CHAPTER X.

ALARMING SYMPTOMS.

November had come, and was gathering up the last tints and blossoms of autumn. One by one the garden lights were being put out; the tall archangel lilies drooped their snow and gold cups languidly; the jasmine, that only the other day twinkled its silver stars amidst the purple bells of the clematis, now trailed wearily down the trellis of the porch; the hardy geraniums made a stand for it yet, but their petals dropped off at every puff of wind, and powdered the gravel with a scarlet ring round their six big red pots that flanked the walk from the gate to the cottage door; the red roses held out like a forlorn hope, defying the approach of the conqueror, and staying to say a last good-by to sweet Mother Summer, ere she passed away.

It was too chilly to sit out of doors late of afternoons now, and night fell quickly. M. de la Bourbonais had collapsed into his brown den; but the window stood open, and let the faint incense of the garden steal in to him, as he bent over his desk with his shaded lamp beside him.

Franceline had found it cold, and had slipt away, without saying why, to her own room upstairs. She was sitting on the floor with her hands in her lap, and her head pressed against the latticed window, watching the scarlet geraniums as they shivered in the evening breeze and dropped into their moist autumn tomb. A large crystal moon was rising above the woods beyond the river, and a few stars were coming out. She counted them, and listened to the wood-pigeon cooing in the park, and to the solitary note of an owl that answered from some distant grove. But the voices of wood and field were not to her now what they once had been. There was something in her that responded to them still, but not in the old way; she had drifted somewhere beyond their reach; she was hearkening for other voices, since one had touched her with a power these had never possessed, and whose echoing sweetness had converted the sounds that had till then been her only music into a blank and aching silence. Other pulses had been stirred, other chords struck within her, so strong and deep, and unlike the old childish ones, that these had become to her what the memory of the joys of childhood are to the full-grown man--a sweet shadow that lingers when the substance has fled; part of a life that has been lived, that can never be quickened again, but is enshrined in memory.

She was very pale, almost like a shadow herself, as she sat there in the silver gloom. Mothers who met her in her walks about the neighborhood looked wistfully after the gentle young face, and said with a sigh: “What a pity! And so young too!” Yet Franceline was not ill; not even ailing; she never complained even of fatigue, and when her father tapped the pale cheek and asked how his _Clair-de-lune_ was, she would answer brightly that she had never been better in her life, and as she had no cough, he believed her. A cough was Raymond’s single diagnosis of disease and death; he had a vague but deep-seated belief that nobody, no young person certainly, ever died a natural death without this fatal premonitory symptom. And yet he could not help following Franceline with an anxious eye as he saw her walking listlessly about the garden, or sitting with a book in her hand that she let drop every now and then to look dreamily out of the window, and only resumed with an evident effort. Sometimes she would go and lean her arms on the rail at the end of the garden, and stand there for an hour together gazing at the familiar landscape as if she were discovering some new feature in it, or straining her eyes to see some distant object. He could not lay his finger on any particular symptom that justified anxiety, and still he was anxious; a change of some sort had come over the child; she grew more and more like her mother, and it was not until Armengarde was several years older than Franceline that the disease which had been germinating in her system from childhood developed itself and proved fatal.

M. de la Bourbonais never alluded to Franceline’s refusal of Sir Ponsonby Anwyll, but he had not forgotten it. In his dreamy mind he cogitated on the possibility of the offer being renewed, and her accepting it. As to Clide de Winton, he had quite ceased to think of him, and never for an instant coupled him in his thoughts with Franceline. It did not strike him as significant that Sir Simon had avoided mentioning the young man since his return. After the conversation that Clide had once been the subject of between them, this reticence was natural enough. The failure of his wild, affectionate scheme placed him in a somewhat ridiculous position towards Raymond, and it was no wonder that he shrank from alluding to it.

Sir Ponsonby had left Rydal immediately after the eventful ride we know of. He could not remain in Franceline’s neighborhood without seeing her, and he had sense enough to feel that he would injure rather than serve his cause by forcing his society on her after what had passed. This is as good as admitting that he did not look upon his cause as lost. What man in love for the first time would give up after one refusal, if his love was worth the name? Ponsonby was not one of the faint-hearted tribe. He combined real modesty as to his own worth and pretensions with unbounded faith in the power of his love and its ultimate success. The infallibility of hope and perseverance was an essential part of his lover’s creed. He did not apply the tenet with any special sense of its fitness to Franceline in particular. He was no analyzer of character; he did not discriminate nicely between the wants and attributes of one woman and another; he blended them all in a theoretical worship, and included all womankind in his notions as to how they were individually to be wooed and won. He would let them have their own way, allow them unlimited pin-money, cover them with trinkets, and gratify all their little whims. If a girl were ever so beautiful and ever so good, no man could do more for her than this; and any man who was able and willing to do it, ought to be able to win her. Ponsonby took heart, and trusted to his uniform good luck not to miss the prize he had set his heart on. He would rejoin his regiment for the present, and see what a month’s absence would do for him. He had one certain ground of hope: Franceline did not dislike him, and, as far as he could learn or guess, she cared for no one else. Sir Simon was his ally, and would keep a sharp lookout for him, and keep the little spark alive--if spark there were--by singing his praises judiciously in the ear of the cruel fair one.

She, meanwhile, went on in her usual quiet routine, tending the sick, teaching some little children, and working with her father, who grew daily more enamored of her tender and intelligent co-operation. Lady Anwyll called soon after Ponsonby’s departure, and was just as kind and unconstrained as if nothing had happened. She did not press Franceline to go and stay at Rydal, but hoped she would ride over there occasionally with Sir Simon to lunch. Her duties as secretary to Raymond made the sacrifice of a whole afternoon repugnant to her; but she did go once, just to show the old lady that she retained the same kind feeling towards her as before anything had occurred to make a break in their intimacy. It was delightful when she came home to find that her father had been utterly at sea without her, mooning about in a helpless way amongst the notes and papers that under her management had passed from confusion and chaos into order and sequence. While everything was in confusion he could find his way through the maze, but he had no key to this new order of things. Franceline declared she must never leave him so long again; he had put everything topsy-turvy, he was not to be trusted. The discovery of his dependence on her in a sphere where she had till lately been as useless to him as Angélique or Miss Merrywig was a source of infinite enjoyment to her, and she threw herself into her daily task with an energy that lightened the labor immensely to her father, without, as far as Franceline could say, fatiguing herself. But fatigue for being unconscious is sometimes none the less real. It may be that this sustained application was straining a system already severely tried by mental pressure. She was one day writing away as usual, while Raymond, with a bookful of notes in his hand, stood on the hearth-rug dictating. Suddenly she was seized with a fit of coughing, and, putting her handkerchief quickly to her mouth, she drew it away stained with crimson. She stifled a cry of terror that rose to her lips, and hurried out of the room. Her father had seen nothing, but her abrupt departure startled him; he hastened after her, and found her in the kitchen holding the handkerchief up to Angélique, who was looking at the fatal stain with a face rather stupefied than terrified.

“My God, have pity upon me! My child! My child!” he cried, clasping his hands and abandoning himself to his distress with the impassioned demonstrativeness of a Frenchman.

Woman, it is said truly, is more courageous at bearing physical pain than man; it is true also that she has more self-command in controlling the expression of mental pain. Her instinct is surer too in guiding her how to save others from suffering; let her be ever so untutored, she will prove herself shrewder than the cleverest man on occasions like the present. Angélique’s womanly instinct told her at once that it was essential not to frighten Franceline: that the nervous shock would infallibly aggravate the evil, wherever the cause lay, and that the best thing to do now was to soothe and allay her fears.

“Bless me! what is there to make a row about?” she cried with an angry chuckle, crushing the handkerchief in her fingers and darting a look on her master which, if eyes could knock down, must have laid him prostrate on the spot; “the child has an indigestion and has thrown up a mouthful of bread from her stomach. Hein!”

“How do you know it is from the stomach and not from the lungs?” he asked, already reassured by her confidence, and still more by her incivility.

“How do I know? Am I a fool? Would it be that color if it was from the lungs? I say it is from the stomach, and it is a good business. But we must not have too much of it. It would weaken the child; we must stop it.”

“I will run for the doctor at once!” exclaimed M. de la Bourbonais, still trembling and excited. “Or stay!--no!--I will fly to the Court and they will despatch a man on horseback!” He was hurrying away when Angélique literally shouted at him:

“Wilt thou be quiet with thy doctor and thy man on horseback! I tell thee it is from the stomach; I know what I am about. I want neither man nor horse. It is from the stomach! Dost thou take me for a fool at this time of my life?”

Raymond stood still like a chidden child while the old servant poured this volley at him. Franceline stared at her aghast. In her angry excitement the grenadier had broken through not only all barriers of rank, but all the common rules of civility--she who was such a strict observer of both that they seemed a very part of herself. This ought to have opened their eyes, if nothing else did; but Franceline was only bewildered, Raymond was cowed and perplexed.

“If thou art indeed quite sure,” he said, falling into the familiar “thee and thou” by which she addressed him, and which on her deferential lips sounded so outrageous and unnatural--“if thou art indeed certain I will be satisfied; but, my good Angélique, would it not be a wise precaution to have a medical man?--only just, as thou sayest well, to prevent its going too far.”

“Well, well, if Monsieur le Comte wishes, let it be; let the doctor come; for me, I care not for him; they are an ignorant lot, pulling long faces to make long bills; but if it pleases Monsieur le Comte, let him have one to see the child.” She nodded her flaps at him, as if to say, “Be off then at once and leave us in peace!”

He was leaving the room, when, turning round suddenly, he came close up to Franceline. “Dost thou feel a pain, my child?” he said, peering anxiously into her face.

“No, father, not the least pain. I am sure Angélique is right; I feel nothing here,” putting her hand to her chest.

“God is good! God is good!” muttered the father half audibly, and, stroking her cheek gently, he went.

“Let not Monsieur le Comte go rushing off himself; let him send one of those thirty-six lackeys at the Court!” cried Angélique, calling after him through the kitchen window.

In her heart and soul Angélique was terrified. She had thrown out quite at random, with the instinct of desperation, that confident assurance as to the color of the stain. Her first impulse was to save Franceline from the shock, but it had fallen full upon herself. This accident sounded like the first stroke of the death-knell. No one would have supposed it to look at her. She set her arms akimbo and laughed till she shook at her own impudence to M. le Comte, and how meekly M. le Comte had borne it, and how scared his face was, and what a joke the business was altogether. To see him stand there wringing his hands, and making such a wailing about nothing! But when Franceline was going to answer and reproach her old _bonne_ with this inopportune mirth, she laid her hand on the young girl’s mouth and bade her peremptorily be silent.

“If you go talking and scolding, child, there is no knowing what mischief you may do. Come and lie down, and keep perfectly quiet.”

Franceline obeyed willingly enough. She was weak and tired, and glad to be alone awhile.

Angélique placed a cold, wet cloth on her chest, and made her some cold lemonade to drink. It was making a fuss about nothing, to be sure; but it would please M. le Comte. He was never happier than when people were making a fuss over his _Clair-de-lune_.

It was not long before the count returned, accompanied by Sir Simon. Angélique saw at a glance that the baronet understood how things were. He talked very big about his confidence that Angélique was right; that it was an accident of no serious import whatever; but he exchanged a furtive glance with the old woman that sufficiently belied all this confident talk. He was for going up to see Franceline with M. de la Bourbonais, but Angélique would not allow this. M. le Comte might go, if he liked, provided he did not make her speak; but nobody else must go; the room was too small, and it would excite the child to see people about her. So Raymond went up alone. As soon as his back was turned, Angélique threw up her hands with a gesture too significant for any words. Sir Simon closed the door gently.

“I am not duped any more than you,” he said. “It is sure to be very serious, even if it is not fatal. Tell me what you really think.”

“I saw her mother go through it all. It began like this. Only Madame la Comtesse had a cough; the petite has never had one. That is the only thing that gives me a bit of hope; the petite has never coughed. O Monsieur Simon! it is terrible. It will kill us all three; I know it will.”

“Tut, tut! don’t give up in this way, Angélique,” said the baronet kindly, and turning aside; “that will mend nothing; it is the very worst thing you could do. I agree with you that it is very serious; not so much the accident itself, perhaps--we know nothing about that yet--but on account of the hereditary taint in the constitution. However, there has been no cough undermining it so far, and with care--I promise you she shall have the best--there is every reason to hope the child will weather it. At her age one weathers everything,” he added, cheerfully. “Come now, don’t despond; a great deal depends on your keeping a cheerful countenance.”

“I know it, monsieur, and I will do my best. But I hear steps! Could it be the doctor already? For goodness’ sake run out and meet him, and tell him, as he hopes to save us all, not to let Monsieur le Comte know there is any danger! It is all up with us if he does. Monsieur le Comte could no more hide it than a baby could hide a pin in its clothes.”

She opened the door and almost pushed Sir Simon out, in her terror lest the doctor should walk in without being warned.

Sir Simon met him at the back of the cottage. A few words were exchanged, and they came in together. Raymond met them on the stairs. The medical man preferred seeing his patient alone; the nurse might be present, but he could have no one else. In a very few minutes he came down, and a glance at his face set the father’s heart almost completely at rest.

“Dear me, Sir Simon, you would never do for a sick nurse. You prepared me for a very dangerous case by your message; it is a mere trifle; hardly worth the hard ride I’ve had to perform in twenty minutes.”

“Then there is nothing amiss with the lungs?”

“Would you like to sound them yourself, count? Pray do! It will be more satisfactory to you.” And he handed his stethoscope to M. de la Bourbonais--not mockingly, but quite gravely and kindly.

That provincial doctor missed his vocation. He ought to have been a diplomatist.

Instead of the proffered stethoscope, M. de la Bourbonais grasped his hand. His heart was too full for speech. The reaction of security after the brief interval of agony and suspense unnerved him. He sat down without speaking, and wiped the great drops from his forehead. The medical man addressed himself to Sir Simon and Angélique. There was nothing whatever to be alarmed at; but there was occasion for care and certain preventive measures. The young lady must have perfect rest and quiet; there must be no talking for some time; no excitement of any sort. He gave sundry directions about diet, etc., and wrote a prescription which was to be sent to the chemist at once. M. de la Bourbonais accompanied him to the door with a lightened heart, and bade him _au revoir_ with a warm pressure of the hand.

“Now, let me hear the truth,” said Sir Simon, as soon as they entered the park.

“You have heard the truth--though only in a negative form. If you noticed, we did not commit ourselves to any opinion of the case; we only prescribed for it. This was the only way in which we could honestly follow your instructions,” observed the doctor, who always used the royal “we” of authorship when speaking professionally.

“You showed great tact and prudence; but there is no need for either now. Tell me exactly what you think.”

“It will be more to the purpose to tell you what we know,” rejoined the medical man. “There is a blood-vessel broken; not a large one, happily, and if the hemorrhage does not increase and continue, it may prove of no really serious consequence. But then we must remember the question of inheritance. That is what makes a symptom in itself trifling assume a grave--we refrain from saying fatal--character.”

“You are convinced that this is but the beginning of the end--am I to understand that?” asked Sir Simon. He was used to the doctor’s pompous way, and knew him to be both clever and conscientious, at least towards his patients.

“It would be precipitating an opinion to say so much. We are on the whole inclined to take a more sanguine view. We consider the hitherto unimpaired health of the patient, and her extreme youth, fair grounds for hope. But great care must be taken; all excitement must be avoided.”

“You may count on your orders being strictly carried out,” said Sir Simon.

They walked on a few yards without further speech. Sir Simon was busy with anxious and affectionate thoughts.

“I should fancy a warm climate would be the best cure for a case of this kind,” he observed, answering his own reflections, rather than speaking to his companion.

“No doubt, no doubt,” assented Dr. Blink, “if the patient was in a position to authorize her medical attendant in ordering such a measure.”

“Monsieur de la Bourbonais is in that position,” replied Sir Simon, quietly.

“Ah! I am glad to know it. I may act on the information one of these days. The young lady could not bear the fatigue of a journey to the south just now; the general health is a good deal below par; the nervous system wants toning; it is unstrung.”

Sir Simon made no comment--not at least in words--but it set his mind on painful conjecture. Perhaps the electric chain passed from him to his companion, for the latter said irrelevantly but with a significant expression, as he turned his glance full upon Sir Simon:

“We medical men are trusted with many secrets--secrets of the heart as well as of the body. We ask you frankly, as a friend of our patient, is there any moral cause at work--any disappointed affection that may have preyed on the mind and fostered the inherited germs of disease?”

“I cannot answer that question,” replied the baronet after a moment’s hesitation.

“You cannot, or you will not? Excuse my pertinacity; it is professional and necessary.”

Sir Simon hesitated again before he answered.

“I cannot even give a decided answer to that. I had some time ago feared there existed something of the sort, but of late those apprehensions had entirely disappeared. If you had put the question to me yesterday, I should have said emphatically there is nothing to fear on that score; the child is perfectly happy and quite heart-whole.”

“And to-day you are not prepared to say as much,” persisted Dr. Blink. “Something has occurred to modify this change of opinion?”

“Nothing, except the accident that you know of and your question now. These suggest to me that I may have been right in the first instance.”

“Is it in your power or within the power of circumstances to set the wrong right--to remove the cause of anxiety--assuming that it actually exists?”

“No, it is not; nothing can remove it.”

“And she is aware of this?”

“I fear not.”

“Say rather that you hope not. In such cases hope is the best physician; let nothing be done, as far as you can prevent it, to destroy this hope in the patient’s mind; I would even venture to urge that you should do anything in your power to feed and stimulate it.”

“That is impossible; quite impossible,” said Sir Simon emphatically. The doctor’s words fell on him like a sting, and this very feeling increased to conviction what had, at the beginning of the conversation, been only a vague misgiving.

* * * * *

Franceline rallied quickly, and with her returning strength Sir Simon’s fears were allayed. He had not been able to follow the doctor’s advice as to keeping alive any soothing delusions that might exist in her mind, but he succeeded, by dint of continually dinning it into his ears that there was no danger, in convincing her father that there was not; and the cheerfulness and security that radiated from him acted beneficially on her, and proved of great help to the medical treatment. And was Dr. Blink right in his surmise that a moral cause had been at work and contributed to the bursting of the blood-vessel? If Franceline had been asked she would have denied it; if any one had said to her that the accident had been brought on by mental suffering, or insinuated that she was still at heart pining for a lost love, she would have answered with proud sincerity: “It is false; I am not pining. I have ceased to think of Clide de Winton; I have ceased to love him.”

But which of us can answer truly for our own hearts? We do not want to idealize Franceline. We wish to describe her as she was, the good with the evil; the struggle and the victory as they alternated in her life; her heart fluctuating, but never consciously disloyal. There must be flaws in every picture taken from life. Perfection is not to be found in nature, except when seen through a poet’s eyes. Perhaps it was true that Franceline had ceased to love Clide. When our will is firmly set upon self-conquest we are apt to fancy it achieved. But conquest does not of necessity bring joy, or even peace. Nothing is so terrible as a victory, except a defeat, was a great captain’s cry on surveying the bloody field of yesterday’s battle. The frantic effort, the bleeding trophies may inflict a death-wound on the conqueror as fatal, in one sense, as defeat. We see the “good fight” every day leading to such issues. Brave souls fight and carry the day, and then go to reap their laurels where “beyond these voices there is peace.” Franceline had gained a victory, but there was no rejoicing in the triumph. Her heart plained still of its wounds; if she did not hear it, it was because she would not; it still bemoaned its hard fate, its broken cup of happiness.

She rose up from this illness, however, happier than she had been for months. It was difficult to believe that the period which had worked such changes to her inward life counted only a few months; it seemed like years, like a lifetime, since she had first met Clide de Winton. She resumed her calmly busy little life as before the break had come that suspended its active routine. By Dr. Blink’s desire the teaching class was suppressed, and the necessity of guarding against cold prevented her doing much amongst the sick; but this extra leisure in one way enabled her to increase her work in another; she devoted it to writing with her father; this never tired her, she affirmed--it only interested and amused her.

The advisability of a trip to some southern spot in France or Italy had been suggested by Dr. Blink; but the proposal was rejected by his patient in such a strenuous and excited manner that he forebore to press it. He noticed also an expression of sudden pain on M. de la Bourbonais’ countenance, accompanied by an involuntary deep-drawn sigh, that led him to believe there must be pecuniary impediments in the way of the scheme, notwithstanding Sir Simon’s assurance to the contrary. The _émigré_ was universally looked upon as a poor man. Who else would live as he did? Still Sir Simon must have known what he was saying. However, as it happened, the cold weather, which was now setting in pretty sharp, was by no means favorable to travelling, so the doctor consented willingly enough to abide by the patient’s circumstances and wishes. A long journey in winter is always a high price for an invalid to pay for the benefit of a warm climate.

In the first days of December, Sir Simon took flight from Dullerton to Nice. Lady Rebecca was spending the winter at Cannes, and as Mr. Simpson reported that “her ladyship’s health had declined visibly within the last month,” it was natural that her dutiful step-son should desire to be within call in case of any painful eventuality. If the climate of the sunny Mediterranean town happened to be a very congenial winter residence to him, so much the better. It is only fair that a man should have some compensation for doing his duty.

The day before he started Sir Simon came down to The Lilies.

“Raymond,” he said, “you have sustained a loss lately; you must be in want of money; now is the time to prove yourself a Christian, and let others do unto you as you would do unto them. You offered me money once when I did not want it; I offer it to you now that you do.” And he pressed a bundle of notes into the count’s hands.

But Raymond crushed them back into his. “Mon cher Simon! I do not thank you. That would be ungrateful; it would look as if I were surprised, whereas I have long since come to take brotherly kindness as a matter of course from you. But in truth I do not want this money; I give you my word I don’t!”

“If you pledge your word, I must believe you, I suppose,” returned the baronet; “but promise me one thing--if you should want it, you will let me know?”

“I promise you I will.”

Sir Simon with a sigh, which Raymond took for reluctance, but which was really one of relief, replaced the notes in his waistcoat pocket. “I had better leave you a blank check all the same,” he said; “you might happen to want it, and not be able to get a letter to me at once. There is no knowing where the vagabond spirit may lead me, once I am on the move. Give me a pen.” And he seated himself at the desk.

Raymond protested; but it was no use, Sir Simon would have his own way; he wrote the blank check and saw it locked up in the count’s private drawer. M. de la Bourbonais argued from this reckless committal of his signature that the baronet’s finances were in a flourishing condition, and was greatly rejoiced. Alas! if the truth were known, they had never been in a sorrier plight. He had offered the bank-notes in all sincerity, but if Raymond had accepted it, Sir Simon would have been at his wit’s end to find the ready money for his journey. But he kept this dark, and rather led his friend to suppose him flush of money; it was the only chance of getting him to accept his generosity.

“Mind you keep me constantly informed how Franceline gets on,” were his parting words; and M. de la Bourbonais promised.

She got on in pretty much the same way for some time. Languid and pale, but not suffering; and she had no cough, and no return of the symptoms that had alarmed them all so much. Angélique watched her as a cat watches a mouse, but even her practised eye could detect no definite cause for anxiety.

One morning, about a fortnight after Sir Simon’s departure, Franceline was alone in the little sitting-room--her father had gone to do some shopping for her in the town, as it was too cold for her to venture out--when Sir Ponsonby Anwyll called. The moment she saw him she flushed up, partly with surprise, partly with pleasure. A casual observer would have concluded this to be a good sign for the visitor; a male friend would have unhesitatingly pronounced him a lucky dog. Ponsonby himself felt slightly elated.

“I heard you were ill,” he said, “and as I am at home on leave for a few days, I could not resist coming to inquire for you. You are not displeased with me for coming?”

“No, indeed; it is very kind of you. I am glad to see you,” Franceline replied with bright, grateful eyes.

Hope bounded up high in Ponsonby.

“They told me you had been very ill. I hope it is not true. You don’t look it,” he said anxiously.

“I have been frightening them a little more than it was worth; but I am quite well now. How is Lady Anwyll?”

“Thank you, she’s just as usual; in very good health and a tremendous bustle. You know I always put the house topsy-turvy when I come down. Not that I mean to do it; it seems to come of itself as a natural consequence of my being there,” he explained, laughing. “Is M. de la Bourbonais quite well?”

“Quite well. He will be in presently; he is only gone to make a few purchases for me.”

“How anxious he must have been while you were ill!”

“Dear papa! yes he was.”

“Do you ride much now?”

“Not at all. I am forbidden to take any violent exercise for the present.”

All obvious subjects being now exhausted, there ensued a pause. Ponsonby was the first to break it.

“Have you forgiven me, Franceline?” he said, looking at her tenderly, and with a sort of sheepish timidity.

“Indeed I have; forgiven and forgotten,” she replied; and then blushing very red, and correcting herself quickly: “I mean there was nothing to forgive.”

“That’s not the sort of forgiveness I want,” said Ponsonby, growing courageous in proportion as she grew embarrassed. “Franceline, why can you not like me a little? I love you so much; no one will ever love you better, or as well!”

She shook her head, but said nothing, only rose and went to the window. He followed her.

“You are angry with me again!” he exclaimed, and was going to break out in entreaties to be forgiven; when stooping forward he caught sight of her face. It was streaming with tears!

“There, the very mention of it sets you crying! Why do you hate me so?”

“I do not hate you. I never hated you! I wish with all my heart I could love you! But I cannot, I cannot! And you would not have me marry you if I did not love you? It would be false and selfish to accept your love, with all it would bring me, and give so little in return?” She turned her dark eyes on him, still full of tears, but unabashed and innocent, as if he had been a brother asking her to do something unreasonable.

“So little!” he cried, and seizing her hand he pressed it to his lips; “if you knew how thankful I would be for that little! What am I but an awkward lout at best! But I will make you happy, Franceline; I swear to you I will! And your father too. I will be as good as a son to him.”

She made no answer but the same negative movement of her head. She looked out over the winter fields with a dreamy expression, as if she only half heard him, while her hand lay passively in his.

“Say you will be my wife! Accept me, Franceline!” pleaded the young man, and he passed his arm around her.

The action roused her; she snatched away her hand and started from him. It was not aversion or antipathy, it was terror that dictated the movement. Something within her cried out and forbade her to listen. She could no more control the sudden recoil than she could control the tears that gushed out afresh, this time with loud sobs that shook her from head to foot.

“Good heavens! what have I done?” exclaimed Ponsonby, helpless and dismayed. “Shall I go away? shall I leave you?”

