorously scientific character, the question of abstinence ought to be the object of an inquiry analogous to that which has established the reality of the ecstasy and of the stigmatization.

[268] Vascular tumors.

[269] White blood corpuscles.

[270] Acts xvii. 23.

[271] 1 Cor. xii. 31.

[272] Gal. iii. 19.

[273] 3 Kings vi. 7.

[274] Genesis iii. 8.

[275] Malachias iv. 2.

[276] Isaias xxii. 24; or, as it may be translated: “The vessels of small quality, from vessels of basins even to all vessels of flagons.”

[277] Suarez holds that grace is not always perceptible. There are moments when we are conscious of the distinct action of grace, by the direct perception of its effects in our soul. These are the exceptions, which are multiplied with increasing holiness, until they become the rule, and heroic sanctity is perfected in all its parts.

[278] S. Matthew xix. 8.

[279] S. Matthew xi. 14.

[280] “Tantum ut qui tenet nunc, teneat, donec de medic fiat.”--2 Thessalonians ii. 7.

[281] It is injurious to sleep in the light of the moon; and it produces rapid putrefaction in dead fish, etc.