“Oh! it is nothing. It is over now,” said Franceline, her agitation quieted instantaneously by the sight of his. She dashed the tears from her cheeks impatiently; she was vexed with herself for giving way so before him. “Sit down; you are trembling all over,” said the young man; and he gently forced her into a chair. “I am sorry I said anything; I will never mention the subject again without your permission. Shall I go away?”

“It would be very ungracious to say ‘yes,’” she replied, trying to smile through the tears that hung like raindrops on her long lashes; “but you see how weak and foolish I am.”

“My poor darling! I will go and leave you. I have been too much for you. Only tell me, may I come soon again--just to ask how you are?”

She hesitated. To say yes would be tacitly to accept him; yet it was odious to turn him off like this without a word of kindly explanation to soften the pang. Ponsonby could not read these thoughts, so he construed her hesitation according to the immemorial logic of lovers.

“Well, never mind answering now,” he said; “I won’t bother you any more to-day. You will present my respects to the count, and say how sorry I was not to see him.”

He held out his hand for good-by.

“You will meet him on the road, I dare say,” said Franceline, extending hers. “You will not tell him how I have misbehaved to you?”

The shy smile that accompanied the request emboldened Ponsonby to raise the soft, white hand to his lips. Then turning away he overturned a little wicker flower-stand, happily with no injury to the sturdy green plant, but with considerable damage to the dignity of his exit.

Perhaps you will say that Mlle. de la Bourbonais behaved like a flirt in parting with a discarded lover in this fashion. It is easy for you to say so. It is not so easy for a woman with a heart to inflict unmitigated pain on a man who loves her, and whose love she at least requites with gratitude, esteem, and sisterly regard.

Sir Ponsonby met the count on the road; he made sure of the encounter by walking his horse up and down the green lane which commanded the road from Dullerton to The Lilies. What passed between them remained the secret of themselves and the winter thrush that perched on the brown hedge close by and sang out lustily to the trees and fields while they conversed.

M. de la Bourbonais made no comment on his daughter’s tear-stained cheeks when he came home; but taking her face between his hands, as he was fond of doing, he gave one wistful look, kissed it, and let it go.

“How long you have been away, petit père! Shall we go to our writing now?” she inquired cheerfully.

“Art thou not tired, my child?”

“Tired! What have I done to tire me?”

She sat down at his desk, and nothing was said of Sir Ponsonby Anwyll’s visit.

* * * * *

The excitement of that day’s interview told, nevertheless, on Franceline. It left her nervous, and weaker than she had been since her recovery. These symptoms escaped her father’s notice, and they would have escaped Angélique’s, owing to Franceline’s strenuous efforts to conceal them, if a slight cough had not come to put her on the _qui vive_ more than ever. It was very slight indeed, only attacking her in the morning when she awoke, and quite ceasing by the time she was dressed and down-stairs. Franceline’s room was at one end of the cottage; Angélique slept next to her; and at the other end, with the stairs intervening, was the count’s room. He was thus out of ear-shot of the sound, which, however rare and seemingly unimportant, would have filled him with alarm. Franceline treated it as a trifle not worth mentioning; but when her old _bonne_ insisted on taking her discreetly to Dr. Blink and having his opinion about it, she gave in to humor her. The doctor once more applied his stethoscope, and then, smiling that grim, satisfied smile of his that was so reassuring to patients till they had seen it practised on others and found out it was a fallacy, remarked:

“We are glad to be able to assure you again that there is nothing to be frightened at; no mischief that cannot be forestalled by care, and docility to our instructions,” he added emphatically. “We must order you some tonics, and you must take them regularly. How is the appetite?” turning to Angélique, who stood by devouring the oracle’s words and watching every line of his features with a shrewd, almost vicious expression of mistrust on her brown face.

“Ah! the appetite. She will not be eating many; she will be wanting dainty plates which I cannot make,” explained the Frenchwoman, sticking pertinaciously to the future tense, as usual when she spoke English.

“Invalids are liable to those caprices of the palate,” remarked Dr. Blink blandly; “but Miss Franceline will be brave and overcome them. Dainty dishes are not always the most nourishing, and nourishment is necessary for her; it is essential.”

“That is what I will be telling mamselle,” assented Angélique; “but she will not be believing me. I will be telling her every day the strength is in the bouillon; but she will be making a grimace and saying ‘Pshaw!’”

The last word was uttered with a grimace so expressive that Franceline burst out laughing, and the pompous little doctor joined in it in spite of his dignity. She promised to do her best to obey him and overcome her dislike to the bouillon, Angélique’s native panacea, and to other substantial food.

But she found it very hard to keep the promise. It required something savory to tempt her weak appetite. Angélique saw she was doing her best, and never pressed the poor child needlessly; but she would groan over the plate as she removed it, sometimes untouched. “I used to think myself a ‘blue ribbon’ until now,” she said once to Franceline, with an impatient sigh; “but I am at the end of my talent; I can do nothing to please mamselle.” And then she would long for Sir Simon to come home. It happened unluckily that the professed artist who presided over the kitchen at the Court was taking a holiday during his master’s absence. Angélique would have scorned to invoke the skill of the subaltern who replaced him, but she had a profound admiration for the _chef_ himself, and, though an Englishman, she bowed unreservedly to his superior talents. The belief was current that Sir Simon would spend the Christmas at Dullerton; he always did when not at too great a distance at that time. It was the right thing for an English gentleman to do, and his bitterest foe would not accuse the baronet of failing to act up to that standard.

This year, however, it was not possible. The weather was glorious at Nice and it was anything but that at Dullerton, and the long journey in the cold was not attractive. He wrote home desiring the usual festivities to be arranged according to the old custom of the place; coals and clothing were to be distributed _ad libitum_; the fatted calf was to be killed for the tenantry, and everybody was enjoined to eat, drink, and be merry in spite of the host’s absence. They conscientiously followed these hospitable injunctions, but it was a grievous disappointment that Sir Simon was not in their midst to stimulate the conviviality by his kindly and genial presence. Pretty presents came to The Lilies, but they did not bring strength to Franceline. She grew more transparent, more fragile-looking, as the days went on. Angélique held private conferences with Miss Merrywig, and that lady suggested that any of the large houses in the neighborhood would be only too delighted to be of any use in sending jellies flavored with good strong wine. There was nothing so nourishing for an invalid; Miss Merrywig would speak to one where there was a capital cook. But Angélique would not hear of it. No, no! Much as she longed for the jelly she dared not get it in this way. M. le Comte would never forgive her. “He will be so proud, M. le Comte! He will be a Scotchman! He will not be confessing even to me that he wants nothing. But Monsieur Simon will be coming; he will be coming soon, and then he will be making little plates for mamselle every day.” Meantime she and Franceline did their best to hide from Raymond this particular reason for desiring their friend’s return. But he noticed that she ate next to nothing, and that she often signed to Angélique to remove her plate on which the food remained untasted. Once he could not forbear exclaiming: “Ah! if we were in Paris I could get some _friandise_ to tempt thee!”

In the middle of January one morning a letter came from Sir Simon, bearing the London postmark.

He had been obliged to come to England on pressing business of a harassing nature.

“Is Sir Simon coming home, petit père?” inquired Franceline eagerly, as her father opened the letter.

“Yes; but only for a day. He will be here after to-morrow, and fly away to Nice the next day.”

“How tiresome of him! But it is better to see him for a day than not at all. Does he say what hour he arrives? We will go and meet him.”

“It will be too late for thee to be out, my child. He comes by the late afternoon train, just in time to dress for dinner and receive us all. He has invited several friends in the neighborhood to dine.”

“What a funny idea! And he is only coming for the day?”

“Only for the day.”

Raymond’s eyebrows closed like a horseshoe over his meditative eyes as he folded the baronet’s letter and laid it aside. There was more in it than he communicated to Franceline. It was the old story; money tight, bills falling due, and no means of meeting them. Lady Rebecca had taken a fresh start, thanks to an Italian quack who had been up from Naples and worked wonders with some diabolical elixir--diabolical beyond a doubt, for nothing but the black-art could explain the sudden and extraordinary rally; she was all but dead when the quack arrived--so Mr. Simpson heard from one of her ladyship’s attendants. Simpson himself was terribly put out by the news; it overturned all his immediate plans; he saw no possibility of any longer avoiding extremities. Extremities meant that the principal creditor, a Jew who had lent a sum of thirty thousand pounds on Sir Simon’s life-interest in Dullerton, at the rate of twenty per cent, was now determined to wait no longer for his arrears of twenty per cent, but turn the baronet out of possession and sell his life-interest in the estate. This sword of Damocles had been hanging over his debtor’s head for the last ten years. It was to meet this usurious interest periodically that Sir Simon was driven to such close quarters. He had up to this time contrived to answer the demand--Heaven and Mr. Simpson alone knew at what sacrifices. But now he had come to a point beyond which even he declared he could not possibly carry his client. He had tried to negotiate post-obit bills on Lady Rebecca’s fifty thousand pounds, but the Jews were too sharp for that. Lady Rebecca was sole master of her fifty thousand pounds, and might leave it to whom she liked. She had made her will bequeathing it to her step-son, and _he_ was morally as certain of ultimately possessing the money as if it were entailed; but moral security is no security at all to a money-lender. The money was _not_ entailed; Lady Rebecca might take it into her head to alter her will; she might leave it to a quack doctor, or to some clever sycophant of an attendant. There is no saying what an old lady of seventy-five may not do with fifty thousand pounds. Sir Simon pshawed and pooh-poohed contemptuously when Simpson enumerated these arguments against the negotiation of the much-needed P. O. bills; but it was no use. Israel was inexorable. And now one particular member of the tribe called Moses to witness that if he were not paid his “twenty per shent” on the first of February, he would seize upon the life-interest of Dullerton Court and make its present owner a bankrupt. He could sell nothing, either in the house or on the estate; the plate and pictures and furniture were entailed. If this were not the case, things need not have come to this with Sir Simon. Two of those Raphaels in the great gallery would have paid the Jew principal and interest together; but not a spoon or a hearth-brush in the Court could be touched; everything belonged to the heir. No mention has hitherto been made of that important person, because he in no way concerns this story, except by the fact of his existence. He was a distant kinsman of the present baronet, who had never seen him. He was in diplomacy, and so lived always abroad. People are said to dislike their heirs.

If Sir Simon disliked any human being, it was his. He did not dislike Lady Rebecca; he was only out of patience with her; she certainly was an aggravating old woman--living on to no purpose, that he could see, except to frustrate and harass him. Yet he had kindly thoughts of her; he had only cold aversion towards the man who was waiting for his own death to come and rule in his stead. He had never spoken of him to M. de la Bourbonais except to inform him that he existed, and that he stood in his way on many occasions. In the letter of this morning he spoke of him once more. The letter was a long one, and calmer than any previous effusion of the kind that Raymond remembered. There was very little vituperation of the duns, or even of the chief scoundrel who was about to tear away the veil that had hitherto concealed the sores and flaws in the popular landlord’s life. This was what he felt most deeply in it all; the disgrace of being shown up as a sham--a man who had lived like a prince while he had been in reality a beggar, in debt up to his ears, and who was now about to be made a bankrupt. Raymond had never before understood the real nature of his friend’s embarrassment; he was shocked and distressed more than he could express. It was not the moment to judge him; to remember the reckless extravagance, the criminal want of prudence, of conscience, that had brought him to this pass. He only thought of the friend of his youth, the kind, faithful, delightful companion who had never failed in friendship, whatever his other sins may have been. And now he was ruined, disgraced before the world, going to be driven forth from his ancestral home branded as a life-long sham. Raymond could have wept for pity. Then it occurred to him with a strange pang that he was to dine with Sir Simon the next day; the head cook had been telegraphed for to prepare the dinner; there was to be a jovial gathering of friends to “cheer him up.” What a mystery it was, this craving for being cheered up, as if the process were a substantial remedy that in some way helped to pay debts, or postpone payment! The count was too sad at heart to smile. He rose from the breakfast-table with a sigh, and was leaving the room when Franceline linked her hands on his arm, and said, looking up with an anxious face:

“It is a long letter, petit père; is there any bad news?”

“There is hardly any news at all,” he replied evasively. In truth there was not.

“Then why do you look so sad?”

“Why dost thou look so pale?” was the reply. And he smiled tenderly and sighed again as he kissed her forehead.

TO BE CONTINUED.

ÆSCHYLUS.

A sea-cliff carved into a bas-relief! Art, rough from Nature’s hand; by brooding Nature Wrought out in spasms to shapes of Titan stature; Emblems of Fate, and Change, Revenge, and Grief, And Death, and Life; in giant hieroglyph Confronting still with thunder-blasted frieze All stress of years, and winds, and wasting seas-- The stranger nears it in his western skiff, And hides his eyes. Few, few shall dare, great Bard, Thy watery portals! Entering, fewer yet Shall pierce thy music’s meaning, deep and hard! But these shall owe to thee an endless debt; The Eleusinian caverns they shall tread That wind beneath man’s heart; and wisdom learn with dread.

AUBREY DE VERE.

A PRECURSOR OF MARCO POLO.

The merchants and missionaries who were the first travellers and ambassadors of Christian times little thought, absorbed as they were in the object of their quest, how large a share of interest in the eyes of posterity would centre in the quaint observations, descriptions, and drawings which they were able incidentally to gather or make. Marco Polo’s name, and even those of his father and uncle, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, are well known, and are associated with all that barbaric magnificence the memory of which had a great share in keeping alive the perseverance of subsequent explorers. It was fitting that traders in jewels should reach the more civilized and splendid Tartars, and no doubt their store of rich presents, and their garments of ample dimensions as well as fine texture, would prove a passport through tribes so passionately acquisitive as the Tartars seem to have been. Nomads are not always simple-minded or unambitious. The Franciscan whose travels come just between the expedition of the elder Polo and the more famous Marco--Friar William Rubruquis--did not have the good-luck to see the wonders his successor described; but he mentions repeatedly that his entertainers made reiterated and minute inquiries as to the abundance of flocks and herds in the country he came from, and that they wondered--rather contemptuously--at the presents of sweet wine, dried fruits, and delicate cakes which were all he had to offer their great princes.

Rubruquis was traveller, missionary, and ambassador, but in the two pursuits denoted by the last-mentioned titles his success was but small. As a traveller, however, he was hardy, persevering, and observant. Though not bred a horseman, he often rode thirty leagues a day, and half the time at full gallop, he says. His companions, monks like himself, could not stand the fatigue, and both, at different intervals, parted company from him. But Rubruquis was young and strong, though, as he himself says, corpulent and heavy; and, above all, he was enterprising. He was not more than five-and-twenty when he started on his quest of the Christian monarch whom all the rulers of Europe firmly believed in, and whose name has come down to us as Prester John.

Born in 1230, he devoted himself early to the church, and during the Fourth Crusade went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His real name was Ruysbroek, but, according to the unpatriotic fashion of the times, he Latinized it into Rubruquis. S. Louis, King of France, eager for the Christian alliance which the supposed Prester John would be able to enter into with him, had once already sent an embassy of monks to seek him; but they had failed to perform a sixth part of the journey set down for them, and had heard no tidings of a monarch answering to the description. The king, nothing daunted, determined to send another embassy on a voyage of discovery Vague news of a Christian Tartar chief, by name Sartach, had come to him; probably the toleration extended by the Tartars to Christians--a contrast to the behavior of most Saracenic chiefs--led to this obstinate belief in a remote Christian empire of the East.

William de Rubruquis, Bartholomew of Cremona, and a companion named Andrew, all Franciscan friars, were chosen for this new expedition. On the 7th of May, 1253 (says his narrative, though it has since been calculated that, as S. Louis was a captive at the time, the date 1255 is more likely to be correct), the travellers, having crossed the Black Sea from Constantinople, landed at Soldaia, near Cherson. The king, somewhat unwisely as it proved, had told his envoy to represent himself as a private individual travelling on his own account. But the Tartars were acute and jealous of foreigners; they knew that travelling entailed too much fatigue and danger to be undertaken simply for pleasure, and they had small regard for any stranger, unless the representative of a prince. They guessed his mission, and taxed him with it, till he was obliged to acknowledge that he was the bearer of letters from the Christian King of France to the mighty khan, Sartach. But though the people do not seem to have taken him for a private person, they were puzzled by the poverty of his dress and the scantiness of the presents he offered them. Even small dignitaries expected to be royally propitiated. He explained his vow of poverty to them, but this did not impress the Tartars as favorably as he wished. Still, he met with nothing but civility and hospitality.

Rubruquis says that Soldaia was a great mart for furs, which the Russians exchanged with the merchants of Constantinople for silks, cotton, spices, etc. The third day after his departure he met a wandering tribe, “among whom being entered,” he says, “methought I was come into a new world.”

He goes on to describe their houses on wheels, no despicable or narrow habitations, even according to modern ideas:

“Their houses, in which they sleep, they raise upon a round foundation of wickers artificially wrought and compacted together, the roof consisting of wickers also meeting above in one little roundel, out of which there rises upwards a neck like a chimney, which they cover with white felt; and often they lay mortar or white earth upon the felt with the powder of bones, that it may shine and look white; sometimes, also, they cover their houses with black felt. This cupola … they adorn with a variety of pictures. Before the door they hang a felt curiously painted over; for they spend all their colored felt in painting vines, trees, birds, and beasts thereupon. These houses they make so large that they contain thirty feet in breadth; for, measuring once the breadth between the wheel-ruts, … I found it to be twenty feet over, and when the house was upon the cart it stretched over the wheels on each side five feet at least. I told two-and-twenty oxen in one draught, drawing an house upon a cart, and eleven more on the other side. (Two rows, one in front of the other, we suppose.) … A fellow stood in the door of the house, driving the oxen.”

Sometimes a woman drove, or walked at the head of the leaders to guide them. “One woman will guide twenty or thirty carts at once; for their country is very flat, and they fasten the carts with camels or oxen one behind another. A girl sits in the foremost cart, driving the oxen, and all the rest of themselves follow at a like pace. When they come to a place which is a bad passage, they loose them, and guide them one by one.…”

The baggage was so arranged as to be taken through the smaller rivers of Asia without being injured or wetted. It consisted of square chests of wicker-work, with a hollow lid or cover of the same, “covered with black felt, rubbed over with tallow or sheep’s milk to keep the rain from soaking through, which they also adorn with painting or white feathers.” These were placed on carts with very high wheels, and drawn by camels instead of oxen. The encampment was like a large village, well defended by palisades formed of the carts off which the houses had been taken, and which were drawn up in two compact lines, one in front and one in the rear of the dwellings, “as it were between two walls,” says our traveller. A rich Tartar commonly had one hundred, or even two hundred, such cart-houses. Each house had several small houses belonging to it, placed behind it, serving as closets, store-rooms, and sleeping chambers, and often as many as two hundred chests and their necessary carts. This made immense numbers of camels and oxen for draught necessary; and, besides, there were the animals for food and milk, and the horses for the men. They had cow’s milk and mare’s milk, two species of food which they used very differently, and even made of social and religious importance. Only the men were allowed to milk the mares, while the women attended to the cows; and any interchange of these offices would have been deemed, in a man, unpardonable effeminacy, and in a woman indelicacy. At the door of the houses stood two tutelary deities, monsters of both sexes. The cow’s milk served for the food of women and children, while the mare’s milk was made into a fermented liquor called cosmos. This was supposed to make a heathen of the man who drank it; for the Nestorian Christians found among them, “who keep their own laws very strictly, will not drink thereof; they account themselves no Christians after they have once drunk of it; and their priests reconcile them to the church as if they had renounced the Christian faith.”

This cosmos was made thus: The milk was poured into a large skin bag, and the bag beaten with a wooden club until the milk began to ferment and turn sour. The bag was then shaken and cudgelled again until most of it turned to butter; after which the liquid was supposed to be fit for drinking. Rubruquis evidently liked it; says it was exhilarating to the spirits, and even intoxicating to weak heads; pungent to the taste, “like raspberry wine,” but left a flavor on the palate “like almond-milk.” Cara-cosmos, a rarer quality of the same, and reserved for the chiefs only, was produced by prolonging the beating of the bag until the coagulated portions subsided to the bottom. These drinks were received as tribute or taxes. Baatu, a chief with sixteen wives, received the produce of three thousand mares daily, besides a quantity of common cosmos, a bowl of which almost always stood on the threshold of every rich man’s house. The Tartars often drank of it to excess, and their banquets were relieved by music.

At these feasts, in which both sexes participated, the guests clapped their hands and danced to the music, the men before their host, the women before his principal wife. The host always drank first. The moment he put his lips to the bowl of cosmos, his cup-bearer cried aloud “Ha!” and the musicians struck up. This almost sounds like a mediæval Twelfth-night banquet, when all the guests rose and shouted, “The king drinks!” and then drained their goblets in imitation of the monarch of the night. The Tartars respectfully waited till the lord of the feast had finished his draught, when the cup-bearer again cried “Ha!” and the music ceased. After a pause, the guests, male and female, drank round in turns, each one to the sound of music, with a pause and silence before the next person took up the cup. This fashion of drinking continued unchanged for many centuries, and later travellers, amid the increased pomp of the court of the Tartar emperors of China, found it still in force--music, cries, pauses, and all. We have also seen, not many years ago, on the occasion of the marriage of the late young emperor of China, illustrations of the wedding procession, representing immensely wide carts, drawn by eleven oxen abreast, laden with costly state furniture; and if we take away the pomp and gilding, the picture is not unlike that of the Tartar camp-carts seen by our traveller. Rubruquis hints that the Tartars were not a temperate people; they drank much and not cleanly, and the way of “inviting” a person to drink was to seize his ears and pull them forcibly. The sweet wine, of which the monk had a small supply, pleased them very well, but they thought him not lavish enough in his hospitality; for once, on his offering the master of the house one flagon of this wine, the man gravely drained it and asked for another, saying that “a man does not go into a house with one foot.” In return, however, they did not give him much to eat; but perhaps he suffered hunger rather from his prejudice to the meat they ate than from their niggardliness in giving. He at last learned to eat horse-flesh, but was disgusted at his friends’ eating the bodies of animals that had died of disease. The Tartars were honest enough, and, never even took things by force; but they begged for everything that took their fancy as unblushingly as some of Paul Du Chaillu’s negroes in Africa. It surprised them to be refused anything--knives, gloves, purses, etc.--and, when gratified, never thought it necessary to thank their guests.

After a while Rubruquis met the carts of Zagatai, one of the chieftains, to whom he brought a letter from the Emperor of Constantinople. Here the Tartars asked “what we had in our carts--whether it were gold, or silver, or rich garments”; and both Zagatai and his interpreter were haughtily discontented at finding that at least some garment of value was not forthcoming. This is not wonderful, considering the wealth of their own great khans, of whom a later one, Kooblai, so celebrated in Marco Polo’s travels, gave his twelve lords, twelve times in the year, robes of gold-colored silk, embroidered with gold and precious stones. Zagatai, however, received the ambassador graciously. “He sat on his bed,”[45] says Rubruquis, “holding a musical instrument in his hand, and his wife sat by him, who, in my opinion, had cut and pared her nose between the eyes, that she might seem to be more flat-nosed; for she had left herself no nose at all in that place, having anointed the very scar with black ointment, as she also did her eyebrows, which sight seemed to me most ugly.… I besought him that he would accept this small gift at our hands, excusing myself that I was a monk, and that it was against our profession to possess gold, silver, or precious garments, and therefore that I had not any such thing to give him, unless he would receive some part of our victuals instead of a blessing.” The Tartars were always eager to receive a blessing over and above any present. He was constantly asked to make over them the sign of the cross; but it is to be feared that they looked upon it as a charm, and of charms they couldn’t have too many. From Zagatai, Rubruquis went to Sartach, who said he had no power of treating with him, and sent him on to his father-in-law, Baatu, the patriarch with sixteen wives and several hundred houses. Losing his ox-wagons and baggage on the way--for the independent tribes did not scruple to exact tribute from a traveller, even if he was a friend of their neighbors--he never lost his courage and his determination to sow the seeds of truth in Tartary. He did not know the language at first, and only learnt it very imperfectly at the last. Here and there a captive Christian, mostly Hungarians, or a Tartar who had learnt the rudiments of Christianity during an invasion of his tribe into Europe, acted as interpreter. All were uniformly kind to him. One of them, who understood Latin and psalmody, was in great request at all the funerals of his neighborhood; but the “Christianity” of the natives was but a shred of Nestorianism worked into a web of paganism, so that, the farther he advanced, the farther the great, powerful, united Christian community headed by Prester John seemed to recede. The people took kindly to Christian usages, and had some respect for the forms and ceremonies which the monk and his companions endeavored to keep up; but when it came to doctrine and morality, they grew impatient and unresponsive. One of Rubruquis’ interpreters often refused to do his office. “And thus,” says the traveller, “it caused me great chagrin when I wished to address to them a few words of edification; for he would say to me, ‘You shall not make me preach to-day; I understand nothing of all you tell me.’ … And then he spoke the truth; for afterwards, as I began to understand a little of their tongue, I perceived that when I told him one thing he repeated another, just according to his fancy. Therefore, seeing it was no use to talk or preach, I held my tongue.”

Hard riding was not the only thing that distressed the ambassador of the King of France. His companions gave him meat that was less than half-cooked, and sometimes positively raw. Then the cold began to be severe, and still there were at least four months’ travel before him. The Tartars were kind to him in their rough way, and gave him some of their thick sheepskins and hide shoes. He had insisted on journeying most of the time in his Franciscan sandals, and, full of ardor for his rule, had constantly refused gifts of costly garments. This the Tartars never quite understood, but they respected the principle which caused him to make so many sacrifices for the sake and furtherance of his religion. Wherever he passed, he and his companions endeared themselves to the inhabitants by many little services (doubtless also by cures wrought by simple remedies), and generally by their gentle, unselfish conduct towards all men. Rubruquis observed everything minutely as he passed. The manners and customs of the people interested him, and perhaps he did not consider them quite such barbarians as we of later days are apt to do. When we read the accounts of domestic life among the majority of people in mediæval times, and see that refinement of manner was less thought of than costliness of apparel and wealth of plate and cattle, the difference between such manners and those of the Tartars is not appreciable. Few in those days were learned, and learning it is that has always made the real difference between a gentleman and a boor. The marauding chieftains of feudal times were only romantic and titled highwaymen after all. So were the wandering Tartars. The difference that has since sprung up between the descendants of the marauding barons and those of the Tartar chiefs is mainly one of race. The former are of an enterprising, improving race, the latter of a stagnant one; and while the European nations that then trembled before the invading hordes of Jengis-Khan have now developed into intellectual superiority over every other race in the world, the Tartar is still, socially and intellectually, on the same old level, and his political advantages have vanished with his rude warlike superiority before the diplomacy and the military organization of his former victims.

Rubruquis noticed that among the superstitions common in Tartary was a belief that it was unlucky for a visitor to touch the threshold of a Tartar’s door. Modern travellers assert the same of the Chinese. Whenever our envoy paid a visit, he deferred to this belief by carefully stepping across the threshold of the house or tent, without letting any part of his person or dress come in contact with it. Their dress, on festive occasions, was rich; for they traded with China, Persia, and other southern and eastern countries for “stuffs of silk, cloths of gold, and cotton cloths, which they wear in time of summer; but out of Russia, Bulgaria, Hungaria, and out of Chersis (all which are northern regions and full of woods), … the inhabitants bring them rich and costly skins and furs of divers sorts, which I never saw in our countries, wherewithal they are clad in winter.” The rough sheepskin coats had their place also in their toilet, and a material made of two-thirds wool and one-third horsehair furnished them with caps, saddle-cloths, and felt for covering their wagons.

The women’s dress was distinguished from the men’s simply by its greater length, and they often rode, like the men, astride their horses, their faces protected by a white veil, crossing the nose just below the eyes and descending to the breast. Immense size and flat noses were the great desiderata among them. Marriage was a mere bargain, and daughters were generally sold to the highest bidder. Though expert hunters, the Tartars were scarcely what we should call sportsmen. They hunted on the _battue_ system, spreading themselves in a wide circle, and gradually contracting this as they drove the game before them, until the unfortunate animals being penned in in a small space, they were easily shot down by wholesale. Hawking was also in vogue among the Tartars, and was reduced as much to a science as in Europe. They strenuously punished great crimes with death, as, for instance, murder, theft, adultery, and even minor offences against chastity. This, however, was less the consequence of a regard for virtue _per se_ than of a vivid perception of the rights of property. No code but the Jewish and the Christian ever protected the honor of women for its own sake. In mourning for the dead it is strange that violent howling and lamentation, even on the part of those not personally concerned, should be a form common to almost all nations, not only of different religions, but of various and widely-separated races. The Tartars, as well as the Celts, practised it. Rubruquis mentions that they made various monuments over the graves of their dead, sometimes mere mounds or barrows of earth, or towers of brick and even of stone--though no stone was to be found near the spot--and sometimes large open spaces, paved with stone, with four large stones placed upright at the corners, always facing the four cardinal points.

It was during winter that the envoy arrived at the court or encampment of Mandchu-Khan. He says that it was at the distance of twenty days’ journey from Cataya, or Cathay (China), but it is difficult to say exactly where that was. Here Rubruquis found a number of Nestorian priests peacefully living under the khan’s protection, and among them one who had only arrived a month before the Franciscan friar, and said he had come, in consequence of a vision, to convert the khan and his people. He was an Armenian from the Holy Land. Our missionary describes him thus in his terse, direct way, which has this advantage over the long-winded and minute descriptions of our day, that we seem to see the man before us: “He was a monk, somewhat black and lean, clad with a rough hair-coat to the knees, having over it a black cloak of bristles, furred with spotted skins, girt with iron under his hair-cloth.” Mandchu-Khan was tolerant and liberal, and rather well disposed than otherwise to the Christian religion. His favorite wife, whom he had lately lost, had been a Christian, and so was his first secretary, but both Nestorian Christians. The khan, or his servants--who doubtless expected to be propitiated with the usual gifts if they could only succeed in wearying out the patience of the new-comers--made the envoy wait nine days for an audience. The Tartars thought it strange that a king’s ambassador should come to court bare-foot; but a boy, a Hungarian captive, again gave the required and often-repeated explanation. Before entering the large hall, whose entrance was closed by curtains of gayly-painted felt, the monks were searched, to see if they carried any concealed arms; and then the procession formed, the Christian missionaries entering the khan’s presence singing the hymn _A Solis ortus cardine_. The khan, like the lesser chieftains Rubruquis had already met, was seated on a “bed” or divan, dressed “in a spotted skin or fur, bright and shining.” The multitudinous bowings and prostrations in use at the Chinese court were very likely exacted, though the envoy says in general terms that “he had to bend the knee.” Such simplicity is, however, very far from the ceremonious Oriental ideal of homage, and it was not then, as it is now, esteemed an honor to receive Frankish envoys in the Frankish manner. Mandchu first offered his guests a drink of fermented milk, of which they partook sparingly, not to offend him; but the interpreter soon made himself unfit for his office by his indulgence in his favorite beverage. Rubruquis stated his mission with modest simplicity. In his quality of ambassador he might have resented the delay in receiving him; he might have complained of the familiarity and want of respect with which he had been often treated, and of the advantage taken of his gentleness and ignorance of the language to plunder him; but he was more than a king’s messenger. He was intent upon preaching the “good tidings” to the Tartars, and only used human means to compass a divine end. He acknowledged that he had no rich presents nor temporal goods to offer, but only spiritual benefits to impart. His practice certainly did not belie his theory. The people never disbelieved him, nor suspected him of being a political emissary. But still, he was unsuccessful. He soon perceived that his interpreter was blundering, and says: “I easily found he was drunk, and Mandchu-Khan himself was drunk also, as I thought.” All he could obtain was leave to remain in the country during the cold season. Inquiries met him on all sides as to the wealth and state of Europe; but of religion, beyond the few forms that pleased their eye, the people did not seem to think. They looked down with lofty indifference on the faith of those various adventurers whom their sovereign kindly sheltered, and ranked the Christian priests they already knew in the same category with conjurers and quack doctors. The Christianity of these Nestorians was even more imperfect than that of the Abyssinians at the time of the late English invasion of the unlucky King Theodore’s dominions. Rubruquis was horrified to find in these priests mere superstitious mountebanks. They mingled Tartar rites with corrupt ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and practised all manner of deceptions, mixing rhubarb with holy water as a medicinal drink, and carrying to the bedside of the sick lances and swords half-drawn from their sheaths along with the crucifix. Upon these grounds they pretended to the power of working miracles and curing the sick by spiritual means alone. The Franciscan zealously tried to reform these abuses and to convert the Nestorians before he undertook to preach to the Tartars; but here again he was unsuccessful. The self-interest of these debased men was in question, and truth was little to them in comparison with the comfort and consideration they enjoyed as leeches.

A curious scene occurred while at this encampment of the khan. There were many Mahometans in the country, and the sovereign, with impartial tolerance, protected them and their commerce as he did the person and property of other refugees. They, the Christians, and some representative Tartars were all assembled one day, by order of Mandchu, to discuss in public the merits of their respective faiths. But even on this occasion no bitterness was evinced, and the meeting, though it turned out useless in a spiritual sense, ended in a friendly banquet. Rubruquis did his best to improve this opportunity of teaching the truth; but the hour of successful evangelization had not yet struck, and much of the indifference of the Tartars is to be attributed to the culpable practices of the Nestorians, whose behavior was enough to discredit the religion they pretended to profess. But if the missionary, notwithstanding all his zeal, was unable to convert the heathens, he at least comforted and strengthened many captive Christians. We have already mentioned a few of these, and in Mandchu’s camp he met with another, a woman from Metz in Lorraine, who had been taken prisoner in Hungary, and been carried back into their own country by the invaders. She had at first suffered many hardships, but ended by marrying a young Russian, a captive like herself, who was skilful in the art of building wooden houses. The Tartars prized this kind of knowledge, and were kind to the young couple, who were now leading a tolerably comfortable life, and had a family of three children. To fancy their joy at seeing a genuine Christian missionary is almost out of our power in these days of swift communication, when nothing is any longer a marvel; but if we could put ourselves in their place, we might paint a wonderful picture of thankfulness, surprise, and simple, rock-like faith. The latter part of Lent was spent in travelling, as the khan broke up his encampment, and went on across a chain of mountains to a great city, Karakorum, or Karakûm, on the river Orchon. Every vestige of such a city has disappeared centuries ago, but Marco Polo mentions it and describes its streets, situation, defences, etc. He arrived there nearly twenty years later, and noticed that it was surrounded by a strong rampart of earth, there being no good supply of stone in those parts.

The passage of the Changai Mountains was a terrible undertaking; the cold was intense and the weather stormy, and the khan, with his usual bland eclecticism, begged Rubruquis to “pray to God in his own fashion” for milder weather, chiefly for the sake of the cattle. On Palm Sunday the envoy blessed the willow-boughs he saw on his way, though he says there were no buds on them yet; but they were near the city now, and the weather had become more promising. Rubruquis had his eyes wide open as he came to the first organized city of the Tartars, as Marco Polo affirms this to have been. It had scarcely been built twenty years when our monk visited it, and owed its origin to the son and successor of Jengis-Khan. “There were two grand streets in it,” says Rubruquis, “one of the Saracens, where the fairs are kept (held), and many merchants resort thither, and one other street of the Cathayans (Chinese), who are all artificers.” Many of the latter were captives, or at least subjects, of the khan; for the Tartars had already conquered the greater part of Northern China. The khan lived in a castle or palace outside the earthen rampart. In Karakorum, again, the monk found many Christians, Armenian, Georgian, Hungarian, and even of Western European origin. Among others he mentions an Englishman--whom he calls Basilicus, and who had been born in Hungary--and a few Germans. But the most important personage of foreign birth was a French goldsmith, William Bouchier, whose wife was a Hungarian, but of Mahometan parentage. This Benvenuto Cellini of the East was rich and liberal, an excellent interpreter, thoroughly at home in the Tartar dialects, a skilful artist, and in high favor at court. He had just finished a masterpiece of mechanism and beauty which Rubruquis thus minutely describes: “In the khan’s palace, because it was unseemly to carry about bottles of milk and other drinks there, Master William made him a great silver tree, at the root whereof were four silver lions, having each one pipe, through which flowed pure cow’s milk; and four other pipes were conveyed within the body of the tree unto the top thereof, and the tops spread back again downwards, and upon every one of them was a golden serpent, whose tails twined about the body of the tree. And one of these pipes ran with wine, another with cara-cosmos, another with _ball_--a drink made of honey--and another with a drink made of rice. Between the pipes, at the top of the tree, he made an angel holding a trumpet, and under the tree a hollow vault, wherein a man might be hid; and a pipe ascended from this vault through the tree to the angel. He first made bellows, but they gave not wind enough. Without the palace walls there was a chamber wherein the several drinks were brought; and there were servants there ready to pour them out when they heard the angel sounding his trumpet. And the boughs of the tree were of silver, and the leaves and the fruit. When, therefore, they want drink, the master-butler crieth to the angel that he sound the trumpet. Then he hearing (who is hid in the vault), bloweth the pipe, which goeth to the angel, and the angel sets his trumpet to his mouth, and the trumpet soundeth very shrill. Then the servants which are in the chamber hearing, each of them poureth forth his drink into its proper pipe, and all the pipes pour them forth from above, and they are received below in vessels prepared for that purpose.”

This elaborate piece of plate makes one think rather of the XVIth century banquets of the Medici and the Este than of feastings given by a nomad Tartar in the wilds of Central Asia. The goldsmith was not unknown to fame even in Europe, where he was called William of Paris. Several old chroniclers speak of him, and his brother Roger was well known as a goldsmith “living upon the great bridge at Paris.” This clever artist very nearly fell a victim to the quackery of a Nestorian monk, whereupon Rubruquis significantly comments thus: “He entreated him to proceed either as an apostle doing miracles indeed, by virtue of prayer, or to administer his potion as a physician, according to the art of medicine.” Besides the Tartars and their Christian captives, Rubruquis had opportunities of observing the numerous Chinese, or Cathayans, as they were called, who have been mentioned as the artificers of the town. There were also knots of Siberians, Kamtchatkans, and even inhabitants of the islands between the extremities of Asia and America, where at times the sea was frozen over. Rubruquis picked up a good deal of miscellaneous information, chiefly about the Chinese. He mentions their paper currency--a fact which Marco Polo subsequently verified--and their mode of writing; _i.e._, with small paint-brushes, and each character or figure signifying a whole word. The standard of value of the Russians, he says, consisted in spotted furs--a currency which still exists in the remoter parts of Siberia.

It was not without good reason, no doubt, that the monk-envoy made up his mind to leave the country he had hoped either to evangelize or to find already as orthodox as his own, and ruled by a great Christian potentate. Such perseverance as he showed throughout his journey was not likely to be daunted by slight obstacles; but finding the object of his mission as far from attainment as when he first entered Tartary, he at last reluctantly left the field. Only one European besides himself had ventured so far--Friar Bartholomew of Cremona; but even he shrank before a renewal of the hardships of mountain and desert travel, and chose rather to stay behind with Master William, the hospitable goldsmith, till some more convenient opportunity should present itself of returning to his own country. Rubruquis accordingly started alone, with a servant, an interpreter, and a guide; but though he had asked for leave to go on Whitsunday, the permission was delayed till the festival of S. John Baptist, the 24th of June. The khan made him a few trifling presents, and gave him a complimentary letter to the King of France; but no definite results were obtained. The homeward journey was long and tedious, and the only provision made for the sustenance of the party was a permission from the khan to take a sheep “once in four days, wherever they could find it.” Sometimes they had nothing to eat for three days together, and only a little cosmos to drink, and more than once, having missed the stations of the wandering tribes whom they had reckoned on meeting, even the supply of cosmos was exhausted. About two months after his departure from Karakorum, Rubruquis met Sartach, the great chief who had sheltered him for some time on his way to the river Don. Some belongings of the mission having been left in Sartach’s care, the envoy asked him to return them, but was told they were in charge of Baatu, Rubruquis’ other friend and protector. Sartach was on his way to join Mandchu-Khan, and was of course surrounded by the two hundred houses and innumerable chests which belonged to the establishment of a Tartar patriarch. If this was not exactly civilization, it was companionship, and the envoy must have been glad of a meeting which replenished his exhausted stores and suggested domestic comfort and abundance. More rough travelling on horseback, more experiences of hunger and cold (for the autumn was already coming on), more fording of rivers, and the monk found himself at Baatu’s court. It was the 16th of September--a year after he had left the chieftain to push on to the court of the Grand-Khan. Here he was joyfully and courteously received, and recovered nearly all his property; but as the Tartars had concluded that the whole embassy must have perished long ago, they had allowed some Nestorian priest, a wanderer under the protection now of Sartach, now of Baatu and other khans, to appropriate various Psalters, books, and ecclesiastical vestments. Three young men, Europeans, whom Rubruquis had left behind, had nearly been reduced to bondage under the same pretext, but they had not suffered personal ill-treatment. The kind offices of some influential Armenians had staved off the evil day, and the timely arrival of the long-missing envoy secured them their freedom. Rubruquis now joined Baatu’s court, which was journeying westward to a town called Sarai, on the eastern bank of the Volga; but the progress of the encumbered Tartars was so slow that he left them after a month’s companionship, and pushed on with his party, till he reached Sarai on the feast of All Saints. After this the country was almost an unbroken desert; but our traveller once more fell in with one of his Tartar friends, a son of Sartach, who was out upon a hawking expedition, and gave him a guard to protect him from various fierce Mahometan tribes that infested the neighborhood.

Here ended his travels in Tartary proper; but his hardships were far from ended yet. Through Armenia and the territories of Turkish and Koordish princes he journeyed slowly and uncomfortably, in dread of the violence of his own guides and guards, as well as of the insults of the populations whose country he traversed. He says these delays “arose in part from the difficulty of procuring horses, but chiefly because the guide chose to stop, often for three days together, in one place, for his own business; and, though much dissatisfied, I durst not complain, as he might have slain me and those with me, or sold us all for slaves, and there was none to hinder it.”

Journeying across Asia Minor and over Mount Taurus, he took ship at last for Cyprus. Here he learnt that S. Louis, who had been in the Holy Land at the time of his departure, had gone back to France. He would very much have wished to deliver his letters and presents of silk pelisses and furs to the king in person; but this was not granted him. The provincial of his order, whom he met at Cyprus, desired him to write his account and send his gifts to the king; and as in those days there was creeping in among the monks a habit of restless wandering, his superior, who was, it seems, a reformer and strict disciplinarian, tried the obedience and humility of the famous traveller by sending him to his convent at Acre, whence, by the king’s order, he had started. Rubruquis stood the test, but could not forbear imploring the king, by writing, to use his influence with the provincial to allow him a short stay in France and one audience of his royal master. Little is known of the great traveller and pioneer after this; and whether he ever got leave to see the king is doubtful. He fell back into obscurity, and it is presumed that Marco Polo did not even know of his previous travels over the same ground as the Polos explored. No record of his embassy remained but the Latin letter addressed to S. Louis, and even in France his fame was unknown for many centuries. It was not till after the invention of printing that his adventures became fairly known to the literary world, although Roger Bacon, one of his own order, had given a spirited abstract of his travels in one of his works. This, too, was in Latin, and after a time became a sealed book to the vulgar; so that it was not at least till the year 1600 that the old traveller’s name was again known. Hakluyt’s _Collection of Voyages and Travels_ contains an English translation of Rubruquis’ letter, and twenty-five years later Purchas reproduced it _in toto_ from a copy found in a college library at Cambridge. Bergeron, a French priest, put it into French, not from the original, but from Purchas’ English version. Since then Rubruquis has taken his place among the few famous voyagers of olden times; but from the vagueness of his language, the lack of geographical science in his day, and perhaps also the mistakes of careless copyists, it is not easy to trace his course upon the map. One fact, however, he ascertained and insisted upon, which a geographical society, had it existed in his time, would have been glad to register, together with an honorable mention of the discoverer--_i.e._, the nature of the great lake called the Caspian Sea. The old Greeks had correctly called it an _inland_ sea, but an idea had since prevailed that it possessed some communication with the Northern Ocean. Rubruquis proved the contrary, but no attention was paid to his single assertion, and books of geography, compiled at home from ancient maps and MSS., without a reference, however distant, to the _facts_ recorded by adventurous men who had seen foreign shores with their eyes, calmly continued to propagate the old error.

A PARAPHRASE, FROM THE GREEK.

Οὐκ ἔθανες, Πρώτη, κ. τ. λ.--_Greek Anthology._

Protê, thou didst not die, But thou didst fly, When we saw thee no more, to a sunnier clime; In the isles of the blest, In the golden west, Where thy spirit let loose springs joyous and light O’er the verdurous floor, That is strewn evermore With blossoms that fade not, nor droop from their prime. Thou hast made thee a home Where no sorrow shall come, No cloud overshadow thy noon of delight; Cold or heat shall not vex thee, Nor sickness perplex thee, Nor hunger, nor thirst; no touch of regret For the things thou hast cherished, The forms that have perished, For lover or kindred, thy fancy shall fret; But thy joy hath no stain, Thy remembrance no pain, And the heights that we guess at thy sunshine makes plain.

THE LAW OF GOD AND THE REGULATIONS OF SOCIETY.

SUMMARY CONSIDERATIONS ON LAW.

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE COMTE DE BREDA.

“There are laws for the society of ants and of bees; how could any one suppose that there are none for human society, and that it is left to the chance of inventing them?”--_De Bonald._

I.--THE MODERN STATE.

Never before was liberty so much talked about; never before was the very idea of it so utterly lost. Tyrants have been destroyed, it is said. This is a false assertion it may be (or rather, is it not certain?) that it has become more difficult for a sovereign to govern tyrannically, but tyranny is not dead--quite the contrary.

All unlimited power is, of its own nature, tyrannical. Now, it is such a power that the modern state desires to wield. The state is held up to us as the supreme arbiter of good and evil; and, if we believe its defenders, it cannot err, its laws being in every case, and at all times, binding.

People have banished God from the government of human society; but they have made to themselves a new god, despotic and blind, without hearing and without voice, whose power knows how to reach its slaves as well in the temple as in the public places, as well in the palace as in the humblest cot.

What is there, indeed, more divine than not to do wrong? God alone, speaking to the human conscience, either directly or by his representatives, is the infallible judge of good and evil. No human power whatsoever can declare all that emanates from it to be necessarily right without usurping the place of God, and declaring itself the sovereign master of the soul as well as of the body. The last refuge of the slaves of antiquity--the human conscience--would no longer exist for the people of modern times, if it were true that every law is binding from the mere fact of its promulgation. Hence the modern state, but lately so boastful, has begun to waver and to doubt its own powers. It encounters two principal obstacles, as unlike in their form as in their origin.

On one hand it beholds Catholics, sustained by their knowledge of law, its origin and its essence, resisting passively, and preparing themselves to submit to persecutions without even shrinking. On the other it meets, in these our days, the most formidable insurrections. There are multitudes, blind as the state representatives--but excusable, inasmuch as their rebellion is against an authority which owes its sway only to caprice or theory--who reply thus to power: “We are as good as you; you have no right over us other than that of brute force; we will endeavor to oppose you with a strength equal to yours; and when we shall have gained the victory, we will make new laws and new constitutions, wherein all that you call lawful shall be called unlawful, and all that you consider crime shall be deemed virtue.”

If it were true that law could spring only from the human will, these madmen would be reasonable in the extreme. Thus the state is powerless against them. It drags on an uncertain existence, constantly threatened with the most terrible social wars, and enjoying a momentary peace only on condition of never laying down arms. Modern armies are standing ones; the modern police have become veritable armies, and they sleep neither day nor night. At this price do our states exist, trade, grow rich, and become satisfied with themselves.

These constant commotions are not alone the vengeance of the living God disowned and outraged; they are also the inevitable consequence of that extremity of pride and folly which has induced human assemblies to believe that it belongs to them to decide finally between right and wrong.

In truth, “if God is not the author of law, there is no law really binding.” We may, for the love of God, obey existing powers, even though they be illegitimate; but this submission has its limits. It must cease the moment that the human law prescribes anything contrary to the law of God. As for people without faith, we would in vain seek for a motive powerful enough to induce them to submit to anything displeasing to them.

II.--MODERN LIBERTY.

The people of our generation consider themselves more free, more unrestrained, than those who have gone before them. It is not to our generation, however, that the glory accrues of having first thrown off the yoke. Our moderns themselves acknowledge that they have had predecessors, and they agree with us in declaring that “the new spirit” made its appearance in the world about the XVIth century.[46]

In truth, the only yoke which has been cast off since then is that of God, which seemed too heavy. All at once thought pronounced itself freed from the shackles of ecclesiastical authority; but, at the outset, it was far from intended to deny the idea of a divine right superior to all human right.

Despite the historical falsehoods which have found utterance in our day, it was chiefly princes who propagated Protestantism; and, most often, they attained their end only by violence. When successful, they added to their temporal title a religious one; they made themselves bishops or popes, and thus became all the more powerful over their subjects. There was no longer any refuge from the abuse of power of the rulers of this world; for it was the interest of these despots to call themselves the representatives of God. By means of this title they secularized dioceses, convents, the goods of the church, and even the ministers of their new religion. This term was then used to express in polite language an idea of spoliation and of hypocritical and uncurbed tyranny.

The moderns have gone farther: they have attempted to secularize law itself. This time, again, the word hides a thought which, if it were openly expressed, would shock; the law has become atheistical, and not all the opposition which the harshness of this statement has aroused can prevent it from still expressing a truth. The inexorable logic of facts leads directly from the Reformation to the Revolution. Princes themselves sowed the seeds of revolt which will yet despoil them of their power and their thrones; while as for the people, they have gained nothing. They are constantly tyrannized over; but their real masters are unknown, and their only resource against the encroachments or the abuse of power is an appeal to arms.

It is not, then, true that liberty finds greater space in the modern world than in the ancient Christian world. To prove this, I need but a single fact which has direct relation with my subject.

While Europe was still enveloped in “the darkness of the Middle Ages,” Catholic theologians freely taught, from all their chairs, that “an unjust law is no law”--“Lex injusta non est lex.” Now, are there, at the present day, many pulpits from which this principle, the safeguard of all liberty and of all independence, the protector of all rights, and the defence of the helpless, might be proclaimed with impunity? Do we not see the prohibitions, the lawsuits, the _appels comme d’abus_ which the boldness of such a maxim would call forth?

Human governments have changed in form, but their tyranny has not ceased to grow; and the free men of the olden society have become the slaves in a new order of things--they have even reached a point at which they know not even in what liberty consists.

III.--DIVINE ORIGIN OF LAW.

I know, and I hear beforehand, the response which the doctors of modern rights will here give me “Yes,” say they, “it is very true that the Catholic Church has always claimed the right of judging laws and of refusing obedience to such as displeased her; but in this is precisely the worst abuse. That which would domineer over human reason, the sovereign of the world, is tyranny _par excellence_; this, in truth, is the special mark of Catholicity, and it is this which has ever made it the religion of the ignorant and the cowardly.”

Is, then, the maxim I have just recalled the invention of Catholic theologians? Is it true that the teachers of the ultramontane doctrine alone have contended that the intrinsic worth of a law must be sought beyond and above them, beyond and above the human power which proclaims it? Not only has this elementary principle not been devised by our theologians, but even the pagan philosophers themselves had reached it. Cicero but summed up the teaching universally received by philosophers worthy of the name, when he said that the science of law should not be sought in the edicts of the pretor, nor even in the laws of the twelve tables; and that the most profound philosophy alone could aid in judging laws and teaching us their value.[47]

This is not to degrade reason, which this same Cicero has defined, or rather described, in admirable language. He found therein something grand, something sublime; he declared that it is more fit to command than to obey; that it values little what is merely human; that it is gifted with a peculiar elevation which nothing daunts, which yields to no one, and which is unconquerable.[48]

But remark, it is only with regard to human powers and allurements that reason shows itself so exalted and haughty. It requires something greater than man to make it submit; and it _obeys_ only God or his delegates. “Stranger,” said Plato to Clinias the Cretan, “whom do you consider the first author of your laws? _Is it a god? Is it a man?_”

“Stranger,” replied Clinias, “it is a god; we could not rightly accord this title to any other.”[49]

So, also, tradition tells us that Minos went, every ninth day, to consult Jupiter, his father, whose replies he committed to writing. Lycurgus wished to have his laws confirmed by the Delphian Apollo, and this god replied that he would dictate them himself. At Rome the nymph Egeria played the same _rôle_ with Numa. Everywhere is felt the necessity of seeking above man the title in virtue of which he may command his fellow-men.

If we turn now from the fabulous traditions of the ancient world, we still find an absolute truth proclaimed by its sages; one that affirms the existence of an eternal law--_quiddam æternum_--which was called the natural law, and which serves as a criterion whereby to judge the worth of the laws promulgated by man.

Cicero declares it absurd to consider right everything set down in the constitutions or the laws.[50] And he is careful to add that neither is public opinion any more competent to determine the right.[51]

The sovereign law, therefore--that which no human law may violate without the penalty of becoming void--has God himself for its author.

The laws of states may be unjust and abominable, and, by consequence, bind no one. There is, on the other hand, a natural law, the source and measure of other laws, originating before all ages, before any law had been written or any city built.[52]

This doctrine, to support which I have designedly cited only pagan authors, is also that of Catholic theologians; for example, S. Thomas and Suarez. But the philosophical school of the last century has so perverted the meaning of the term _nature--law of nature_, that certain Catholic authors (M. de Bonald, for instance) have scrupled to use the consecrated term. It is necessary, then, to explain its true sense.

IV.--NATURAL LAW ACCORDING TO PAGAN PHILOSOPHERS.

The nature of a being is that which constitutes its fitness to attain its end. The idea, therefore, which a person has of the nature of man, by consequence determines that which he will have of his end, and hence of the rule which should govern his actions.

The materialists, for example, who deny the immortality of the soul, and whose horizon is bounded by the limits of the present life, are able to teach only a purely epicurean or utilitarian morality. They cannot consistently plead a motive higher than an immediate, or at least a proximate, well-being; for, what is more uncertain than the duration of our life? In the strikingly anti-philosophic language of the XVIIIth century, _the state of nature_ was a hypothetical state, at once innocent and barbarous, anterior to all society. It is to society that this theory attributes the disorders of man and the loss of certain primitive and inalienable rights which the sect of pseudo-philosophers boasted of having regained, and by the conquest whereof the corrupted and doting France of 1789 was prostrated.

The philosophers of antiquity, on the contrary, notwithstanding their numerous errors, and despite the polytheism which they exteriorly professed, had arrived at so profound a knowledge of man and his nature that the fathers and doctors of the church have often spoken of the discoveries of their intellect as a kind of _natural revelation_ made to them by God.[53]

We have already heard Cicero say that the natural law is eternal, and superior to all human laws. I shall continue to quote him, because of his clearness, and because he admirably sums up the teaching of the philosophers who preceded him.[54]

The sound philosophy which should guide us--according to him, the science of law--teaches us that it is far more sublime to submit to the divine mind, to the all-powerful God, than to the emperors and mighty ones of this earth; for it is a kind of partnership between God and man. Right reason (_ratio recta_) is the same for the one and the other; and law being nothing else than right reason, it may be said that one same law links us with the gods. Now, the common law is also the common right, and when people have a common right they belong, in some manner, to the same country. We must, then, consider this world as a country common to the gods and to men. Man is, in truth, like to God. And for what end has God created and gifted man like to himself? That he may arrive at justice.

Human society is bound by one same right, and law is the same for all. This law is the just motive (the right reason, _ratio recta_) of all precepts and prohibitions; he who is ignorant of it, whether written or not, knows not justice. If uprightness consisted in submission to the written laws and constitutions of nations, and if, as some pretend, utility could be the measure of good, he who expected to profit thereby would be justified in neglecting or violating the laws.

This remark is peculiarly applicable to the present time. It is precisely utility and the increase of wealth or of comforts--in a word, material interests--which the greater number of modern legislators have had chiefly in view; the result is that society scarcely has the right to feel indignant against those who may deem it to their advantage to disturb it. Religion, say they, has nothing in common with politics; the state, inasmuch as it is a state, need not trouble itself about God; the things of this world should be regulated with regard to this world, and without reference to the supernatural. Suppose it so; but then, in virtue of what authority will you impose your laws? There is no human power able to bend or to conquer one human will which does not acknowledge it.[55]

The basis of right is the natural love of our fellow-beings which nature has planted within us. Nature also commands us to honor God. It is not fear which renders worship necessary; it is the bond which exists between God and man. If popular or royal decrees could determine right, a whim of the multitude might render lawful theft, adultery, or forgery. If it be true that a proclamation dictated by fools can change the order of nature, why may not evil become, one day, good? But the sages teach that the human mind did not invent law; it has its birth-place in the bosom of God, and is co-eternal with him; it is nothing else than the unerring reason of Jupiter himself; it is reflected in the mind of the wise man; it can never be repealed.

This “right reason which comes to us from the gods” (_recta et a numine deorum tracta ratio_) is what is usually termed the _natural_ law; and the beautiful language of Cicero recalls this magnificent verse of the IVth Psalm: “Quis ostendit nobis bona? Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine.”

V.--INFLUENCE OF PANTHEISM ON MODERN LAW.

Pagan teaching, how elevated soever it may be, is always incomplete; and this is evident even from the words of Cicero.

Since law comes from God, it is very clear that it will be known more or less correctly according as our idea of God is more or less correct. This it is that gives so great a superiority, first, to the law of Moses, before the coming of Jesus Christ, and to all Christian legislation since.

The Jews had not merely a vague knowledge of the precepts of the divine law. This law, in its principal provisions, had been directly revealed to them. Christians have something better still, since the Eternal Word was made man, and the Word is precisely “the true light which enlighteneth every man coming into this world.”[56] The philosophers of antiquity saw this light from afar off; we have _beheld_ that of which they merely affirmed the existence; the Jews contemplated it as through a veil, and awaited its coming. IT was made flesh; it brought us life; “it shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.”[57]

It is not the fault of the Word or of his manifestation, says S. Thomas on this subject, if there are minds who see not this light. There is here, not darkness, but closed eyes.[58]

It is God himself, therefore, whom man refuses to acknowledge when he rejects the fundamental law, which alone deserves the name of law. Human pride and insolence go beyond forgetfulness or simple negation when they have the audacity to put a human law in the place of and above the divine law; which last crime is nothing less than the deification of man. This philosophic consequence of the secularization of the law was inevitable, and is openly displayed in modern doctrines. Atheists, properly so called, are rare; but the present generation is infected with Pantheism. Now, Pantheism proclaims, without disguise and without shame, the divinity of man.

Let us add that this error is the only foundation upon which man may logically rest to defend modern rights. It produces, with regard to constitutions and laws, two principal effects, which it suffices but to indicate, that every honest mind may at once recognize their existence and their lamentable consequences.

Pantheism, firstly, destroys individualities, or, as the Germans call them, _subjectivities_; it sweeps them away, and causes them to disappear in the Great Whole. Do we not likewise see personality, simple or associated--that is to say, individual liberty, associations, and corporations--little by little reduced to annihilation by the modern idea of the state? Does not modern theory make also of the state another grand whole, beside which nothing private can exist?

To reach this result, they represent the state as expressing the aggregate of all the particular wills, and they seek, in a pretended “general will,” the supreme and infallible source of law. But even were this will as general as theory desires, it would not be the less human, or, by consequence, the less subject to error. Whence comes it, then, that they make it the sovereign arbiter of good and evil, of truth and falsehood, of justice and injustice? The Pantheists reply that “God is in man and in the world; that he is one and the same thing with the world; that he is identical with the nature of things, and consequently subject to change.” The general will, the expression of the universal conscience, is then a manifestation of the divine will; and this would allow it to change without ever erring.

This answers all, in truth; but it may lead us too far. If, as says Hegel, God is subjective--that is to say, if He is in man, or, more exactly still, if He is man himself and the substance of nature--neither right, nor law, nor justice could remain objective. In other words, if man is God, there is no longer any possible distinction between good and evil. And this conclusion has been drawn by the learned German socialist, Lassalle. He denies the notion of an immutable right; he is unwilling that we should any longer speak of the family, property, justice, etc., in absolute terms. According to him, these are but abstract and unreal generalities. There have been, on all these subjects, Greek, Roman, German, etc., ideas; but these are only historical recollections. Ideas change, some even disappear; and if, some day, the universal conscience should decide that the idea of proprietorship has had its day, then would commence a new era in history, during which there could be no longer either property or proprietors without incurring the guilt of injustice.[59] From the stand-point of Pantheism, this reasoning is irrefutable; and, on the other hand, we have just seen that Pantheism alone could justify the modern theory of the general will, the supreme arbiter of law.

VI.--HAS THE GENERAL WILL RULED SINCE 1789?

I have just quoted a socialist whose works, though little known in France, are of extreme importance. Ferdinand Lassalle, a Jew by birth, by nationality a Prussian, is possessed of extensive knowledge, critical genius of the highest order, and unsparing logic. We have seen him draw the theoretical consequences of Pantheism applied to law; and it will not be without interest to know how he judges the practical results of the modern theory of rights, as shown in the French Revolution. The socialists have a special authority for speaking of “immortal principles”; for they admit them without hesitation, and their teaching proved that they comprehend them wonderfully.

The _Declaration of the Rights of Man_ is the most authentic summing up of these famous principles; and it is therein that the modern theory of law will be found most clearly stated. “Law,” says Art. 6, “is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has the right of co-operating in its formation, either personally or by his representatives.”

It would seem, from this solemn proclamation, that since then, or at least in the first fervor of this “glorious” revolution, the majority of the “sovereign people” should have been called to “form the laws.” This has been said; it has even been supported at the mouth of the cannon--for, as has been wittily remarked by M. de Maistre, “the masters of these poor people have had recourse even to artillery while deriding them. They said to them: ‘You think you do not will this law; but, be assured, you do will it. If you dare to refuse it, we will pour upon you a shower of shot, to punish you for not willing what you do will.’ And it was done.”[60]

What then took place, and how did it happen that the general will, which had undertaken to make fundamental and irrevocable laws, should have accepted, in the first five years of its freedom, three different constitutions and a _régime_ like that of the Reign of Terror?

Lassalle replies that it is not at all the people who made the revolution, and that the general will was not even asked to manifest itself. He recalls the famous pamphlet of Sieyès, and corrects its title. It is not true, says he, that the _Tiers État_ was then nothing; the increase of personal property has, since then, brought about a _révolution économique_, thanks to which the _tiers état_ was, in truth, all. But legally it was nothing, which was not much to its liking; for the former ranks of society still existed by right, although their real strength was not in keeping with their legal condition. The work of the French Revolution was, therefore, to give to the _tiers état_ a legal position suitable to its actual importance.

Now, the _tiers_, first and foremost, assumed itself to be the equivalent of the entire people. “It considered that its cause was the cause of humanity.” Thus the attraction was real and powerful. The voices raised to protest were unable to make themselves heard. Our author cites, on this subject, a curious instance of clear-sightedness. An anti-revolutionary journal, _The Friend of the King_, exclaimed, “Who shall say whether or not the despotism of the _bourgeoisie_ shall not succeed the pretended aristocracy of the nobility?”

It is this, indeed, which has come to pass, continues Lassalle; the _tiers état_ has become, in its turn, the privileged class. The proof is that the wealth of the citizen became immediately the legal condition of power in the state.

Since 1791, in the constitution of Sept. 3 we find (chap. i., sects. 1 and 2) a distinction established between active citizens and passive citizens. The former are those who pay a certain quota of direct contribution; and they alone possess the right of voting. Moreover, all hired laborers were declared not active; and this excluded workmen from the right of voting. It matters little that the tax was small; the principle was laid down requiring some amount of fortune in order to exercise a political right. “The wealth of the citizen had become the condition necessary for obtaining power in the state, as nobility or landed property had been in the Middle Ages.”

The principle of the vote-tax held sway until the recent introduction of universal suffrage.

Our socialist, proceeding directly to the question of taxes, proves that the _bourgeoisie moderne_, without inventing indirect taxation, has nevertheless made it the basis of an entire system, and has settled upon it all the expenses of state. Now, indirect taxes are such as are levied beforehand upon all necessaries, as salt, corn, beer, meat, fuel, or, still more, upon what we need for our protection--the expenses of the administration of justice, stamped paper, etc. Generally, in making a purchase, the buyer pays the tax, without perceiving that it is that which increases the price. Now, it is clear that because an individual is twenty, fifty, or a hundred times richer, it does not follow that he will, on that account, consume twenty, fifty, or a hundred times more salt, bread, meat, etc., than a workman or a person of humble condition. Thus it happens that the great body of indirect taxes is paid by the poorest classes (from the single fact that they are the most numerous). Thus is it brought about, in a hidden way, that the _tiers état_ pay relatively less taxes than the _quatrième état_.

Concerning the instruction of adults, Lassalle says that, instead of being left to the clergy as heretofore, it now in fact belongs to the daily press. But securities, stamps, and advertisements give to journalism another privilege of capital.[61]

This sketch suffices; and I deem it needless to add that I am far from concluding with the socialists. I am so much the more free to disagree with them as I do not by any means admit the “immortal principles,” but it seems to me to follow evidently from the preceding observations that it is not true, in fact, that the general will has made the laws since 1789.

VII.--DOES UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE EXPRESS THE GENERAL WILL?

Has the introduction of universal suffrage modified, in any great degree, this state of things? Is it any more certain since 1848, than before, that the nation is governed by the general will? We may content ourselves here by appealing to the testimony of honest men. If the general will were truly the master of all the powers in France, our country, which to-day, so it is said, has only the government that it desires, would be a model of union and concord; there could be in the opposition party only an exceedingly small minority (otherwise the term general would be unjustifiable), and we would follow peacefully the ways most pleasing to us.

This would not be saying--mark it well!--that those ways are good. That is another question, to which we will return; but now we are dealing with the question, Are our laws to-day formed or not formed by the general will, according to the formula which I have quoted from the _Declaration of the Rights of Man_?

Notwithstanding the evidence for the negative, I think it well here to analyze hastily that which M. Taine has just given in a little pamphlet containing many truths.[62] M. Taine, being a free-thinker and a man of the times, cannot be suspected of taking an ultramontane or clerical view of the case.

M. Taine is far from demanding the abolition of universal suffrage. He believes it in conformity with justice; for he does not admit that his money can be demanded or he himself sent to the frontier without his own consent, either expressed or tacit. His only wish is that the right of suffrage be not illusory, and that the electoral law be adapted “to the French of 1791, to the peasant, the workman, etc.,” be he “stupid, ignorant, or ill-informed.” From this M. Taine proves at the outset that the ballot-roll is a humbug; and I believe that no person of sense will contest the point. He immediately enters upon a statistical examination of the composition of the elective world in France; and he arrives at the following result: “Of twenty voters, ten are peasants, four workmen, three demi-bourgeois, three educated men, comfortable or rich. Now, the electoral law, as all law, should have regard to the majority, to the first fourteen.” It behooves us, then, to know who these fourteen are who are called to frame the law; that is to say, to decide, by their representatives it is true, but sovereignly, on good and evil, justice and injustice, and, necessarily, the fate of the country.

M. Taine, in this connection, makes some new calculations which may be thus summed up: The rural population embraces seventy out of one hundred of the entire population, hence fourteen voters out of twenty. Now, in France, there are thirty-nine illiterate out of every hundred males, almost all belonging to the classes which M. Taine numbers among the rural population; which enables him to find that seven out of every fourteen rural voters cannot even read. I may observe, in passing, that a peasant who cannot read, but who knows his catechism, may be of a much sounder morality than M. Taine himself; but I willingly proclaim that the seven electors in question could and should have a mediocre political intelligence.

This agreeable writer recounts, in a spicy way, a number of anecdotes which prove “the ignorance and credulity” of the rural populations on similar matters; and he thence concludes that the peasants “are still subjects, but under a nameless master.” This is precisely what I said at the beginning, not only of peasants, but of all modern people in general. Be there a king on the throne or not, somebody decrees this, somebody decrees that; and the subject depends, in a hundred ways, on this abstract and undetermined somebody--“Through the collector, through the mayor, through the sub-inspector of forests, through the commissary of police, through the field-keeper, through the clerks of justice, for making a door, for felling a tree, building a shed, opening a stall, transporting a cask of wine, etc., etc.”

All this expresses well and depicts admirably the ways of modern liberty; and I cannot refrain from citing this last sketch, equally amusing and true: “The mayor knows that in town, in an elegant apartment, is a worthy gentleman, attired in broidered gown, who receives him two or three times a year, speaks to him with authority and condescension, and often puts to him embarrassing questions. But when this gentleman goes away, another takes his place quite similar and in the same garb, and the mayor, on his return home, says with satisfaction: ‘Monsieur the prefect always preserves his good will towards me, although he has been changed many times.’”

The _plébiscite_, the appeal to the people, the invitation to vote on the form of government, addressed to this kind of electors--is it not all a cunning trick? M. Taine thinks so, and many others with him; but he supposes that this same elector will be, at least, capable of “choosing the particular man in whom he has most confidence.” It is with him, says he, in the choice of one who shall make the laws, as in the choice of the physician or the lawyer whom one may prefer. Although it is not my intention to discuss here the opinions of this author, I beg him to remark that his comparison is strikingly faulty; we cannot choose whom we please for our physician or for our lawyer. The former is obliged to go through a course of studies in order to merit his diploma; the latter must fulfil the conditions necessary to be admitted to the bar. To frame the laws is another thing; not the slightest preparation is exacted from those eligible to this duty. Apparently it is not considered worth the trouble.

The ballot-roll and _plébiscite_ being disposed of, M. Taine returns to figures, to study what transpires when the electors are called upon to choose a deputy by district. This gives, says he, one deputy for twenty thousand voters spread over a surface of one thousand kilometres square, etc. Of the twenty thousand voters, how many will have a definite opinion of the candidate presented to them? Scarcely one in ten beyond the outskirts of the town; scarcely one in four or five in the whole district. There remains the resource of advice; but “the spirit of equality is all-powerful, and the hierarchy is wanting.”

We touch here the most sorrowful wound of our social state; and this term even, is it not misapplied?--for we have no longer any order, or, by consequence, any social state. “As a general rule,” continues M. Taine, “the country people receive counsel only from their equals.” Therefore it is easy to employ evil means. These evil means may be summed up, according to the same author, in the abuse of governmental influence, and in a corruption whose form varies, but which makes the affair of an election an affair of money.

There should be, and I have alluded to it in passing, many exceptions made with regard to what M. Taine says concerning the rural population. He believes them manifestly less able to vote than the city populations, while I am of quite the contrary opinion; but it still remains true that direct universal suffrage, such as we have, does not allow a person to choose from a knowledge of the case, and that, in reality, the general will has not, up to the present day, been able to find its true expression.

This is all that I need prove for the present.

VIII.--IS THE GENERAL WILL COMPETENT TO MAKE LAWS?

This is a still higher question, and one which we must now approach. Admitting that the general will could make itself known, is it an authority competent to make laws?

But before starting let us lay down a first principle which, quite elementary as it is, seems to be as much forgotten as the others: if the natural law exist not anteriorly to enjoin respect for human laws, human power would have no other ground of existence, no other support than force. Without a divine lawgiver, there is, in truth, no moral obligation.[63] The hypothesis of a previous agreement among the members of society would not resolve the difficulty; for an agreement would not be able to bind any one, at least if there were no higher authority to secure it.[64]

Whatever may be the immediate origin of law--be it promulgated by a sovereign, enacted by an assembly, or directly willed by the multitude--it would still be unable to rule, if we do not suppose a law anterior and, as Cicero says, eternal, which, in the first place, prescribes obedience to subjects, and, in the second, fidelity to reciprocal engagements, promises, and oaths. This superior law being the natural law, it is always, and in every case, impossible to suppress or to elude it.

Meanwhile, what is understood by the general will? Is it the unanimity of wills? No one, so far as I know, has ever exacted this condition. The question is, then, taking things at their best, of the will of the majority. People grant this, and often give to our modern governments the name of governments of the majority. They deduce then from this principle, that in a population of thirty millions of men, for example, it is lawful that the will of the twenty millions should rule over that of the remaining ten millions. If the constitution of a kingdom, says Burke, is an arithmetical problem, the calculation is just; but if the minority refuse to submit, the majority will be able to govern only by the aid of _la lanterne_.[65]

Scaffolds, shootings, exile, prison--such are, in truth, the institutions which have chiefly flourished since the famous _Declaration of the Rights of Man_.

In the eyes of a man who knows how to reason, continues the English orator, this opinion is ridiculous.

It could not be justified, unless it were well proved that the majority of men are enlightened, virtuous, wise, self-sacrificing, and incapable of preferring their own interest to that of others. No one has ever dared to say that legislators should make laws for the sake of making them, and without troubling themselves concerning the welfare of those for whom the laws are made. Now, the laws being made for all, the majority, if it had the qualities necessary for legislating, should concern itself still more about the minority than about itself.

The Comte de la Marck[66] relates that when Mirabeau became too much excited concerning the rights and privileges of man, it happened sometimes that he amused himself by curtailing his accounts. He cut off first women, children, the ignorant, the vicious, etc. Once, the nation being thus reduced to the little portion whose moral qualities it became necessary to estimate, “I began,” says he, “to deduct those who lack reason, those who have false notions, those who value their own interests above everything, those who lack education and knowledge matured by reflection; and I then asked him if the men who merit to be spoken of with dignity and respect would not find themselves reduced to a number infinitely small. Now, according to my principle, I maintained that the government should act _for_ the people, and not _by_ them--that is to say, not by the opinion of the multitude; and I proved, by historical extracts and by examples which we had unfortunately under our eyes, that reason and good sense fly from men in proportion as they are gathered together in greater numbers.”

Mirabeau contented himself with replying that one must flatter the people in order to govern them, which amounts to saying that one must cheat them.

For the rest, this same Mirabeau acknowledged that equality, in the revolutionary sense, is absurd, and the passion which some have for it he called a violent paroxysm. It is he who best characterized the true result of the destruction of all social order. He called it “vanity’s upsetting.” He could not have spoken better; and the vanity which goes so low could have no other result than that which we behold--the premeditated absence or suppression of all true superiority.

This episode on equality is not a digression, for the system of majorities supposes it. Now, it is absolutely anti-natural. According to the beautiful idea of Aristotle:[67] there is in man himself a soul and a body; the one predominating and made to command, the other to obey; the equality or the shifting of power between these two elements would be equally fatal to them. It is the same between man and the other animals, between tame animals and wild. The harmony of sex is analogous, and we even find some traces of this principle in inanimate objects; as, for example, in the harmony of sounds. Therefore S. Augustine defines order thus: “Such a disposition of things similar and dissimilar as shall give to each what is proper to it”--_Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique tribuens dispositio_;[68] and S. Thomas hence concludes that order supposes inequality: _Nomen ordinis inæqualitatem importat_.[69]

But the “immortal principles” have changed all that, according to Sganarelle; so their work, in its final analysis, results in a disorder without name.

The external disorder is visible and pretty generally acknowledged; but the moral disorder passes unperceived. By means of equality on the one hand, and of the secularization of the law on the other, they arrive at this frightful result: for example, that regicide and parricide are, in justice, but ordinary crimes; if, moreover, regicide profits the people, it is worthy of eulogy. Sacrilege is nothing more than a superstitious fiction. In fine, _respect_ being no longer possible nor even reasonable, according to the prediction of Burke,[70] “the laws have no other guardian than terror, … and in perspective, from our point of view, we see but scaffolds,” or courts-martial, which amount to the same thing.

IX.--CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECULARIZATION OF LAW.

How often do we not hear it said that almost all our misfortunes, and, above all, our inability to repair our losses, come from the little respect we have for the law! This statement, which has become almost trite, indicates most frequently a strange wandering. After having destroyed respect for persons, is it not absurd to claim it for their works? But they have done more: they have denied the mission of a legislator. The secularization of the law--that is to say, the denial of a divine sanction applied to law--has no other meaning. Legislators being no longer the mandataries of God, or not wishing to be such, now speak only in virtue of their own lights, and have no real commission. By what title, then, would you have us respect them? Every one is at liberty to prefer his own lights and to believe that he would have done better.

I hear the reply: “It is to the interest of all that order should reign, were it but materially, and the law is the principal means of maintaining order.” You may hence conclude that it would be more advantageous to see the laws obeyed; but a motive of interest is not a motive of respect, and there is a certain class of individuals who may gain by the disorder. No, you will have the right to claim respect for the law only when you shall have rendered the law truly respectable; and to do this you must prove that you have the mission to make the law, even were you the _élite_ of our statesmen and doctors of the law, and much more if you are but a collection of the most uncultivated tax-payers in the world.

Knowledge is something; it is something also to represent real and considerable interests; and I do not deny the relative importance of the elements of which legislative bodies are composed. But nothing of all this can supply the place of a commission; and you will have that only when you shall have consented, as legislators, to acknowledge the existence of God, to submit yourselves to his laws, and to conform your own thereto.

People have but a very inadequate idea of the disastrous consequences which, one day or other, may ensue from the secularization of law. Until now the only danger of which they have dreamed is that with which extreme revolution menaces us.

This is a danger so imminent, so undisguised, that every one sees it; and some have ended by understanding that without a return to God society is destined to fall. Nay, more, the Assembly now sitting at Versailles has made an act of faith by ordering public prayers; and this first step has caused hope to revive in the hearts of men of good-will. But it is not, perhaps, inopportune to draw the attention of serious men to another phase of the question.

What would happen if modern law should go so far as to enjoin a crime upon Christians? The hypothesis is not purely imaginary; and although, happily, thanks to Heaven, it has not yet come to pass, there is a whole party which threatens to reach this extreme. In other countries there has been something like a beginning of its realization. I would like to speak of the school law and the avowed project of imposing a compulsory and lay education. We know what is meant by _lay_ in such a case; and experience proves that the state schools are often entrusted to men whose avowed intention is to bring up the children in infidelity. What would happen if such a law were passed, which supposes that everywhere, at the same time, parents would be compelled to put their children in imminent danger of losing their faith? The Catholic Church is very explicit in her doctrine on the obligation of obeying even a bad government; she orders that useless, unjust, and even culpable laws be borne with, so long as this can be done without exposing one’s self to commit a sin. Neither plunder nor the danger of death excuses revolt in her eyes. But in this case do we understand to what we would be reduced? To resist passively, and to allow one’s self to be punished by fines, by prison, by torture, or by death, would not remedy the evil; the soul of the child remains without defence, and the father is responsible for it. This kind of persecution is, then, more serious in its consequences, and may lead to deeper troubles, than even the direct persecution, which might consist, for example, in exacting apostasy from adults. In this last case the martyr bears all, and the first Christians have shown us the way; but here the torments of the parents cannot save the children, and the parents cannot abandon them; whatever becomes of the body, the soul must be guarded until death.

It belongs not to me to decide; for in this case, as in all those of a similar kind, the line of conduct to be followed ought to be traced by the only competent authority; but the problem is worth proposing, and by it alone it is already easy to throw great light on the abysses to which the atheism of the law is leading the people by rapid strides.

X.--CHRISTIAN DEFINITION OF NATURAL LAW.

It remains to explain in a few words the great principles which should form the basis of law, and which were never completely ignored until these days of aberration and wretchedness. I could not expect to give here, in these few pages, a course of natural law, nor even to trace its outline; but there are some perfectly incontestable truths which it is very necessary to recall since people have forgotten them. When one has no personal authority, he feels a certain timidity in broaching so grave a subject, and in speaking of it as if he aspired to enlighten his kind; and meanwhile error is insinuated, preached, disseminated, commanded, with a skill so infernal and a success so great that ignorance of truth is almost unbounded. Of such elementary rules we often find influential persons, and sometimes persons of real merit, totally ignorant. In other days they would have known them on leaving school, or even from their catechism.

Let us go back, then, to the definition of the word nature, and it will serve as a starting-point from which to treat of what the laws destined to govern man should be.

The nature of a being is that which renders it capable of attaining its end. This is true of a plant or an animal as well as of man; but there are two kinds of ends subordinate one to the other. The end for which God created the world could be no other than God himself.[71] The Creator could only propose to himself an end worthy of himself, and, he alone being perfect, he could not find outside himself an end proportioned to his greatness. God is, then, the last end of all creatures. But there are particular ends; and it is in their subordination that the order of the world consists. The primary ends are, in a certain sense, but a means for arriving at the last end.

But God being unable to add anything to his infinite perfection, the end which he proposed to himself could not be to render himself more perfect; hence he could seek only an exterior glory, which consists in manifesting himself to his creatures. For this it was necessary that some of these creatures should be capable of knowing him. These reasonable creatures are superior to the others and are their primary end; therefore it is that theologians call man a microcosm, a compendium of the universe, and king of the world.

Man is placed in creation to admire it, and by means of it to render homage to God; for, in his quality of a creature gifted with reason, he knows his end, which is God, and the essential characteristic of his nature is the ability to attain this end. He is, moreover, endowed with an admirable prerogative--liberty, or free-will; that is to say, he is called on to will this end; and God, in his infinite bounty, will recompense him for having willed his own good. But man has need of an effort to will good; for his primitive nature has been corrupted by the original fall. He has, therefore, an inclination to evil, against which he must incessantly struggle; and the greatest number of political and social errors have their source in ignorance or forgetfulness of this perversion of human nature.

This granted, the natural law comprises the obligations imposed on man in order that he may reach his end, together with the prohibition of all that could turn him away from it. This law obliges all men, even those who have no knowledge of the positive divine law--that is to say, the revealed law.

Behold how Gerson has defined it:

“The natural law is a sign imprinted upon the heart of every man enjoying the right use of reason, and which makes known to him the divine will, in virtue of which the human creature is required to do certain things and to avoid certain others, in order to reach his end.” Among the precepts which God has engraved upon the hearts of all men is found, in the first rank, that which obliges them to refer themselves to God as to their last end.

From this it follows that every law which tends to hinder or prevent the progress of men toward God is a law against nature, and consequently null (_lex injusta non est lex_); for no human law can change or abrogate the natural law.

XI.--CONTINUATION: THE END OF SOCIETY ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL LAW.

The considerations of the preceding chapter have reference to man considered abstractly from society. But man cannot exist alone. For life and subsistence, during his early childhood, he has need of his kind; so that, from the first moment of his existence, he forms part of a domestic society--the family.

The family being certainly of divine institution, and the duties which it imposes being of the number of those which the natural law commands, we find therein the first elements of all society: authority, hierarchy, consequently inequality, mutual love, and protection--in a word, varied and reciprocal duties. But the family suffices not for man’s social cravings. Man naturally longs after his like; he possesses the marvellous gift of speech for communication with his fellows; he bears engraven on his heart the first precept of his duty towards them: “Do unto others that which you would have others do unto you; and do not unto them that which you would not that they do to you.” The existence of society is, therefore, still a law of nature.

Once formed, society itself has its duties; it has its proper end, which not only should not be opposed to the end of man considered singly, but should moreover contribute to facilitate the attainment of that end. The end of man being God, and this end being attainable only by virtue, the principal end of society will necessarily be to aid men in the practice of virtue; and, that I may not be accused of depending exclusively on theology, I will adduce what Aristotle has said on this subject: “The most perfect state is evidently that in which each citizen, whoever he may be, may, by favor of the laws, best practise virtue and be most secure of happiness.”[72] And what is happiness, according to Aristotle? “We consider it a point perfectly established that happiness is always in proportion to wisdom; … [for] the soul, speaking absolutely and even relatively to us, is more precious than wealth and the body.… Following the laws of nature, all exterior goods are desirable only insomuch as they serve the soul, and wise men should not desire them except for this end; whereas the soul should never be placed in comparison with them.”[73]

We are assuredly far off from this pagan, and he goes still further even than the foregoing; for he lays down as incontestable a principle which is the formal condemnation of the secularization of the law. “The elements of happiness,” says he, “are the same for the individual and for the city.”[74] We have just seen what he understands by happiness; but he adds, in order that he may be the better comprehended, that if the felicity of the individual consisted in wealth, it would be the same for the city. According to Aristotle, therefore, the moral law obliges society as it does the individual. Now, it is precisely this which the partisans of atheistical or merely secular law deny.

XII.--CHRISTIAN LAW.

I have designedly quoted the ancient philosophers, because certain diseased minds who shrink from the authority of the sacred books accept more willingly that of the learned; but I believe that from what precedes one could easily infer the true rule of the relations between church and state. I will not undertake it now; nevertheless, as I address myself, by preference, to those who profess the same faith as myself, I will take the liberty to point out to them some inevitable corollaries of the principles I have just recalled.

The natural law, properly so called, has been confirmed and completed by revelation. Although the precepts whose observance is indispensable to man to reach his end are engraven in the depths of his heart, the blindness and the evil propensities which are the consequences of his fall render him but too forgetful of his duties. Besides, God, having resolved to save man, chose to himself a privileged people, that from it he might cause the Messias to be born; and for the accomplishment of his merciful designs he guided this people and made it the guardian of his law, even to the day on which the promises were fulfilled.

To this end God charged Moses with the promulgation of a positive divine law which contained moral precepts--precepts relating to the ceremonies of the ancient worship--and political precepts; that is to say, precepts relating to the civil government of the Jewish people. The last two classes of precepts no longer oblige; but those which concern morals--that is to say, those of the Decalogue--retain all their force, because they are the precepts of the natural law.

But it is no longer by virtue of the promulgation of Moses that we are bound by the moral obligations contained in the old law. He who is our Judge, our Legislator, our King,[75] has come himself to give us a more perfect law: “Mandatum novum do vobis” (Joan. 13). According to the expression of Suarez, Jesus Christ has made known more perfectly the natural law in completing it by new precepts. Jesus Christ has done still more: he has founded a new kingdom--the church, the mystical body, of which he is the head. He has, therefore, appointed interpreters and guardians of his law, who have the mission to proclaim it to those who know it not; to pardon in his name those who, having violated it, confess and repent; and, finally, to distribute the numberless succors of divine grace--all which have for their object to help us to observe the law as perfectly as possible, and consequently to enable us ourselves to approach perfection. The new precepts added by Christ to those of the natural law are those which enjoin upon us the use of the sacraments and which determine their form; these articles of the new law--if we may be allowed so to term them--are all as obligatory as those of the natural law, because they have God himself for their author. Behold how S. Thomas sums up the whole of the new law, or the law of grace, which Christ came to bring us: “It comprises,” says he, “the precepts of the natural law, the articles of faith, and the sacraments of grace.”

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Christian law is that it was not written. Jesus Christ _spoke_ his commandments, and, _his word being divine_, it engraved them upon the hearts of his apostles and disciples;[76] but the Incarnate Word had nothing written during the time he spent upon earth. The first Gospel appeared at least eight years after the death of Jesus Christ. If to this observation we add the common belief of theologians, according to which it was only from the coming of the Holy Ghost--that is to say, from the day of Pentecost and after the Ascension--that the law of Christ became obligatory, we arrive at this conclusion: that the means of oral teaching was expressly chosen by the Word for the transmission of his law and his will.

Nothing throws greater light upon the sovereign importance of the church and its hierarchy; nothing manifests better the extreme necessity of a permanent infallibility residing somewhere in the mystical body of Christ. The Council of the Vatican, conformably to the tradition of all Christian ages, has _defined_ that “the Roman Pontiff enjoys the plenitude of that infallibility with which it was necessary for the church to be provided in defining doctrine touching faith or morals.”

These last words show that the Pope is the unfailing interpreter of the natural law, and the judge, from whom there is no appeal of its violations.

The decisions given by the Sovereign Pontiff upon human laws are not recognized at the present day by the powers of the earth. But neither is God recognized; and thus it is that, little by little violence has overrun the world and law has vanished. Europe is returning to a worse than primitive barbarism; and Catholics are no longer alone in saying it.

At the epoch at which the bishops were gathered together at Rome for the last council, a publicist of great merit, an Englishman and a Protestant, speaking in the name of his co-religionists, addressed an appeal to the Pope entreating him to labor for the re-establishment of the rights of the people.

The rights of the people, or the law of nature, said Mr. Urquhart, is the Ten Commandments applied to society. After having cited Lord Mansfield, who says that this right “is considered to form part of the English law,” and that “_the acts_ of the government cannot alter it,” Mr. Urquhart fears not to add “that it is against their governments that nations should protect this right.” And why did this Protestant appeal to Rome? Because, in sight of the unjust wars which ravage Europe, he hoped that the Ecumenical Council “would lay down a rule enabling Catholics to distinguish the just from the unjust; so that the Pope might afterwards exercise juridical power over communities, nations, and their sovereigns.”[77]

The rule exists; for the natural or divine law engraven by God from the beginning upon the hearts of all men, and more expressly revealed in the Decalogue, was the subject of the teaching of Christ. The juridical power and the tribunal from which there is no appeal equally exist; but the voice of the judge is no longer listened to by those who govern human society. But it is not this which is important, and Mr. Urquhart is right--it is the nations which should invoke against their new tyrants the only efficacious protection; it is the people who should first bend before the beneficent authority of the infallible master of the moral law; there would then be no further need of the consent of governments.

XIII.--CONCLUSION.

I said, in beginning the last paragraph, that it was addressed to Catholics by right of corollary from the preceding considerations. It is certain, indeed, that if all Catholics were truly instructed and well convinced of the truths that I have endeavored to set forth as briefly and clearly as I could, a great step in the right path would already have been taken.

But there is a much-used, widely-spread, and very convenient objection which many excellent men fail not to proffer in such a case. “It is true,” say they, “that if human discussions and quarrels could be referred to the highest moral authority on earth, it would afford great advantages; but this is not _practicable_. Times have changed, and it is impossible to hope that this authority can ever recover the influence it would require in order to act efficaciously.”

If good men adhere to the fatal habit they have acquired of renouncing beforehand all effort, for fear it will not be successful, nothing can be done; and there remains to us nothing but to veil our faces while awaiting the destruction of our country and of all organized society. But even were we reduced to despair, we never have the right of renouncing our convictions nor of ceasing to act personally according to the prescriptions of our faith. Before concerning ourselves about the doings of others, and without needing to count on success, we must begin by conforming ourselves to the teachings of truth, which is by its nature unchangeable; for there is no progress or civilization which can alter one iota of the divine laws.

Moreover, he is very bold who would dare to predict what Europe will or will not be several years hence. Either it is condemned--and then, for his own peace of mind, a man should allow himself to be guided by his conscience with the full certainty of not doing wrong--or God wills to save Europe still another time; and this can never be, save by truth.

With regard to practical means, of which they make so much at the present day, I see no one who proposes them inspiring any confidence. Every one hesitates, gropes, and most often acknowledges that he can only invent. The present hour is favorable to good, in this sense: that the greater number of _practical_ errors no longer exercise the same seduction as at the beginning of the century.

Evil presses us on all sides, and, according to the expression of one of our most distinguished publicists, “1789 has failed.”[78] After 1789 there is no middle way between social war and the return to good. We meet at every step upright minds who break their idols; there are too many who know not yet with what to replace them, but it is still much to have seen one’s error.

Furthermore, there are untiring seekers, some of whom have found the whole truth, and others who find but the fragments; all help to prepare the way for the reconstruction of the social edifice. He to whom I have dedicated this work[79] will pardon me, I hope, if I quote from him. I do not believe that there is another example of an equal influence so rapidly exercised by a book so serious, so grave in matter, so little attractive to the frivolous reader, as that which he has written upon _Social Reform_. To rediscover social truth by the method of observation and analysis was already a phenomenon which I consider unique of its kind; to cause it to be adopted by so great a number of minds biassed and filled with hostile prejudices, and most frequently badly prepared by their previous studies, is a fact still more astonishing. Thus, as I said in my dedicatory epistle, it is impossible for me not to see herein one of the most consoling signs of our age. The scientific processes of M. Le Play were, perhaps, the only ones which would find favor with a generation so dialectical and so enamored with the exact sciences as ours.

Notwithstanding the sorrows which oppress us, we must not despair; and, above all, we must not trouble ourselves too much concerning the errors of what people agree to call public opinion.

The errors regarding the general will reproduce themselves, under another form, in the uneasiness which this self-styled queen of the world instils into the minds of men of good-will. If we consider closely what the elements of opinion are, we very quickly perceive that, in general, it merits the name of public only because it proclaims itself very loudly and makes itself known in all the public squares. In reality, a party much less considerable than we suppose announces to the world, and imagines, most frequently in good faith, that it alone is enlightened. Its boldness inspires awe, and by degrees those who compose it succeed in persuading the multitude, and in persuading themselves that they represent the only _opinion_ worthy of note. And who are these? Financiers and journalists who carry on business in common; loud-voiced lawyers; professors much tainted themselves; officers occupying a position, and others wishing to obtain one from them; the idle pleasure-seeking men and women. Is it, then, true that these represent the nation?

Eager for their own interest or for that of others, these pretended echoes of public opinion are wont to say “The people believe, the people wish, the people will never consent, it does not suit the people, etc. What a pity! The people are nothing in revolutions in which they are but passive instruments. France no longer ardently desires anything except repose. At first sight this proposition would seem true--the previous consent of the French is necessary for the re-establishment of the monarchy. Nothing is more false. The multitude never obtains what it wills; it always accepts, it never chooses. We may even notice an _affectation_ of Providence (if I may be allowed the expression), inasmuch as the efforts of the people to attain an object are the very means which it makes use of to withdraw them from it.

“In the French Revolution the people were constantly chained, outraged, ruined, torn by factions; and the factions, in their turn, the sport of one another, constantly drifted (notwithstanding all their efforts), only to be dashed against the rock which awaited them.… In the establishment and the overthrow of sovereignties … the mass of the people enter only as the wood and the cord employed by a machinist. Their chiefs even are such only to strangers; in reality, they are led as they lead the people. When the proper moment shall arrive, the Supreme Ruler of empires will chase away these noisy insects. Then we shall be astonished at the profound nothingness of these men.

“Do people imagine that the political world goes on by chance, and that it is not organized, directed, animated, by the same wisdom which shines in the physical world? Great malefactors who overthrow the state necessarily produce melancholy, internal dismemberments … but when man labors to re-establish order, he associates himself with the Author of order, he is favored by nature--that is to say, by the aggregate of secondary causes which are the instruments of the Divinity. His action has something divine; it is at once gentle and powerful; it forces nothing and nothing resists it.”[80]

These beautiful words are as true to-day as in 1797.

DURATION.

II

All change implies succession. Hence the duration of contingent beings, inasmuch as they are subject to actual change, involves succession. The duration of the changes brought about by purely spiritual operations transcends our experience; for we are not pure spirits. Hence we have no means of measuring such changes by their intrinsic measure. But the duration of the changes which occur in the material world through local movements lies within the range of our apprehensive faculty, and can be measured by us; for we find in nature many movements which, by their constant recurrence and their uniformity, are calculated to serve as terms of comparison for measuring the length of successive duration.

_Definitions of time._--The duration of local movement, which we measure by a given standard, is called “time.” And therefore time may be properly and adequately defined as the duration of local movement: _Duratio motus_. From this definition it immediately follows that where there is no movement there can be no time. Accordingly, there was no time before creation, as there was no movement. It follows also that the duration of created things, inasmuch as it expresses the permanence of those things in their own being, is not time; for it is of the essence of time to be successive, and there is no succession where there is no change, and no change without movement. Hence, when we say that contingent beings exist in time, we do not refer to their essence or substance as such, but to their successive modes of being, by which their duration acquires its accidental successivity. Were the whole world reduced to perfect stillness by impeding or suspending the actions and movements of all creatures, time would at the same instant cease to flow; for time is not the duration of things, but the duration of movement.

Time may be considered either as a _relation_ or as a _quantity_. In fact, intervals of successive duration are, like distances, real relations; but when we think of the greater or less extent of space which can be measured with a given velocity between two correlated terms of time, these same intervals exhibit themselves under the form of continuous quantities.

Time, as a relation, is defined by S. Thomas and by all the ancients as _Ratio prioris et posterioris motus_--that is, as the link between the “before” and the “after” of any movement; and, as a quantity, it is defined as _Numerus motus_--that is, as a number arising from the mensuration of the movement. This movement is always local, as we have already intimated; for we cannot measure successive duration by any other kind of movement. Hence it is that the duration which is predicated of spiritual substances and of their operations differs in kind from our time. For, since such substances are not subjected to local movements, their duration cannot be measured in terms of space and velocity, as our time, but only in terms of intellectual movements, which have nothing common with the periodical revolutions from which we desume the measure of our days, years, and centuries. When we say that angels have existed for centuries, we measure the duration of their existence by a measure which is altogether extrinsic to them; and in the same manner we measure the duration of our own intellectual operations by a measure extrinsic to them--that is, by comparing it with the duration of some movement occurring in our bodies or in the surrounding world.

Since time is the duration of movement, it is plain that when we perceive movement we immediately perceive time; and since movement implies a continuous change, it is plain also that the greater the number of changes we can distinctly perceive in a given succession, the better we realize the flowing of time. It is for this reason that time seems longer in sickness or in a sleepless night than in good health and in a pleasurable occupation; for gladness and amusement distract our minds, and do not allow us to reflect enough on what is going on around us; whilst anything which affects us painfully calls our attention to ourselves and to our sensations, and thus causes us to reflect on a great number of movements to which in other circumstances we would pay no attention at all. It is for this reason, also, that when we are fast asleep we have no perception of the flowing of time. The moment one falls asleep he ceases to perceive the succession of changes, both interior and exterior, from the consideration of which time should be estimated; hence, when he awakes, he instinctively unites the present _now_ with that in which he fell asleep, as if there had been no intermediate time. Thus, in the same manner as there is no time without movement, there is no actual perception of time without the actual perception of movement.

_Measure of time._--We have said that time, as a quantity, is measured by movement. The sense of this proposition is that a body moving with uniform velocity describes spaces proportional to the times employed; and therefore, if we assume as a unit of measure the time employed in describing a certain unit of space with a given velocity, the duration of the movement will contain as many units of time as there are units of space measured by that velocity. Thus, if the revolution of the earth around its axis is taken as the unit of movement, and its duration, or the day, as the unit of time, the number of days will increase at the same rate as the number of revolutions. Speaking in general, if the time employed in describing uniformly a space _v_ be taken as a unit of time, and _t_ be the time employed in describing uniformly a space _s_ with the same constant velocity, we have the proportion--

_s_:_v_::_t_:1.

The unit of time is necessarily arbitrary or conventional. For there is no natural unit of measure in continuous quantities whose divisibility has no end, as we have explained in a preceding article.

The space _v_ uniformly described in the unit of time represents the velocity of the movement; and therefore the duration of the movement comprises as many units of time as there are units in the ratio of the space to the constant velocity with which it is measured. In other terms, time is the ratio of the space described to the velocity with which it is described.

We often hear it said that as time is measured by movement, so also movement is measured by time. But this needs explanation. When we say that time is measured by movement, we mean that time is represented by the ratio of the space to the velocity with which it is described, or by the ratio of the material extension to the formal extending of the movement; for the proportion above deduced gives

_t_ = _s_/_v_,

where _s_ represents the length of the movement in space (which length is its material constituent) and _v_ represents its intensity (which is its formal constituent). On the other hand, when we say that movement is measured by time, we either mean that the ratio of the space to the velocity is represented by the time employed in the movement, and thus we merely interchange the members of our equation, by which no new conclusion can be reached; or we mean that the length and the velocity of the movement are measured by time. But this cannot be; for our equation gives for the length of the movement

_s_ = _vt_;

and this shows that time alone cannot measure the length of the space described. On the other hand, the same equation gives for the velocity

_v_ = _s_/_t_;

and this shows that time is not the measure of velocity, as the one diminishes when the other increases.

This suffices to show that the phrase “movement is measured by time” must be interpreted in a very limited sense, as simply meaning that between movement and time there is a necessary connection, and that, all other things remaining equal, the length of the movement is proportional to the length of the time employed. Yet this does not mean that the length of the movement depends entirely on the time employed, for the same length may be described in different times; but it means that the time employed depends on the material and formal extent of the movement, as above explained; for, according as we take different velocities, different lengths will be described in equal time, and equal lengths in different times. It is not the time that extends the movement, but it is the movement that by its extension extends its own time.

The true measure of movement is its velocity; for the measure of any given quantity is a unit of the same kind, and velocity is the unit of movement. Time, as measured by us, is a number which arises from the mensuration of the movement by its velocity; and therefore time results from the movement as already measured. This shows again that time is not the measure of the _extent_ of the movement. We have seen, also, that time is not the measure of the _intensity_ of the movement. It follows, therefore, that the quantity of movement is not measured by time.

Time, being the ratio of two quantities mathematically homogeneous, is represented by an _abstract_ number. Yet the same time may be expressed by different numbers, according as we measure it by different units, as days, hours, minutes, etc. These numbers, however, are only virtually discrete, as time cannot be discontinued.

Balmes from the equation

_v_ = _s_/_t_

deduces the consequence that “the velocity is essentially a relation; for it cannot be otherwise expressed than by the ratio of the space to the time.”[81] We think that this conclusion is faulty. Space and time are not homogeneous quantities; hence the mathematical ratio of space to time is not an abstract but a concrete number, and therefore it represents an absolute quantity. Space divided by time is a length divided into equal parts; hence the quotient--viz., the velocity--represents the length of the movement made in the unit of time. And since Balmes admits that the length of the movement is a quantity having a determinate value, we do not see how he can escape the consequence that velocity, too, is a quantity of the same kind, and not a mere relation. “In the expression of velocity,” says Balmes, “two terms enter--space and time. Viewing the former in the real order, abstraction made of that of phenomena, we more easily come to regard it as something fixed; and we comprehend it in a given case without any relation. A foot is at all times a foot, and a yard a yard. These are quantities existing in reality, and if we refer them to other quantities it is only to make sure that they are so, not because their reality depends upon the relation. A cubic foot of water is not a cubic foot because the measure so says, but, on the contrary, the measure so says because there is a cubic foot. The measure itself is also an absolute quantity; and in general all extensions are absolute, for otherwise we should be obliged to seek measure of measure, and so on to infinity” (loc. cit.) This passage shows that a length described in space is, according to Balmes, an absolute quantity. And since the mathematical value of velocity represents a length described in space, as we have just proved, it follows that velocity has an absolute value.

But leaving aside all mathematical considerations, we may show that velocity has an absolute value by reference to metaphysical data. What is velocity but the development in extension of the intensity of the momentum impressed on a material point? Now, the intensity of the momentum is an absolute quantity, equal to the quantity of the action by which it is produced. Hence it is evident that, as the action has an absolute value, greater or less, according to circumstances, so also the momentum impressed has an absolute value; and consequently the velocity also, which is nothing else than the momentum itself as developing its intensity into extension, has an absolute value, and is an absolute quantity.

Balmes thought the contrary, for the following reason: “If the denominator, in the expression of velocity, were a quantity of the same kind as space--that is, having determinate values, existing and conceivable by themselves alone--the velocity, although still a relation might also have determinate values, not indeed wholly absolute, but only in the supposition that the two terms _s_ and _t_, having fixed values, are compared.… But from the difficulties which we have, on the one hand, seen presented to the consideration of time as an absolute thing, and from the fact that, on the other hand, no solid proof can be adduced to show such a property to have any foundation, it follows that we know not how to consider velocity as absolute, even in the sense above explained” (loc. cit.)

This reason proves the contrary of what the author intends to establish. In fact, if the denominator were of the same kind as the numerator, the quotient would be an abstract number, as we know from mathematics; and such a number would exhibit nothing more than the relation of the two homogeneous terms--that is, how many times the one is contained in the other. It is precisely because the denominator is not of the same kind as the numerator that the quotient must be of the same kind as the numerator. And since the numerator represents space, which, according to Balmes, is an absolute quantity, it follows that the quotient--that is, the number by which we express the velocity--exhibits a quantity of the same nature: a conclusion in which all mathematicians agree. When a man walks a mile, with the velocity of one yard per second, he measures the whole mile yard by yard, with his velocity. If the velocity were not a quantity of the same kind with the space measured, how could it measure it?

True it is that velocity, when considered in its metaphysical aspect, is not a length of space, but the intensity of the act by which matter is carried through such a length. Yet, since Balmes argues here from a mathematical equation, we must surmise or presume that he considers velocity as a length measured in space in the unit of time, as mathematicians consider it; for he cannot argue from mathematical expressions with logical consistency, if he puts upon them construction of an unmathematical character. After all, it remains true that the velocity or intensity of the movement is always to be measured by the extension of the movement in the unit of time; and thus it is necessary to admit that velocity exhibits an absolute intensive quantity measured by the extension which it evolves.

We therefore “know how to consider velocity as absolute,” though its mathematical expression is drawn from a relation of space to time. The measure of any quantity is always found by comparing the quantity with some unit of measure; hence all quantity, inasmuch as measured, exhibits itself under a relative form as _ratio mensurati ad suam mensuram_; and it is only under such a form that it can be expressed in numbers. But this relativity does not constitute the nature of quantity, because it presupposes it, and has the whole reason of its being in the process of mensuration.

We have insisted on this point because the confusion of the absolute value of velocity with its relative mathematical expression would lead us into a labyrinth of difficulties with regard to time. Balmes, having overlooked the distinction between the mathematical expression and the metaphysical character of velocity, comes to the striking consequence that “if the whole machine of the universe, not excluding the operations of our soul, were accelerated or retarded, an impossibility would be realized; for the relation of the terms would have to be changed without undergoing any change. If the velocity be only the relation of space to time, and time only the relation of spaces traversed, it is the same thing to change them all in the same proportion, and not to change them at all. It is to leave every thing as it is” (loc. cit.) The author is quite mistaken. The very equation

_t_ = _s_/_v_,

on which he grounds his argument, suffices to show that if the velocity increases, the time employed in measuring the space _s_ diminishes; and if the velocity diminishes, the time increases. This being the case, it is evident that an acceleration of the movements in the whole machine of the universe would be a _real_ acceleration, since the same movements would be performed in less time; and a retardation would be a _real_ retardation, since the same movements would require more time. We are therefore far from realizing an impossibility when we admit that, in the hypothesis of the author, time would vary in the inverse ratio of the velocity of the universal movement.

_Division of time._--Philosophers divide time into _real_ and _imaginary_. We have already explained this division when speaking of flowing duration. The reality of time evidently depends on the reality of movement; hence any time to which no real movement corresponds is imaginary. Thus if you dream that you are running, the time of your running is imaginary, because your running, too, is imaginary. In such a case the real time corresponds to your real movements--say, to your breathing, pulse, etc.--while the dream continues.

Imaginary time is often called also _ideal_ time, but this last epithet is not correct; for, as time is the duration of local movement, it is in the nature of time to be an object of the imagination. And for this reason the duration of the intellectual movements and operations of pure spirits is called time only by analogy, as we have above stated. However, we are wont to think of such a duration as if it were homogeneous with our own time; for we cannot measure it except by reference to the duration of the movements we witness in the material world.

Time is also divided into _past_, _present_, and _future_. The past corresponds to a movement already made, the future to a movement which will be made, and the present to a movement which is actually going on. But some will ask: Is there really any present time? Does not the _now_, to which the present is confined, exclude all _before_ and all _after_, and therefore all succession, without which it is impossible to conceive time? We concede that the _now_, as such--that is, considered in its absolute reality--is not time, just as a point is not a line; for, as the point has no length, so the _now_ has no extension. Yet, as a point in motion describes a line, so also the _now_, by its flowing from _before_ to _after_, extends time. Hence, although the _now_, as such, is not time, its flowing from _before_ to _after_ is time. If, then, we consider the present as the link of the immediate past with the immediate future--that is, if we consider the _now_ not statically, but dynamically--we shall see at once that its actual flowing from _before_ to _after_ implies succession, and constitutes an infinitesimal interval of time.

This may also be shown by reference to the nature of uniform local movement. When a material point describes a line with uniform velocity, its movement being continuous, its duration is continuous; and therefore every flowing instant of its duration is continuous, as no discontinuous parts can ever be reached in the division of continuum. Hence every flowing instant has still the nature of time. This conclusion is mathematically evident from the equation

_t_ = _s_/_v_,

for, _v_ being supposed constant, we cannot assume _t_ = 0 unless we also assume _s_ = 0. But this latter assumption would imply rest instead of movement, and therefore it is out of the question. Accordingly, at no instant of the movement can we assume _t_ = 0; or, which is the same, every flowing instant partakes the nature of time.

The same conclusion can be established, even more evidently, by the consideration of accelerated or retarded movements. When a stone is thrown upwards, the velocity of its ascent suffers a _continuous_ diminution till at last it becomes = 0; and at the very instant it becomes = 0 an opposite velocity begins to urge the stone down, and increases continually so long as the stone does not reach the ground or any other obstacle. Now, a continuous increase or decrease of the velocity means that there are not two consecutive moments of time in which the stone moves at exactly the same rate; and hence nothing but an instant corresponds to each successive degree of velocity. But since the duration of the movement is made up of nothing but such instants, it is clear that the succession of such instants constitutes time; and consequently, as time is continuous, those instants, though infinitesimal, are themselves continuous; and thus every flowing instant is really time.

From this it is plain, first, that although the _now_, as such, is not time, yet its actual flowing is time.

Secondly, it follows that infinitesimals of time, as employed in dynamics, are not mathematical figments, but realities, for time flows only through infinitesimal instants; and therefore to deny the reality of such infinitesimals would be to deny the reality of time.

Thirdly, we gather that the absolute _now_ differs from an actual infinitesimal of time; because the former, as such, is only a term of time, whereas the latter is the flowing of that term from its immediate _before_ to its immediate _after_. Hence an infinitesimal of time is infinitely less than any designable duration. In fact, its _before_ and its _after_ are so immediately connected with the same absolute _now_ that there is no room for any designable length of duration between them.

Fourthly, whilst the absolute _now_ is no quantity, the infinitesimal of time is a real quantity; for it implies real succession. This quantity, however, is nascent, or _in fieri_ only; for the _now_, which alone is intercepted between the immediate _before_ and the immediate _after_, has no formal extension.

Fifthly, the infinitesimal of time corresponds to a movement by which an infinitesimal of space is described. And thus infinitesimals of space, as considered in dynamics, are real quantities. To deny that such infinitesimals are real quantities would be the same, in fact, as to deny the real extension of local movement; for this movement flows and acquires its extension through such infinitesimals only. And the same is true of the infinitesimal actions by which the rate of local movement is continually modified. These latter infinitesimals are evidently real quantities, though infinitely less than any designable quantity. They have an infinitesimal intensity, and they cause an infinitesimal change in the rate of the movement in an infinitesimal of time.

_Evolution of time._--The preceding considerations lead us to understand how it is that in any interval of time there is but one absolute _now_ always the same _secundum rem_, but changing, and therefore manifold _secundum rationem_. S. Thomas, in his opuscule _De Instantibus_, c. ii., explains this truth in the following words: “As a point to the line, so is the _now_ to the time. If we imagine a point at rest, we shall not be able to find in it the causality of any line; but if we imagine that point to be in movement, then, although it has no dimensions, and consequently no divisibility in itself, it will nevertheless, from the nature of its movement, mark out a divisible line.… The point, however, does in no way belong to the essence of the line; for one and the same real term, absolutely indivisible, cannot be at the same time in different parts of the same permanent continuum.… Hence the mathematical point which by its movement draws a line is neither the line nor any part of the line; but, remaining one and the same in itself, it acquires different modes of being. These different modes of being, which must be traced to its movement, are really in the line, whilst the point, as such, has no place in it. In the same manner, an instant, which is the measure of a thing movable, and adheres to it permanently, is one and the same as to its absolute reality so long as the substance of the thing remains unimpaired, for the instant is the inseparable measure of its being; but the same instant becomes manifold inasmuch as it is diversified by its modes of being; and it is this its diversity that constitutes the essence of time.”[82]

From this explanation we may infer that, as each point, or primitive element, of matter has its own _now_, one in its absolute reality, but manifold in its mode of being, there are in nature as many _nows_ describing distinct lines of time as there are material points in movement. Accordingly, there are as many particular times as there are elements moving in space. The proposition that in time there is only _unum instans in re_ is, therefore, to be limited to the particular time of one and the same subject of motion. S. Thomas did not think of this limitation, because he believed, according to the old astronomical theory, that the movement of the _primum mobile_--that is, of the supreme sphere--was the natural measure of time; and for this reason he thought that, as the first movement was one, time also was one, and constituted the common measure of all simultaneous movements.[83] But the truth is that there must be as many distinct particular times as there are things actually moving. This is a manifest consequence of the doctrine which assimilates a flowing _now_ to a point describing a line. For as every point in movement describes a distinct line in space, so also must the absolute _now_ of every distinct being describe by its flowing a distinct line of time.

The general time, which we regard as _one_ successive duration, is the duration of the movement from the beginning of the world to our day, conceived in the abstract--that is, without reference to the particular beings concerned in the movement. Time, when thus conceived, is a mere abstraction; whereas the particular times of particular movements are concrete in their continuous extension, notwithstanding their being represented by abstract numbers. If we knew of any special body created and put in movement before any other body, we might regard it as _primum mobile_, and take its movement, if uniform, as the natural measure or standard of general time; but as we know of no such particular body, and as we have reason to believe that the creation of all matter was made in one and the same moment, we are led to admit an exceedingly great multitude of _prima mobilia_, every one of which was from the beginning of time the subject of duration. It is clear that we cannot reduce their distinct durations to one general duration, except by making abstraction of all particular subjects, and considering movement in the abstract.

Nevertheless, as we inhabit the earth, we usually restrict our consideration of time to those periodical intervals of duration which correspond to the periodical movements we witness in, or from, our planet; and thus we take the duration of the diurnal or of the orbital movement of the earth as our standard for the measure of time. If other planets are inhabited by rational beings, it is obvious that their time will be measured by other standards, as their diurnal and orbital movements differ from those of our earth.

To the doctrine that time is evolved by the flowing of a single instant, S. Thomas adds an important remark to the effect that the _now_ of contingent things should not be confounded with the _now_ of eternity. He proposes to himself the following objection: “To stand and to move are not essential differences, but only different manners of being. But the _now_ of eternity is standing, and the _now_ of time is moving. The one, therefore, seems to differ from the other in nothing but in the manner of being. Hence the _now_ of time would be substantially the same as the _now_ of eternity, which is absurd.”[84]

S. Thomas replies: “This cannot be true, according to our doctrine; for we have seen that eternity and time differ essentially. Moreover, when of two things the one depends on the other as an effect from a cause, the two things essentially differ; but the _now_ of eternity (which does not really differ from eternity itself) is the cause of time and of the _now_ of time; therefore the _now_ of time and the _now_ of eternity are essentially different. Furthermore, the _now_ of time unites the past with the future, which the _now_ of eternity does not do; for in eternity there is no past and no future, because eternity is all together. Nor has the objection any force. That to stand and to move do not constitute an essential difference is true of those things which are liable both to stand and to move; but that which always stands without possibility of moving differs essentially from that which always moves without the possibility of standing. And this is the case with the _now_ of eternity on the one hand, and the _now_ of time on the other.”[85]

_Beginning of time._--Here the question arises whether time must have had a beginning. Those who believe that the world could have been created _ab æterno_ will answer that time could have existed without a beginning. But we are convinced that the world could not be created _ab æterno_; and therefore we maintain that time must have begun.

Our argument is drawn from the contingency of all things created.

The duration of a contingent being cannot be without a beginning; for the contingent being itself must have had a beginning. In fact, as that cannot be annihilated which has never been in existence, so that cannot be educed from nothing which has never been nothing. It is therefore necessary to admit that every creature had a beginning of its existence, and consequently of its duration also; for nothing endures but inasmuch as it exists.

Nor can this argument be evaded by saying that a contingent being may have _initium naturæ_, without having _initium temporis_. This distinction, though suggested and employed by S. Thomas, has no foundation, because the beginning of the created nature is the beginning also of its duration; and he who concedes that there must be an _initium naturæ_ cannot consistently deny the _initium temporis_. In fact, no contingent being can be said to have been created, if there was no instant in which it was created; in other terms, every creature must be traced to the _now_ of its creation. But the _now_ of its creation is the beginning of its duration no less than of its existence. Surely, whatever has a first _now_ has a beginning of duration; but every creature has its first _now_--viz., the _now_ of its creation; therefore every creature has a beginning of duration. That the _now_ of creation is the first _now_ is self-evident; for the _now_ of creation is that point of duration in which the passage is made from not being to being; and therefore it marks the beginning of the existence of the created being. And since we cannot say that the duration of the created being preceded its existence, we are bound to conclude that the _now_ of its creation is the beginning of its duration as well as of its existence.

Some will object that we assume what is to be proved--viz., the very _now_ of creation. For, if the world had been created _ab æterno_, no _now_ of creation could be pointed out. To this we answer that the _now_ of creation, whether we can point it out determinately or not, must always be admitted. To suppress it, is to suppress creation. For, if we assume that a thing had no _now_ of creation, we are compelled to deny that such a thing has ever been created. In other terms, if anything has no beginning of duration, it was always in act, it never lacked actual existence, and it never passed from non-existence to actual existence--that is, it is no creature at all; for to be a creature is to have passed from non-existence to actual existence. And thus we must conclude that to create is to make a beginning of time.

The impossibility of a world created _ab æterno_ has also been argued from the impossibility of an infinite ascending series. The force of this proof does not, however, lie in the absurdity of an infinite series--for such an absurdity, as S. Thomas remarks, has never been demonstrated--but it lies in the necessity of granting a beginning to every term of the series itself; for, if every term of the series has a beginning, the whole series must have a beginning. S. Thomas, as we have just stated, teaches that an infinite ascending series is not to be judged impossible, “even if it were a series of efficient causes,” provided it depend on an extrinsic cause: _In infinitum procedere in causis agentibus non reputatur impossibile._[86] This doctrine is universally rejected, and was fiercely attacked even in the time of the holy doctor; but he persisted in maintaining it against all, and wrote a special treatise to defend it _contra murmurantes_. The reason why S. Thomas embraced this doctrine seems to have been that the creation of the world in the beginning of time was an article of faith; and the saint believed that articles of faith are proved only by authority, and not by natural reason. He was therefore obliged to maintain that the beginning of time could not be demonstrated by reason alone. “The newness of the world,” says he, “cannot be demonstrated from the consideration of the world itself, because the principle of demonstration is the quiddity of things. Now, things, when considered as to their quiddity or species, do not involve the _hic et nunc_; and for this reason the universals are said to be everywhere and in all time. Hence it cannot be demonstrated that man or any other thing did not always exist.”[87]

To this argument we respectfully reply that, when the necessary conditions of a contingent fact are to be demonstrated, the principle of demonstration is not the abstract quiddity, or intelligible essence, of the things, but the contingency of their actual existence. But it is evident that whatever exists contingently has been educed out of nothing. It is therefore necessary to conclude that all contingent things have had a first moment of existence and of duration.

The Angelic Doctor refers also to a similitude by which some philosophers mentioned by S. Augustine undertook to explain the creation _ab æterno_. If a foot had been _ab æterno_ pressed on the dust, the impression made by it would be _ab æterno_. In the same manner the world might have been _ab æterno_: for God, its maker, is eternal.[88] But we humbly reply that the impression of the foot on the dust cannot be _ab æterno_ if it is contingent. For, if it is contingent, it has necessarily a beginning of its existence, and therefore of its duration also, as we have already shown. Whatever is made has a beginning of duration. Hence the fathers of the church, to prove that the divine Word was not made, thought it sufficient to point out the fact that he was _ab æterno_ like his Father.

S. Thomas, after stating his conclusion that the temporal beginning of the world is not demonstrable, but simply credible, remarks as follows: “And this should be kept in mind, lest, by presuming to demonstrate what is matter of faith by insufficient proofs, we be laughed at by the infidels, who may think that on the strength of such proofs we believe our articles of faith.”[89] This advice is good. But we need not tell our readers that what we hold as of faith we hold on divine authority, irrespective of our philosophical reasons.

_Perpetuity of time._--That time may go on without end is an evident truth. But will it go on for ever, or will it cease at last? To this question we answer that time will for ever continue. As long as there will be movement there will be time. There will ever be movement; therefore there will ever be time. The major of this syllogism needs no explanation; for time is nothing but the duration of movement. The minor is quite certain. For not only the rational creatures, but the earth itself and other corporeal things, will last for ever, as is the common doctrine of philosophers, who hold that God will never destroy what he has created. These material things will therefore continue to celebrate God’s glory for ever--that is, will continue to exert their motive power and to bring about divers movements; for such is their nature, and such their manner of chanting the praises of their Creator. Moreover, we know by faith that we shall rise from death and live for ever, and that the glorious bodies of the saints will possess, besides other privileges, the gift of agility, which would evidently be of no use if there were to be no local movement and no succession of time. Hence it follows that time will last for ever.

And let no one say that the Sacred Scriptures teach the contrary. For wherever the Sacred Scriptures mention _the end of time_, they speak, not absolutely and universally, but only with reference to certain particular periods or epochs of time characterized by some special events or manifestation of divine Providence. Thus we read in the Apocalypse that “there will be time no more”--_Tempus non erit amplius_--and yet we find that after the end of that time there will be a thousand years; which shows that the phrase “there will be time no more” refers to the time of mercy and conversion. Thus also we read in Daniel that “time has its end”--_Quoniam habet tempus finem suum_--but we see by the context that he speaks there of the Antichristian epoch, which of course must have an end. And the like is to be said of other similar passages.

The most we can admit in regard to the cessation of time is that, owing to the great catastrophe and the wonderful changes which the consummation of the present epoch shall bring about, the diurnal and the annual revolutions, which serve now as measures of time, may be so modified as to give rise to a new order of things, in which time shall be measured by a different standard. This seems to be the opinion of many interpreters of the Sacred Scriptures; though some of them speak as if after the consummation of the present things there were to be time no more, but only eternity. This manner of speaking, however, is no proof against the continuance of time; for the word “eternity,” when applied to the duration of creatures, means nothing else than sempiternity--that is, time without end, according to the scriptural phrase: _Annos æternos in mente habui_. We learn from S. Thomas that the word “eternity” is used in three different senses: First, we call eternity the measure of the duration of a thing which is always invariably the same, which acquires nothing from the future, and loses nothing from the past. And this is the most proper meaning of the word “eternity.” Secondly, we call eternity the measure of the duration of a thing which has a fixed and perpetual being, which, however, is subject to accidental changes in its operations. Eternity, when thus interpreted, means what we should call _ævum_ properly; for the _ævum_ is the measure of those things whose being lasts for ever, but which admit of succession in their operations, as is the case with pure intelligences. Thirdly, we call eternity the measure of a successive duration, which has _before_ and _after_ without beginning and without end, or simply without end, though it have a beginning; and in this sense the world has been said to be eternal, although it is really temporal. This is the most improper meaning of the word “eternity”; for the true concept of eternity excludes _before_ and _after_.[90] Thus far S. Thomas.

We may be allowed to remark on this passage that, according to the principles which we have established in our articles on _Substantial Generations_,[91] not only the pure intelligences, but all primitive and elementary substances are substantially incorruptible, and have a fixed and permanent being. Hence the distinction made by the holy doctor between _ævum_ and endless time ceases to have a foundation, and the whole difference between the endless duration of spiritual and of material changes will be reduced to this: that the movements of spiritual substances are intellectual, whereas those of the material elements are local.

_The phrase “before creation.”_--We often hear of such expressions as these: “Before creation there was God alone,” “Before creation there was no time,” etc.; and since such expressions seem to involve a contradiction in terms, we think it will not be superfluous to give their rational explanation. Of course, if the words “before creation” be understood absolutely--that is, excluding any creation either made or imagined--those words will be contradictory. For the preposition _before_ is relative, and implies succession; and it is contradictory to suppose succession without anything capable of succession. When no creature existed there could be nothing flowing from _before_ to _after_, because there was no movement, there being nothing movable.

Nor can it be said that the _now_ of divine eternity gives us a sufficient ground for imagining any _before_ and _after_ without referring to something exterior to God himself. The _now_ of eternity has in itself neither _before_ nor _after_; and when we say that it is equivalent to all imaginable time, we do not affirm that it implies succession, but only acknowledge that it is the supreme reason of the possibility of succession in created things. Hence, when we use the phrase “Before creation” in an absolute sense, we in fact take away all real _before_ and all real _after_; and thus the words “Before creation,” taken absolutely, involve a contradiction. They affirm explicitly what they implicitly deny.

The truth is that, when we use the phrase in question, we express what is in our imagination, and not in our intellect. We imagine that before time there was eternity because we cannot picture to ourselves eternity, except by the phantasm of infinite time. It is for this reason that in speaking of eternity we use the terms by which we are accustomed to express the relations of time. The words “Before creation” are therefore to be understood of a time which was possible in connection with some possible anterior creation, but which has never existed. This amounts to saying that the _before_ which we conceive has no existence except in our imagination.

S. Thomas proposes to himself the question whether, when we say that God was before the world, the term “before” is to be interpreted of a priority of nature or of a priority of duration. It might seem, says he, that neither interpretation is admissible. For if God is before the world only by priority of nature, then it follows that, since God is _ab æterno_, the world too is _ab æterno_. If, on the contrary, God is before the world by priority of duration, then, since priority and posteriority of duration constitute time, it follows that there was time before the creation of the world; which is impossible.[92]

In answer to this difficulty the holy doctor says that God is before the world by priority of duration, but that the preposition “before” designates here the priority, not of time, but of eternity. Or else we must answer, he adds, that the word “before” designates a priority, not of real, but of imaginary, time, just as the word “above” in the phrase “above the heavens there is nothing” designates an imaginary space which we may conceive by thinking of some imaginary dimensions superadded to the dimensions of the heavens.[93]

It strikes us that the first of these two answers does not really solve the difficulty. For the priority of eternity cannot mean but a priority of nature and of pre-eminence, by which God’s permanent duration infinitely _excels_, rather than _precedes_, all duration of creatures. In accordance with this, the objector might still urge on his conclusion that, if God does not precede the world, the world is _ab æterno_ like God himself. The second answer agrees with what we ourselves have hitherto said. But as regards the objection proposed, it leaves the difficulty entire. For, if God was before the world by a priority, not of real, but of imaginary time, that “before” is imaginary, and not real. And the consequence will be that God was not really “before” the world, but we imagine him to have been so.

We must own that with our imperfect language, mostly fashioned by imagination, it is not easy to give a clear and popular solution of the objection. Perhaps the most summary manner of dealing with it would be to deny the inference in the first horn of the dilemma--viz., that if God is before the world by priority of nature only, then the world will be _ab æterno_ as much as God himself. This inference, we say, is to be denied; for it involves the false supposition that a thing is _ab æterno_ if there is no time before it; whereas that only is _ab æterno_ which has no beginning of duration.

Thus there is no need of saying that God _precedes_ the world in duration; for it suffices to admit that he was before the world by priority of nature and of causality. The duration of eternity has no “before” and no “after,” though we depict it to ourselves as extending into indefinite time. Even the verb _was_ should not be predicated of God; for God, strictly speaking, neither was, nor will be, but permanently _is_. Hence it seems to us that it would be a contradiction to affirm that God was _before_ the world by the duration of his eternity, while we acknowledge that in his eternity there is no “before.” But enough about this question.

_The duration of rest._--Supposing that a body, or an element of matter, is perfectly at rest, it may be asked how the duration of this rest can be ascertained and measured. Shall we answer that it is measured by time? But if so, our reader will immediately conclude that time is not merely the duration of movement, as we have defined it, but also the duration of rest. On the other hand, how can we deny that rest is measured by time, when we often speak of the rest of a few minutes or of a few hours?

We might evade the question by answering that nothing in creation lies in absolute rest, but everything is acting and acted upon without interruption, so that its movement is never suspended. But we answer directly that, if there were absolute rest anywhere in the world, the duration of that rest should be measured by the duration of exterior movements. In fact, rest has no _before_ and _after_ in itself, because it is immovable, but only outside of itself. It cannot therefore have an intrinsic measure of its duration, but it must borrow it from the _before_ and _after_ of exterior movement. In other words, the thing which is in perfect rest draws no line of time; it has only a statical _now_ which is a mere term of duration; and if everything in the world were in absolute rest, time would cease altogether. Hence what we call the duration of rest is simply the duration of a movement exterior to the thing which is at rest.

This will be easily understood by considering that between a flowing and a standing _now_ there is the same relation as between a moving and a standing point.

Now, to change the relation of distance between two points in space, it suffices that one of them move while the other stands still. This change of distance is measured by the movement of the first point; and thus the point which is at rest undergoes, without moving, a continuous change in its relation to the moving point. In a similar manner, two _nows_ being given, the one flowing and the other standing, the time extended by the flowing of the first measures the change of its relation to the second, and consequently, also, the change of the relation of the second to the first. This shows that the time by which we measure the duration of rest is nothing but the duration of the movement extrinsic to the thing at rest.

But, as we have said, nothing in creation is in absolute rest; and therefore what we consider as resting has really some movement imperceptible to our senses--as, _v.g._, molecular vibrations--by which the duration of its supposed rest is intrinsically measured. In God’s eternity alone there is perfect immobility; but its duration cannot be measured by time, even as an extrinsic measure, because the standing duration of eternity has nothing common with the flowing duration of creatures. As local movement cannot measure divine immensity, so flowing duration cannot measure divine eternity; because, as the _ubi_ of a creature never changes its relation to God’s immensity, so the _quando_ of a creature never changes its relation to God’s eternity.

_Continuity of time._--We will conclude with a few remarks on the continuity of time. That time is essentially continuous is evident; but the question has been proposed: What if God were to annihilate all existing creatures, and to make a new creation? Would the instant of annihilation be immediately followed by the instant of the new creation, or could there be an interval of time between them?

The right answer to this question is that between the annihilation and the new creation there would be no time: because there cannot be time without succession, and no succession without creatures. Yet, it would not follow that the instant of the annihilation should be immediately united with the instant of the new creation; in other words, the duration of the new world would not be a continuation of the duration of the world annihilated. The reason of this is that there cannot be a continuation of time, unless the same _now_ continues to flow. For when one flowing _now_ ceases to be, and another begins, the line of time drawn by the first comes to an end, and another line, altogether distinct, begins, and this latter cannot be a continuation of the former. If the English mail, for instance, reaches New York at a given instant, and the French mail at the same instant starts from Paris, no one will say that the movement of the French mail is a continuation of the movement of the English mail. Hence the duration of the movement of the one is not the continuation of that of the other.

Moreover, from what we have seen about the distinct lines of time described by distinct subjects of flowing duration, it is plain that even the durations of simultaneous movements are always distinct from one another, as belonging to distinct subjects; and accordingly, when one of the said movements ceases, the continuation of the others cannot be looked upon as its continuation. Hence, if the present world were annihilated, its duration would cease altogether; and the duration of a newly-created world would draw a new line of time quite distinct from that of the present world, though between the end of the one and the beginning of the other there would be no time. “The two worlds in question,” as Balmes remarks, “would have no mutual relation; consequently there would be neither distance nor immediateness between them.”[94]

Time is _formally_ continuous. Formal continuity we call that of which all the constituent elements have their own formal and distinct existence in nature. In time such elements are those flowing instants which unite the immediate past with the immediate future. This continuity is essentially successive. It is owing to its successivity that time, as well as movement, can be, and is, formally continuous. For no formal continuum can be simultaneous, as we have shown where we refuted the hypothesis of continuous matter.[95] But let this suffice about time.

AN INCIDENT OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.

The close of the XVIIIth century found the good people of these United States in a most amiable mood. The consciousness of all they had achieved, by sustaining their Declaration of Independence in the face of overwhelming difficulties, produced a glow of national self-complacency that has thrown its glamour over the first page of our public annals, which--as history counts her pages by centuries--we are only now preparing to turn. Not until we were drawing near its close was the light of that agreeable illusion obscured by the shadow of a question whether the “glorious Fourth” was not like to prove, after all, a most _in_glorious failure.

Self-complacency is never an elevating sentiment, and seldom sustained by the merits upon the assumed possession of which it is based. But our people had many substantial virtues, sufficient to atone abundantly for their indulgence in a pleasant foible. Among these was the principle of gratitude, to which none but truly noble natures are subject. That they possessed it was proved by their promptness in hastening to relieve and comfort the French refugees whom the Reign of Terror had driven to our shores when it was devastating that fair realm across the Atlantic which had been the first to extend assistance and sympathy to us in the hour of need.

We have vivid recollections of sitting for hours--patchwork in hand--at the feet of a dear relative in the pleasant home of our childhood, listening to thrilling tales of those times, many of them connected with the French emigrants--of the cordial hospitality with which all the homes of her native city of Hartford, Conn., were thrown open to receive these interesting exiles; of the shifts the inhabitants devised and the discomforts they endured in order to provide comfortable shelter and sustenance for so many from means already impoverished by the drain of the conflict through which we ourselves had but just passed.

Now, this dear relative was the possessor of a small gold locket of antique fashion and exquisite workmanship, which was an object of unceasing admiration to our childish fancy. In form it was an oblong octagon. The border was a graceful tiny pattern in mosaic-gold inlaid with amethyst and pearl. In the centre were two miniatures painted on glass with marvellous distinctness and accuracy: the one a likeness of that most unfortunate queen, Marie Antoinette, the other of her beloved sister-in-law, the amiable Princess Elizabeth. A heavy pebble crystal, perfectly transparent, covered the pictures without in the least obscuring their delicate tints. In the back of the locket was an open space, within which, our relative said, was once laid, upon the ground of dark satin that still remained, a knot formed by two small locks of glossy, silken hair, one a light rose-tinged auburn, the other flaxen with a golden sheen. A glass covered these also.

After much persuasion our relative related to us the following

STORY OF THE LOCKET.

My father was an officer in the Continental army, and, soon after the war of our Revolution closed, returned to his former home in the city of Hartford, Conn., where he accepted an office of high municipal trust. He was moved by the generous impulses of his nature to a life of active benevolence; and when, in 1792-3, the Revolution in France drove thousands of her citizens to take refuge in our republic, none were more zealous and untiring than he in seeking out and providing for the unfortunate strangers. Every apartment in our spacious house was soon filled. Rooms were prepared in the carriage-house and barns for my brothers and the domestics of the household, while my sisters and myself took possession of a small room in the attic which had been a repository for the spare bedding, now called into use.

Among our guests was one lady who was distinguished by having a spacious room set apart for her sole use, and who seldom left it or mingled with her companions in misfortune and exile. Upon the rare occasions when she did appear briefly in their circle, it was striking to observe the ceremonious deference, amounting almost to veneration, with which she was received. Where or how my father found her I never knew; but his manner towards her was so profoundly respectful as to impress us all with feelings akin to fear in her presence. Yet these impressions were produced by the demeanor of others only; for on her own part there was not the slightest self-assertion or assumption of stateliness. Simple and unobtrusive as a child in her manners, she was indescribably affable to all; but her countenance wore an expression which, when once seen, could never be forgotten. More forcibly and clearly than words did it convey the story that some overwhelming deluge of calamity had swept from her life every vestige of earthly hope and joy. By no outward token did she parade her griefs. Her dress, plain, even severe, in its perfect neatness and simplicity, displayed no mourning-badge, but her very smile was an intimate revelation of sorrow.

She was known by the title of “Madame,” though some of our guests would now and then add, when speaking of her in an undertone--not lost upon a small listener like myself--“la Comtesse.” Her waiting-maid, Celeste, was entirely devoted to her, and always served her slight and simple meals to her in her own room.

Soon after her arrival I was sent on some errand to madame’s apartment, and her agitation upon seeing me was a thing to be remembered for a lifetime. She drew me to her bosom, caressing me with many tears, suppressed sobs, and rapid exclamations in her own language. I learned afterwards from Celeste that I was of the same age and bore a striking resemblance in form and face to her daughter, who had been torn from her in the storm and turmoil of their escape. They had been rescued by a faithful servant, and hurried off, more dead than alive, in the fright, confusion, and uproar of a terrible outbreak in Paris, and had discovered, when too late, that her daughter had been separated from them and was missing. Their deliverer promised to make every possible effort to find the child, but Celeste had little hope; for she had heard from the servant of another lady, who escaped later--but had never told her mistress--that one of the women who daily watched the carts which conveyed the victims to the guillotine had averred that she was sure she saw the child among their number.

From the first I was a welcome visitor in the lady’s room. She encouraged me to pass all the time with her which could be spared from household duties; for in those days every child was required to perform a portion of these. The schools in Hartford were, for the most part, closed during that period, that the buildings might be devoted to the accommodation of the strangers, who requited the kindness by teaching the children of each household where they were entertained, daily. I was the chosen pupil of madame. She soon imparted sufficient knowledge of the French to give her instructions in her own language. Never was child blest with a more gentle and painstaking teacher! To a thorough course in the simple branches of study she added many delicate accomplishments then unknown in our country, and the most patient training in all matters connected with dress and deportment. After lessons she would hold long conversations with me, more profitable than the lessons themselves, awakening interest by suggestions and inquiries tending to form habits of thinking, as well as of acquiring knowledge. Then such wonderful fairy tales as she would relate! I used to listen perfectly entranced. Never have I heard in English any fairy lore that would compare with it. Translations we may have, but the fairy charm of the original is lost.

At that time the spirit of infidelity and atheism which laid the train for the horrors of the French Revolution prevailed widely in our own country. When too young to comprehend their import, I had often listened to warm discussions between my father, who was strongly tinctured with those opinions--while in politics he was an ultra-democrat--and my maternal grandfather, a High-Churchman and Tory. The latter always insisted--and it was all I understood of their conversations--that it was impossible for a government founded upon popular unbelief and insubordination to stand. He was utterly hopeless for ours, not because it was democratic in form, but because the people no longer reverenced authority, had ceased to be imbued with the first principle of loyalty to God as Supreme Ruler, and to the “powers that be” as his appointed instruments. These subjects were themes of constant debate, and were treated with a warmth that commanded even the notice of children.

Some of our guests affected a gay and careless indifference to the claims of God and man that amounted to a rejection of both; others vehemently denounced all religion as a figment of priest-craft; while still another class met such questions with the solemnity arising from a conviction of the tremendous temporal and eternal interests which they involved.

It was refreshing to steal away from these evening debates in the drawing-room to the peaceful atmosphere of madame’s apartment. I frequently found her saying her beads, of which I knew nothing, only that they were exceedingly beautiful to the sight, and composed of very costly materials. I used to enter her room very quietly, and take my accustomed seat in silence, until her devotions were closed. Of her religion I knew no more than the name; but its evident influence upon every action of her life left an indelible impression upon my mind that it was a power above and beyond any of the prevailing forms around us. She never spoke expressly of her religion to me, but the purely Christian tone of her instructions upon all the duties of life, social and domestic, exemplified by her own conduct, proved abundantly that it was more than a mere sentiment or a name. I was too young at that time to reason upon these things, but, as I have said, they left an indelible impression, and, as life advanced, furnished food for many reveries which at length ripened into serious thought.

How the weary months must have dragged along for those exiled unfortunates! Yet the cheerfulness, even gayety, with which they endured their misfortunes and the torturing suspense of their position, was a matter of constant marvel to their New England friends. They watched the arrival of every ship from France with intense anxiety, and a renewal of grief and mourning was sure to follow the tidings it brought. Yet the polite amenities and courtesies of their daily life, which seemed a part of their nature, were never for a moment abated, and in the wildest storm of grief even the women never lost that exquisite sense of propriety which distinguishes their nation.

And so the time wore on until a certain memorable night in September, 1794. My father’s residence was situated upon an elevated street which commanded a wide view of the city and its environs. How well I remember standing with my sisters by the window of our attic dormitory, looking out upon the quiet city sleeping under the calm light of the harvest moon, on that never-to-be-forgotten night! The contemplation of the scene was too pleasant to be easily relinquished, and it was late before we could turn away from its fascinations to our rest. We were scarcely lost in sleep when we were awakened suddenly by a thrilling shout in the street, accompanied by the wild huzzahs of an excited multitude. We hastened to the lower rooms, where we found the strangers gathered around the open windows, from which they were waving handkerchiefs, hats, and scarfs, and mingling their shouts with those of the throng outside.

In the street the city crier moved along in advance of the crowd, mounted on a tall white horse, and waving an immense banner. At every crossing he would pause and shout through a speaking-trumpet, “Rejoice! rejoice! Robespierre, the tyrant, has fallen! has fallen!” Then followed the jubilant cheers of the rapidly-increasing crowd. And so they passed on through every street in the city.

I sought madame’s apartment, and found her kneeling in the same reverent attitude of humble devotion with which I had so long been familiar. Strange to say, my first thought upon hearing the news so joyful to others was one of dismal apprehension, and my first emotion one of ineffable sadness! Quick as thought came the painful assurance to my heart that this was the signal for my final separation from the loving friend, the gentle teacher, to whom I had become inexpressibly attached. As she arose and extended her arms towards me, I threw myself into them, and, hiding my face in her bosom, gave way to a burst of uncontrollable grief. Words were not necessary to explain its cause. Understanding it at a glance, she caressed and soothed me with assurances of her undying love, and that she could never forget or cease to pray for the child whom heaven had appointed to be her dearest consolation under her great afflictions.

My apprehensions proved well founded. The same ship which brought tidings of the tyrant’s fall brought letters also to madame from faithful friends, urging her immediate return to France.

My father accompanied her to Boston, in order to make needful preparation for her departure on the next outward-bound vessel. I was thrown into such an agony of grief at the thought of parting with her that madame begged I might be permitted to go with them, urging that the change of scene and a visit to relatives in Boston might divert my thoughts and soothe the bitter anguish of my young heart. He consented, and, when we reached the city, he left us at the house of his sister, where I found my cousins all engaged preparing for an examination and exhibition which was to take place the next day to close the term of the school they were attending, on the same street and near by.

They insisted that I should go with them, and madame dressed me in a white muslin with a blue sash. She then hung the locket you so much admire, suspended from a delicate gold chain, around my neck, and I set off with my cousins.

We found the girls grouped together in great glee, awaiting the opening exercises. In the centre of the group was a fair and graceful girl, near my own age and size, with a large basket containing bouquets of flowers arranged with admirable taste, which the girls were purchasing for themselves and to decorate the school-room.

My cousins replied to my questions about the young stranger: “Oh! we call her the little flower girl. She lives with a farmer just out of the city. The family are very fond of her, and he gives her a little place in the garden to cultivate flowers, and lets her come with him on market days to sell them for herself in the city. She heard of what was going on here, and thought this would be a good market for her bouquets; and so it has been, for she has sold them all.”

For some reason I could not turn my eyes from the child. There seemed to be a mutual fascination which drew us together, and I observed she was looking intently and with much emotion at the locket I wore. I asked her why she was so much interested in it. She answered with a slight French accent: “My mamma had such a locket, and all the ladies of the queen’s household wore them.”

“And where is your mamma?” I inquired.

“Alas! I do not know if she is living. I lost her in a great crowd in the streets of Paris, and was so frightened at the horrors around me that I remember nothing until I found myself on board the ship which brought me here. How I came there I never knew. The kind-hearted farmer with whom I live was on the wharf when we landed, and, in great pity for my bewildering loneliness and grief, took me to his home, where I have since received every attention and sympathy.”

Almost sinking under agitation, I turned to my cousins, who had been too much occupied with their own affairs to notice us, and faintly gasped: “She is, she must be, the daughter for whom madame mourns!”

At the bare suggestion all else was forgotten! There was an impetuous huddling of our electrified companions around the bewildered little stranger, and a petition that the school exercises might be delayed until they could escort her to my aunt and learn whether my conjecture was true. So great was their excitement that it was useless to deny the request, and we led our heroine off with hasty steps.

On the way we decided that my aunt should break the matter gently to madame, and introduce the child to her in her room.

There was no need of an introduction! The moment their eyes met the exclamations “Antoinette!” “Mamma!” burst from their lips, and my aunt left them locked in a close embrace. The scene was too sacred for intrusion!

The news flew with the speed of the wind, and there were great rejoicings far and near over the timely discovery brought about by means of the locket, which madame bestowed upon me (after removing the knot of hair, too precious, as a relic of her lamented queen and the Princess Elizabeth, to be relinquished) in memory of this joyful event, and as a souvenir of the beloved friend and teacher with whom I had passed so many happy and profitable hours.

Soon after the reunion of the mother and child they sailed for France, and I returned with my father to a home which was now bereft of a charm that could never be replaced or restored. But my sympathy with their joy was too sincere to be chilled by selfish regrets.

During my father’s stay in Boston he made some final arrangements connected with a large territory of wild lands which he had received from the government in partial requital of his services in the army.

To that distant wilderness he removed his family immediately after our return. The absence of mail communication with such remote districts, in those days, was doubtless the reason why we never received further tidings from one who had placed us among the favored few that “have entertained angels unawares.”

In the loneliness of my forest home, and through a long life marked by many changes and sorrows, I have cherished grateful memories of the early lessons I received from her lips, and they have proved, through their influence upon my religious and moral being, a legacy far more precious than a thousand caskets of gold and precious stones.

THE CHARITIES OF ROME.

The present sacrilegious invaders of Rome have done much to change the religious aspect of the city, and obliterate every trace of the influence of the popes upon the charities once so liberally thrown open to the people of every clime and color. In the true spirit of modern “progress,” philanthropy has usurped the place of charity, and the state, taking possession of institutions founded and hitherto directed in many points by the church, banishes her as far from them as possible. It may be interesting to pass in review some of those magnificent charities which sprang up and flourished so long under pontifical protection, but which have lately either been violently suppressed or are fast disappearing under the difficulties of the political situation. We will write of these charities as they existed in 1869, which was the last year during the whole of which the papal government had control of them. In that year an English Protestant writer, long resident in Rome, was obliged by the clearness of facts to tell his readers that “few cities in Europe are so distinguished for their institutions of public charity as Rome, and in none are the hospitals more magnificently lodged or endowed with more princely liberality. The annual endowments of these establishments are no less than 258,390 scudi, derived from lands and houses, from grants, and from the papal treasury.”

When S. Peter entered Rome for the first time, and looked upon the miserable condition of those to whom the favors of fortune were denied, he recalled to mind the words addressed to his forefathers about to enter into the promised land: “There shall be no poor nor beggar among you: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in the land which he giveth thee to possess” (Deut. xv. 4), and saw before him one of the greatest obstacles to be overcome--involving a change of what was second nature to the Romans (hardness of heart), they being, as S. Paul wrote (Rom. i. 31), “without affection, without mercy”--but knowing that it was also said in the same holy text “Poor will not be wanting in the land: therefore I command thee to open thy hand to thy needy and poor brother,” and having heard the blessed Lord Jesus say of the new dispensation, “The poor ye have always with you,” he understood that God’s object was not to forbid mendicity, but to leave no room for it. Therefore to the rich and powerful, when brought by grace to his apostolic feet, he enjoined: “Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house” (Isaias lviii. 7). The faith of the Roman Christians was illustrious throughout the world, and so was their charity. From the days of S. Peter it had been customary to take up collections on Sundays in all the congregations of the city for the relief of the confessors condemned to labor in the public mines and other works, or languishing in prison, or wandering in exile; and Eusebius has preserved in his _Ecclesiastical History_ (lib. iv. cap. 23) the testimony of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth (161-192), in favor of the long-established charitable institutions of the Romans, and in praise, at the same time, of the piety of his contemporary, Pope S. Soter, who not only retained these customs of his people, but surpassed them in sending money to the Christians of other parts of the world, and in receiving, as though they were his own children, all faithful pilgrims to Rome. In the year 236 Pope S. Fabian gave charge of the poor of Rome to seven deacons each of whom superintended two of the fourteen civil divisions or regions, whence they were called regionary deacons. A memorial of their occupation still remains in the dalmatic, or deacon’s vestment, the wide sleeves of which served originally for pockets; and Pope Innocent III., in his treatise on the Mass, remarks that this kind of dress is attributed to deacons because, in the first institution of their order, the distribution of alms was assigned to them. A council of the IVth century, held under Pope Sylvester, decreed that one-fourth part of the church revenues should be set apart for the poor. S. Jerome attests in one of his letters that a noble matron named Fabiola erected a hospital in the year 400; and about the same time S. Gallicanus, a man of consular dignity, who had also been honored with a triumph, becoming a Christian, founded a similar institution at the mouth of the Tiber for the accommodation of pilgrims and of the sick. He waited upon them in person. In 1869 Rome had a population of about 220,000 inhabitants, and, although the climate is not unhealthy, it is hardly one of the most salubrious in the world. The low land upon which a great part of the modern city is built; the turbid Tiber, which, passing through it in a winding course, is apt to overflow its banks; the open position of the city, which is exposed, according to the season, either to the sultry African wind or to the piercing blasts from the neighboring mountains; and the large floating population, which is everywhere a likely subject of disease, combine to make it desirable that Rome should be well provided with institutions of succor and relief. While under papal rule, she was not wanting in this respect, but was even abundantly and excellently supplied.

Man, being composed of spirit and matter, having consequently a soul and a body to look after, has wants of two kinds, corresponding to the twofold claims of his nature. We should therefore divide the charities man is capable of receiving into two classes. He received them in Rome with a generous hand. The first class comprehended relief to the indigent, the sick, the destitute, the insane, the convalescent; possessed hospitals and asylums, brought aid into private families, opened nocturnal retreats, offered work to the honest needy, gave marriage portions to the nubile, shielded widows, protected orphans, advanced money on the easiest terms. These were charities of subsistence. The second class embraced poor schools and other establishments for gratuitous education in trades, arts, and sciences, conservatories for the exposed, hospices for the reformed, and made provision for the legal defence of the weak. These were called charities of education.

There were two institutions in Rome that assisted the poor before they had fallen into misery or become destitute. These were the _Monte di Pietà_ and the savings-bank. The first was a bank of loan and deposit. The idea of such an institution was suggested by a pious and shrewd Franciscan, named Barnabas of Terni, who was painfully struck, during a mission he was giving in Perugia in the year 1462, by the enormous usury (a crime then practised almost exclusively by Jews) which the poor were forced to pay for any advance of money they might need. This practical friar prevailed upon several wealthy persons to mass sums of money into one fund, out of which to lend to the poor at a reasonable (and in some cases merely nominal) rate of interest. Hence the distinctive name of Monte di Pietà, which means literally mountain of mercy. The Roman _Monte_ was the third institution of the sort that was opened. This was in the year 1539. It was to lend money up to a certain amount without taking interest; above this amount for a very small interest. It was to take articles on pawn, and give the appraised value, less one-third. Over $100,000 used, under the papal government, to be annually loaned out on pawns or otherwise without one cent of interest. This establishment occupied a superb public building, and was under the control of the Minister of Finance. Honest visitors were freely admitted into every part of it; and we have heard many (even hard-fisted) English and Americans express themselves surprised, if not satisfied, with this reasonable and conscientious manner of saving the poor from the gripe of usurers and pawn-brokers, while imposing enough restraint to discourage improvidence. No hope was held out of indiscriminate relief. Looking at the _Monte_ in an antiquarian light, it was a perfect museum of modern life, and to go through it was as good as visiting a hundred consolidated old curiosity-shops. Its administration employed, including a detachment of the Swiss Guard, one hundred persons. The capital, which consisted of every kind of property that at various periods and from many benefactors had come to it, was about three million dollars. The most orthodox political economists acknowledge that institutions of this sort were devised only as a lesser evil; and consequently the Roman government was glad to see the business of the _Monte_ fall away considerably after the opening of the savings-bank in 1836. This was a charitable institution, because it was governed gratuitously by an administration of eleven honest and intelligent men, among whom were some of the first nobility, who thus gave a portion of their time and talents to the poor. The cashier, Prince Borghese, gave, besides his services, a part of his magnificent palace to be turned into offices for the business transactions of the bank.

The Apostolic Almonry in the Vatican next claimed our attention in the quiet days of the Pope. From the earliest period the vicars of Christ have made it a practice to visit in person the poor, and distribute alms with their own hands, in love and imitation of Him who “went about doing good.” As the wealth of the church in Rome increased, it was found necessary for the better ordering of things to have some administrative assistance in the distribution of these private charities. S. Conon I., in the VIIth century, employed the arch-priest Paschal to dispense the bounty of the privy purse; and in the year 1271 Blessed Gregory X. created the perpetual office of grand almoner in the papal court. This officer is always an archbishop _in partibus_, and lives under the same roof as the Holy Father, in order to be ready at all times to receive his commands. Besides the many standing largitions issued from the Grand Almonry, there were occasional ones, such as the largess of $300 which was distributed in the great court-yard of Belvidere on each anniversary of the Pope’s coronation. This sum was doubled the first year. On each of the following civil or religious festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Coronation day, $165 were divided among a certain number of the best-behaved prisoners confined in Rome. About $650 a month were paid out either at the word of the sovereign or on his order; while a sum of $2,000 was annually divided among one hundred poor families. Besides this, the Grand Almonry supported a number of free schools, dispensed food and medicines, and performed many acts of more secret charity. A memorial of the earlier personal distribution of alms by the popes is retained in the _Succinctorium_, which they wear in solemn pontificals. It is an ornament of silk of the color of the feast, fringed with gold, and suspended down the left side from the girdle. On Good Friday the succinctory is not worn, in execration of the evil use Judas Iscariot made of the purse when he betrayed our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.

Another of the great charities of Rome was the Commission of Subsidies established by Pope Leo XII., in 1826, to give assistance and employment to poor but honest people, willing to help themselves if they could find the opportunity. The whole tendency of Roman charities under the popes was to frown upon sloth and vagrancy, and encourage self-reliance and mutual support; for S. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (2, iii. 10): “If any man will not work, neither let him eat.” The commission received a yearly subsidy from government of $88,500. In each of the fourteen rioni or wards of the city a physician, surgeon, pharmacist, and midwife rendered gratuitous services under its control. It was by the judicious employment of such men, thrown on the hands of the commission, that within the last thirty years so much was done in making excavations in and about Rome in search of antiquities and in studying its ancient topography. We have sometimes heard English and American sight-seers make brutal remarks about “those dirty, lazy Romans,” as they would stop a moment to look at some party of these poor fellows taking their work so easily in the Forum, on the Palatine, or elsewhere; but we should rather applaud the paternal government that refrained from calling poverty a crime or driving the poor and weak to their work like galley-slaves; and while contributing a generous support, gave them enough to do to save their self-respect.

No such thing as work-houses, in the English sense, have ever been maintained where Catholic influences have predominated; and for this we may thank God.

Another category of Roman charities comprised the confraternities. These associations for purposes of piety and mutual help convey in their name the idea of brotherliness and union. There were no fewer than ninety-one confraternities in Rome under the popes. The oldest and most famous of these was the Annunciation, which was founded in 1460 by the Dominican Cardinal John Torquemada, in Santa Maria-in-Minerva, the head church of his order in Rome.[96] Its particular object was to give portions to poor but virtuous young females, that they might either marry or enter a religious house if they had a vocation. On the 25th of March, Lady-day, the pope, cardinals, and prelates, with the rest of the court, used to assist at Mass in that church, and preside at the distribution of dowers which followed immediately. The girls were always dressed in plain white; such as had signified their choice of the heavenly Spouse being distinguished by a wreath on the head. On this occasion the pontiff gave one hundred golden scudi, and each cardinal present gave one, to the funds of the confraternity. There were fourteen other confraternities that had the same object, although carried out with less solemnity. In this way $42,000 used to be expended annually.

The Confraternity of the Twelve Apostles made it a special point to find out and relieve in a delicate manner those who, having known better days, were fallen into reduced circumstances. The Confraternity of Prayer and Death buried the dead; and if an accident in or about Rome was reported in which life was lost, a party was detailed to go and bring the body in decently for Christian burial. Sometimes a poor herdsman on the Campagna had been gored by an ox, or some fellow had been swept away and drowned in the Tiber, or perhaps a reaper been prostrated by the heat; at whatever hour of the day or night, and at all seasons, a band of this confraternity went out, and returned carrying the unfortunate person on a stretcher upon their shoulders. It must be remarked in this connection that the members of the confraternity always observed the laws concerning deaths of this kind, not interfering with, but merely placing themselves at the disposal of, the officers of justice, to give a body burial at their own expense and in consecrated ground. The Confraternity of Pity for Prisoners was founded in 1575 by Father John Tallier, a French Jesuit. It provided religious instruction for prisoners, distributed objects of piety among them, looked after their families if destitute, and assisted them to pay their debts and fines if they had any. The Confraternity of S. John Baptist was composed exclusively of Florentines and the descendants of Florentines. Its object was to comfort and assist to the last, criminals condemned to death. As decapitation was the mode of judicial punishment, S. John Baptist, who was slain by Herod, was their patron, and his head on a charger the arms of the confraternity. Although there were so many confraternities and other pious associations in Rome, connected by their object with institutions of every kind, sanitary, corrective, etc., they were very careful never to interfere with the regulations of such establishments; and consequently, by minding their own business, they were not in the way of the officials, but, on the contrary, were looked upon as valuable assistants. The Society of S. Vincent of Paul was started in Rome in 1842 by the late venerable Father de Ravignan, S.J. It counted twenty-eight conferences and one thousand active members, clergy and laymen, titled folks and trades-people all working harmoniously together. About $2,100 was annually dispensed by the society. The Congregation of Ladies was founded in 1853 by Monsignor--now Cardinal--Borromeo to give work, especially needle-work, to young women out of employment. A great many ecclesiastical vestments were thus made under the direction of the ladies, and either sent as presents to poor missions, or sold, for what they would bring, at the annual fair held for the purpose of disposing of them.

There were seven public hospitals in Rome, under the immediate direction of a general board of administration composed of twelve members, of whom three belonged to the clergy and the rest to the laity. The oldest, largest, and best-appointed institution of this kind was Santo Spirito, situated in the Leonine quarter of the city, on the border of the Tiber. Its site has been occupied by a charitable institution ever since A.D. 728; the earliest building having been founded there for his countrymen by Ina, King of Wessex. For this reason the whole pile of buildings is called Santo Spirito _in Saxia_--_i.e._, in the quarter of the (West) Saxons. There are three distinct establishments under the administration of Santo Spirito--viz., the hospital itself, the Foundling Hospital, and the Lunatic Asylum. The first was founded by Pope Innocent III. in 1198, the Saxons having abandoned this locality for a more central position--the present S. Thomas-of-the-English. It has received since then many additions, until it has assumed the enormous proportions that we now admire. Every improvement was made to keep pace with the advance of hygienic knowledge. This hospital was for men only. It had 1,616 beds and an annual average of 14,000 patients. The wards were twelve in number, in which the cleanliness was refreshing, the ventilation excellent, and the water-supply pure and abundant. The principal parts of the exterior, and some of the interior parts of the building, were by distinguished architects; while some of the wards had their ceilings and upper walls painted in fresco with scenes from Sacred Scripture, such as the sufferings of Job and the miraculous cures made by our Lord. Not only the eye but the ear too of the poor patients was pleased; for three times a week they were entertained with organ music from a lofty choir erected at one end of the largest wards. The spiritual care of the sick was perfect; it was impossible for any one to die without the rites of the church. In the centre of every ward there was a fixed altar, upon which Mass was said daily. The Confraternity of Santo Spirito, composed of clergy and laymen, assisted the regular ministers of religion in attendance day and night. These volunteers brought flowers to the patients, read to them, prepared them for confession and other sacraments, and disposed them to die a good death, besides performing for them the most menial services.

We remember to have read a letter addressed to the New York _Post_ by an eminent Protestant clergyman of New York, in which, after describing this institution (then under papal rule), he said that he could not speak too highly of the excellent attendance the patients received from the kind-hearted religious who were stationed there, and added that if ever he had to come to a hospital, he hoped it would be Santo Spirito. The Foundling Hospital was opened by Pope Innocent III.; and the Lunatic Asylum, for both sexes, was founded in 1548 by three Spaniards, a priest and two laymen. It was called the House of Our Lady of Mercy. A fine garden on the Janiculum Hill was attached to it for the recreation of the patients. We do not know how it is conducted since it has changed hands, but formerly it was managed on the system of kindness towards even the fiercest madmen, using only so much restraint as was positively necessary. It was then under the care of religious. The Hospital of the Santissimo Salvatore, near St. John of Lateran, was founded in 1236 by a Cardinal Colonna. It was for women only. Another Cardinal Colonna founded the Hospital of S. James, for incurables, in 1339. Our Lady of Consolation was a fine hospital near the Forum for the maimed and wounded; while San Gallicano, on the other side of the river, was for fevers and skin-diseases. San Rocco was a small lying-in hospital, with accommodation for 26 women. It was founded at the beginning of the XVIIth century by a Cardinal Salviati. The most delicate precautions were always used there to save any sense of honor that might still cling to a victim of frailty. Guilt could at least blush unnoticed. The Santissima Trinità was founded by S. Philip Neri for convalescents of both sexes and for poor pilgrims. It could lodge 488 patients, had beds for 500 pilgrims, and table-room for 900. In the great refectory of this building the members of the confraternity came on every Holy Thursday evening to wash the feet of the pilgrims and wait on them at table. Of course the two sexes were in different parts of the building, and each was attended by its own. We remember the delightful ardor with which the late Cardinal Barnabo on such occasions would turn up his sleeves, twitch his apron, and, going down on his knees, give some poor man’s feet a better washing than they had had before in a year. There was much raising of soap-suds in that wooden tub, and a real, earnest kiss on one foot when the washing was over. The Hospital of S. John Calabyta was so called from a Spaniard, the founder of the Brothers of Charity (commonly called the _Benfratelli_), who attended it. It was opened in 1581, on the island of the Tiber; and by a coincidence then perhaps unknown, but since fully brought to light, it stood on the very site of an _asclepium_ which the priests of Esculapius kept near their god’s temple two thousand years ago. The Hospital of Santa Galla was founded in 1650 by the princely Odescalchi family. It gave a night asylum to homeless men. There were 224 beds, distributed through nine dormitories. Another night refuge, called S. Aloysius, was founded about the year 1730 by Father Galluzzi, a Florentine Jesuit. It is for women. We can get some idea of the great charity such refuges are when we know that during the year ending December, 1869, no less than 135,000 persons sought a resting-place at night in the station-houses of New York. Besides these public hospitals, almost every Catholic country had a private national one. One of the picturesque and not least of the Roman charities used to be the daily distribution of food at the gates of monasteries, convents, and nunneries, the portals of palaces, and the doors of seminaries, colleges, and boarding-schools.

With all this liberality, there was still some room for hand-alms. There used to be beggars in Rome; assassins have taken their place. Under the papal government a limit was put to beggary, and we have never seen the _sturdy_ beggar who figures so maliciously in some Protestant books about Rome. Beggary may become an evil; it is not a crime. We confess to liking beggars if they are not too numerous and importunate. Few scenes have seemed to us more venerable, picturesque, and Christian than the double row of beggars, with their sores and crippled limbs, their sticks and battered hats and outstretched hands, imploring _per è amore di Dio_, as we pass between them to the church or cemetery or other holy place on feast-day afternoons in Rome.

The Hospice of San Michele was founded in 1686 by a Cardinal Odescalchi. In this asylum nearly 800 persons used to be received. They were divided into four classes--old men, old women, boys, and girls. The institution had an annual endowment of $52,000; but some years ago the aged of both sexes were removed elsewhere, and their part of the building was converted into a house of correction for women and juvenile offenders. The hospice, in its strict sense, now consists of a House of Industry for children of both sexes, and a gratuitous school of the industrial and fine arts. The carping author of Murray’s _Hand-book_ (1869), although he acknowledges that this school of arts has produced some eminent men, says that “the education of the boys might be turned, perhaps, to more practically useful objects!” As if, forsooth, it were a lesser charity, in the great home of the arts that Rome is, to help a poor lad of talent to become an architect, for instance, than to make him a tailor! The orphan asylum of Saint Mary of the Angels was near the Baths of Diocletian. The boys numbered 450, under the care of male religious, and the girls 500, under that of female religious. The institution received annually $38,000 from the Commission of Subsidies. In the same quarter of the city is the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. It was opened in 1794 by Father Silvestri, who had been sent to Paris by Pope Pius VI. to receive instruction from the celebrated Abbé de l’Epée in the art of teaching this class of unfortunates. Visitors to the house are made welcome, and are often invited to test the knowledge of the pupils by asking them questions on the blackboard. The first time we called there was in 1862, and, having asked one of the boys, taken at hazard, who was the first President of the United States, we were a little surprised (having thought to puzzle him) to have the correct answer at once. The House of Converts was an establishment where persons who wished to become Catholics were received for a time and instructed in the faith. It was founded in 1600 by a priest of the Oratory. Other interesting hospices were the Widows’ Home and the House for Aged Priests, where the veterans of the Roman clergy could end their days in honorable comfort. A peculiar class of Roman charities were the conservatories. They were twenty-three in number. Some of them were for penance, others for change of life, and others again to shield unprotected virtue. The Infant Asylum was a flourishing institution directed by female religious. Even fashion was made to do something for it, since a noble lady years ago suggested that the members of good society in Rome should dispense with their mutual New Year visits on condition of giving three pauls (a small sum of money) to the asylum, and having their names published in the official journal.

The Society for the Propagation of the Faith was established at Rome in 1834. No city of the size and population of Rome was better supplied with free schools of every description. The night-schools were first opened in 1819. In connection with studies we should mention the liberal presents of books, vestments, and liturgical articles made to young missionaries by the Propaganda, and the books on learned subjects, which, being printed at government expense, were sold at a reduced price to students of every nation on showing a certificate from one of their professors.

It is written (Matthew iv. 4), “Man liveth not by bread alone”; and consequently Rome multiplied those pious houses of retreat in which the soul could rest for a time from the cares of life. There were five such establishments in the city. Another great Roman charity was the missions preached by the Jesuits and Franciscans in and around the city, thus bringing the truths of the Gospel constantly before the people. We have given but a brief sketch of our subject. It has been treated in a complete manner by Cardinal Morichini in a new and revised edition of his interesting work entitled _Degl’ Istituti di Pubblica Carità ed istruzione primaria e delle prigioni in Roma_.

SONG.

I.

When in the long and lonely night That brings no slumber to mine eyes, Through dark returns the vision bright, The face and form that day denies, And, like a solitary star Revealed above a stormy sea, Thy spirit soothes me from afar, I mourn thee not, nor weep for thee.

II.

And when I watch the dawn afar Awake her sleeping sister night, And overhead the dying star Return into her parent light, And in the breaking day discern The glimmer of eternity, The goal, the peace, for which I yearn, I mourn thee not, nor weep for thee.

III.

And when the melancholy eve Brings back the hour akin to tears, And through the twilight I perceive The settled, strong, abiding spheres, And gently on my heart opprest Like dew descending silently, There falls a portion of thy rest, I mourn thee not, nor weep for thee.

IV.

But when once more the stir of life Makes all these busy highways loud, And fretted by the jarring strife, The noisy humors of the crowd, The subtle, sweet suggestions born Of silence fail, and memory Consoles no more, I mourn, I mourn That thou art not, and weep for thee.

PROGRESS _VERSUS_ GROOVES.

“How do you like your new minister, Mrs. B.?”

“Very much indeed! He is progressive--is not fixed in any of the old grooves. His mind does not run in those ancient ruts that forbid advance and baffle modern thought.”

How strangely this colloquy between a Methodist and Congregationalist fell upon the Catholic ear of their mutual friend! Comment, however, was discreetly forborne. That friend had learned in the very infancy of a Catholic life, beginning at the mature age of thirty-five by the register, the futility of controversy, and that the pearls of truth are too precious to be carelessly thrown away. Strangely enough these expressions affected one whose habits of thought and conduct had been silently forming in accordance with that life for twenty-five years!

“Old grooves” indeed! Lucifer found them utterly irreconcilable with his “advanced ideas” in heaven. Confessedly, the success of his progressive enterprise was not encouraging; but the battle and its results established his unquestionable claim as captain and leader of the sons and daughters of progress for all time.

“Modern thought!” So far as we can discover, the best it has done for its disciples is to prove to them beyond a doubt that their dear grandpapa of eld was an ape, and that they, when they shake off this mortal coil, will be gathered to their ancestors in common with their brethren, the modern monkeys!

We, who believe the authentic history of the past, can see in this boasted new railroad, upon which the freight of modern science and advanced civilization is borne, a pathway as old as the time when our dear, credulous old grandmamma received a morning call in Eden from the oldest brother of these scientific gentlemen, who convinced her in the course of their pleasant chat that poor deluded Adam and herself were fastened in the most irrational rut--a perfect outrage upon common sense--and that a very slight repast upon “advanced ideas” would lift them out of it, emancipate thought, and make them as “gods knowing good and evil.”

We all know how well they succeeded in their first step on the highway of progress. They lost a beautiful garden, it is true, of limited dimensions, but they gained a world of boundless space, and a freedom of thought and action which was first successfully and completely illustrated by their first-born son when he murmured, “Why?” and killed his brother, who was evidently attached to grooves.

They left the heritage thus gained to a large proportion of their descendants. A minority of them, it is true, prefer to “seek out the old paths” of obedience to the commands of God, “and walk therein”--to shun the “broad road” along which modern civilization is rolling its countless throngs, and to “enter in at the strait gate” which leadeth to life eternal, to the great disgust of the disciples of modern thought, who spare no effort to prove their exceeding liberality by persecuting such with derision, calumny, chains, imprisonment, and death!

Thank God this is all they can do! Rage they never so furiously, He that sitteth in the heavens laughs them to scorn. He will defend and preserve his anointed against all the combined hosts of Bismarcks, kaisers, and robber princes, who illustrate the liberal ideas that govern the march of modern civilization.

TRACES OF AN INDIAN LEGEND.

It has been said of our energetic republic that it had no infancy; that it sprang into a vigorous and complete existence at a bound. However true this may be with respect to its material structure in the hands of the remarkable men who first planted colonies on American soil, there is another view of the picture which presents widely different features.

To the eye of the Christian philosopher the religious and moral aspects of our country to this day afford subjects for anything but satisfactory reflection.

The pioneers of civilization along the northeastern borders of our territory were--whatever their professions to the contrary may have been--worshippers of material prosperity. The worship of God and the claims of religion were indeed important and proper in their place for a portion of the seventh part of each week, but the moment they came in conflict with Mammon there was little question which should yield. It was not to be expected that the saints whom the Lord had specially chosen, and unto whom “He had given the earth,” should be diverted from their pursuit of the great “main chance” by precepts which were applicable only to ordinary and less favored mortals.

Whatever progress the church has yet achieved in this region is the result of appalling labors and sacrifices. The foundation was laid in sufferings, fatigues, and perils, from the contemplation of which the self-indulgent Christians of our day would shrink aghast; laid long before the so-called Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth, while the savage still roamed through the unbroken forests of New England, and disputed dominion with wild beasts hardly more dangerous than himself to the messengers of the Gospel of peace. Amid the wonderful beauty and variety of the panorama which her mountains, lakes, and valleys unfold to the tourists and pleasure-seekers of to-day, there is scarcely a scene that has not been traversed in weariness, in hunger, and cold by those dauntless servants of God who first proclaimed the tidings of salvation to the wild children of the forest.

Futile, and even foolish, as the toils of these early fathers may appear to the materialist and utilitarian of this day, because of their tardy and apparently inadequate fruits, the designs of Heaven have not been frustrated, and its light reveals a very different history. We read therein how He who causes “the weak and foolish things of this world to confound the wise” and to proclaim his praise, sent his ministering angels to hover over the pathway moistened with the tears and blood of his servants, to note each footprint through the dreary wilderness, to gather the incense of each prayer, and to mark each pain and peril of their sacrificial march for record in the archives of eternity, as an earnest for future good to those regions, and as enduring testimony before the high court of heaven to their fitness for the crown--far surpassing in glory all earthly crowns--which they won by their burning zeal and unwavering patience.

Nor were their efforts in the field of their earthly labors so vain as some of our modern historians would have us suppose. Prayer and exertion in the service of God are never fruitless. If it is true--as the great Champlain was wont to say--“that one soul gained for heaven was of more value than the conquest of an empire for France,” they gained from the roving tribes of the desert many sincere and steadfast adherents to the faith--whose names are recorded in the book of life--and scattered benedictions along their painful pathway which have shed their beneficent influences over the scenes they traversed down to the present day. We hope to illustrate and sustain this assertion in the following sketch, drawn from our memory, of traditions--preserved among the Indians of St. Regis--to which we listened many years ago.

Scattered along the southern shores of the St. Lawrence, from the foot of Lake Ontario to the village of St. Regis--while St. Lawrence County, N.Y., was yet for the most part covered with primitive forests--were many encampments of these Indians. That whole region abounded in game and furnished favorite hunting-grounds, to which they claimed a right in connection with their special reservation in the more immediate neighborhood of St. Regis. At each of these encampments an aged Indian was sure to be found, who, without the title of chief, was a kind of patriarch among his younger brethren, exercised great influence in their affairs, and was treated with profound respect by them. He was their umpire in all disputes, their adviser in doubtful matters, and the “leader of prayer” in his lodge--always the largest and most commodious of the wigwams, and the one in which they assembled for their devotions.

One of the oldest of these sages--called “Captain Simon”--must have been much more than a hundred years of age, judging from the dates of events of which he retained a distinct remembrance as an eye-witness, and which occurred in the course of the French and Indian wars, over a century previous to the time when we listened to his recital. His head was an inexhaustible store-house of traditions and legends, many of them relating to the discovery and settlement of Canada and the labors of the first missionaries. He was very fond of young people, and, gathering the children of the white settlers around him, he would hold them spell-bound for hours while he related stories of those early days in his peculiarly impressive and figurative language. He claimed that his grandfather was one of the party who accompanied Champlain on his first voyage through the lake which bears his name, and that he afterwards acted as guide and interpreter to the first priest who visited the valley of Lake Champlain. When he heard that we were from Vermont, he asked for a piece of chalk, and, marking on the floor an outline of the lake and the course of the Richelieu River, he proceeded to narrate the voyage of Champlain and his party in the summer of 1609.

Embosomed within the placid waters of Lake Champlain, near its northern extremity, is a lovely island, of which Vermonters boast as the “Gem of the Lake,” so remarkable is it for beauty and fertility. Here the party landed, and Champlain, erecting a cross, claimed the lake--to which he gave his own name--its islands and shores, for France and for Christianity. Half a century later one La Motte built a fort upon this island, which he named St. Anne, giving the island his own name; and it is called the Isle La Motte to this day.

Champlain explored the lake as far as Crown Point, where they encountered and defeated a band of Iroquois Indians; but not deeming it wise to adventure further at that time so near such powerful foes, they returned down the lake without delay. This encounter was the first act of that savage drama which so long desolated New France, and threatened it with entire destruction.

Six years later, in the summer of 1615, another party landed on the Isle La Motte. It was made up of a missionary of the Recollect Order and his escort of Indians in two bark canoes. The grandfather of our narrator was one of these. They remained a day or two on the island, and the missionary offered the Christian sacrifice for the first time within the territory now embraced by the State of Vermont.[97]

The object of his journey was to visit scattered bands of hunters who were encamped along the eastern shore of the lake and its vicinity, at different points in the valley of Lake Champlain.

Leaving the Isle La Motte, they steered for the mouth of the Missisque River, which they navigated up to the first falls, where the village of Swanton now stands. Here they found a flourishing encampment, and remained some days for the purpose of instructing the Indians in the truths of Christianity. The missionary found that some dim reports of the Christian teachers had preceded him, and prepared the way for his work, the success of which encouraged and consoled him.

From that place they proceeded on foot for some miles to the base of a line of hills, sketched by the narrator, and corresponding to those east of St. Alban’s. Here they also remained several days, the reverend father toiling early and late in the duties of his vocation. He was now surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners; for not only did his former audience accompany him, but a goodly number from the surrounding hills and from Bellamaqueau and Maquam Bays--distant three and five miles respectively--flocked to hear his instructions and to be taught “The Prayer” revealed to them by the Great Spirit through his servant.

Here they brought to him also the beautiful Indian maiden, of whom her race cherish the legend that her declining health led her people to bring her to these hills, hoping the change from the low lands and damp atmosphere of her home to the bracing mountain air might prove beneficial. Instead of finding relief, she only declined the more rapidly, so that she was soon unable to be carried back. She, too, had heard whispers of holy men who had come to teach her race the path of heaven, and wistfully she had sighed daily, as she repeated the yearning aspiration: “Oh! if the Great Spirit would but let me see and listen to his messenger, I could die in peace!”

The Indians, to this day, tell with what joy she listened to his words; how eagerly she prayed that she might receive the regenerating waters; how, when they were poured upon her head, her countenance became bright with the light of heaven; and how her departure soon after was full of joy and peace. Her burial-place was made on one of those eastern hills. It was the first Christian burial for one of her race in Vermont, and her people thought her intercessions would not fail to bring down blessings upon all that region.

Pursuing their journey by the trail of those who had preceded them through the dense wilderness--for our aborigines were skilled in tracing lines of communication between their different camps with extreme directness by aid of their close observations of nature--the party arrived at another camp on the bank of a river discovered by Champlain, and named by him the Lamoille.

At this place an Indian youth came to the missionary in great distress. His young squaw was lying at the point of death, and the medicine men and women could do nothing more for her. Would not “The Prayer” restore her? Oh! if it would give her back to him, he, with all his family, would gratefully embrace it! The reverend father went to her, and, when he found she desired it, baptized her and her new-born infant in preparation for the death which seemed inevitable. Contrary to all expectation, she recovered. Her husband and his family, together with her father’s family, afterwards became joyful believers.

After some days the Indians of that place accompanied the party in canoes to the lake and along its shores to the mouth of the Winooski River, which they ascended as far as the first falls. Here they remained many days, during which time the missionary visited the present site of Burlington, and held two missions there--one at a camp on the summit of a hill overlooking the valley of the Winooski as it approaches the lake, and one near the lake shore.

If Vermonters who are familiar with the magnificent scenery which surrounds the “queen city” of their State never visit the place without being filled with new admiration at the infinite variety and beauty of the pictures it unfolds from every changing point of view, we may imagine how strangers must be impressed who gaze upon them for the first time. Not less picturesque, and if possible even more striking, were its features when, crowned by luxuriant native forests and fanned by gentle breezes from the lake, it reposed within the embrace of that glorious amphitheatre of hills, in the undisturbed tranquillity of nature. It was not strange that the natives were drawn by its unparalleled attractions to congregate there in such numbers as to require from their reverend visitor a longer time than he gave to any other place in this series of missions.

In the course of three months the party had traversed the eastern border of the lake to the last encampment near its southern extremity. This was merely a summer camp, as the vicinity of the Iroquois made it unsafe to remain there longer than through that portion of the season when the Mohawks and their confederates were too busy with their own pursuits among the hills of the Adirondacks to give much heed to their neighbors. At the close of the mission this camp was broken up for that season, and its occupants joined the reverend father and his party in canoes as far as the mouth of the Winooski River, whence men were sent to convey them to the starting-point at Swanton, where their own canoes were left.

On their way thither they lingered for some days on Grand Isle, then, as now, a vision of loveliness to all admirers of the beautiful, and a favorite annual resort of the natives for the period during which they were safe from the attacks of their merciless foes.

At every mission thus opened the missionary promised to return himself, or send one of his associates, to renew his instructions and minister to the spiritual wants of his converts. This promise was fulfilled as far as the limited number of laborers in this vineyard permitted. The brave and untiring sons of Loyola afterwards entered the field, and proved worthy successors of the zealous Recollects who first announced the Gospel message in those wilds.

Our Indian narrator, when he had finished his recital of missionary labors in this and other regions, would always add with marked emphasis: “And it is firmly believed by our people, among all their tribes, that upon every spot where the Christian sacrifice was first offered a Catholic church will one day be placed.”

There seemed to his Protestant listeners but slight probability of this prediction ever being fulfilled in Vermont--settled for the most part by the straitest sect of the Puritans--as there was not then, or until twenty years from that time, a Catholic priest or church in the State. Yet at this writing--and the fact has presented itself before us with startling effect while tracing these imperfect reminiscences--there is at every point indicated in his narrative a fine church, and in many places flourishing Catholic schools.

The labors of an eminent servant of God--to whom Vermont cannot be too grateful--have been particularly blessed on the Isle La Motte, where the banner of the cross was first unfurled within her territory. A beautiful church has been erected there with a thriving congregation and school.

Much as remains to be accomplished in this field, when we reflect upon all that has been done since the first quarter of this XIXth century, we can see great cause for encouragement and gratitude to Almighty God, who has not withheld his blessing from the work of his servants of the earliest and the latest times. “Going on their way, they went and wept, scattering the seed,” the fruits of which we are now gathering into sheaves with great joy.

FINDING A LOST CHURCH.

The present age is pre-eminently one of discovery. In spite of the wise man’s saying, “Nothing under the sun is new,” mankind, wiser in its own conceit than the wise man, insists upon the newness of its every production. In Rome a different spirit prevails. While the new is not entirely neglected, the great delight of many Romans is to find something old--the older the better. They live so much in the past that they follow with an eager interest the various steps taken to enlighten them on the lives and deeds of the men of old, their ancestors on the soil and in the faith which they profess.

Foremost in the pursuit and discovery of Christian antiquities stands the Commendatore de Rossi. It has been said that poets are born, not made: De Rossi’s ability as a Christian archæologist seems to be more the gift of nature than the result of study. With unwearied industry, with profound knowledge, with an almost unerring judgment, he finds out and illustrates the remains of Christian antiquity scattered around Rome--not on the surface, but in the deeps of the earth. The latest and one of the most important discoveries he has made forms the subject of the present paper.

Tor Marancia is a name not much known out of Rome, yet it designates a place which was of some importance in its day. The traveller who contemplates the works of ancient art collected in the Vatican Museum cannot fail to be interested in two very beautiful black and white mosaics which form the floor of the gallery known as the Braccio Nuovo. Mythological fables and Homeric legends are represented in these pavements, and they come from Tor Marancia. In the Gallery of the Candelabra, and in the library of the same museum, a collection of frescos, busts, statues, and mosaics of excellent workmanship and of great interest, likewise discovered at Tor Marancia, are exhibited. All these objects were found at that place in the course of excavations made there in the reign of Pope Pius VI. In ancient times a villa stood at Tor Marancia, of which these formed the decorations.

At this spot also is found the entrance to a very extensive catacomb which contains three floors, and diverges in long, winding ways under the soil of the Campagna. The catacomb has been called by the name of S. Domitilla, on evidence found during the excavations made there. This lady was a member of the Flavian family, which gave three occupants to the imperial throne--Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. It is a well-known fact that those early Christians who were blessed with wealth were in the habit of interring the bodies of their brethren, of saints, and of martyrs within the enclosure of their villas. Such villas were situated outside the limits of the city; and hence we find the entrance to every catacomb beyond the city walls, with the solitary exception of the catacomb or grottos of the Vatican, and the entrances to all of them are found in sites ascertained to have been the property of Christians. It might be easy to multiply instances of this, taking the facts from the _Acts of the Martyrs,_ wherein the places of sepulture are indicated, and the names of those who bestowed the last rites upon the dead recorded.

Domitilla, or Flavia Domitilla, as she is sometimes termed, was a niece of the consul Flavius Clemens, who was cousin of the Emperor Domitian. She was a Christian, having been baptized by S. Peter; and, after a life spent in charitable works, amongst which was the burial of the martyrs “in a catacomb near the Ardeatine Way,” the same of which we write, she also suffered martyrdom. Her two servants, Nereus and Achilleus, were put to death previously, and their bodies were placed in this catacomb by Domitilla.

In 1854, while De Rossi was pursuing his researches in the catacomb of S. Domitilla, he came upon the foundations of a building which pierced the second floor of the subterranean cemetery. This was a most unusual occurrence, and the eminent archæologist eagerly followed up his discovery. He found a marble slab which recorded the giving up of a space for burial “Ex indulgentia Flaviæ Domitillæ”--a confirmation of the proprietorship of the place.

De Rossi naturally concluded that the building thus incorporated in the Christian cemetery was of great importance. The _loculi_, or resting-places of the dead, were very large, which indicates great antiquity; the inscriptions likewise were of a very early date; and _sarcophagi_ adorned with lions’ heads, marble columns overturned, and other signs, led the discoverer to the conclusion that he had come upon the foundations of a church constructed within this cemetery. In the course of his excavations he had penetrated into the open air, and found himself in a hollow depression formed by the falling in of the surface. Amongst other objects discovered were four marble slabs containing epitaphs furnished with consular dates of the years 335, 380, 399, and 406; and also a form of contract by which the right of burial in the edifice was sold. The proprietor of the land above the cemetery opposed the continuance of the excavations, and the discoverer, obliged to withdraw, covered up the materials already found with earth, and turned his attention to other recently-discovered objects in another place.

Twenty years after, in 1874, Monsignor de Merode purchased the land overlying the catacomb and church, and the excavations were again undertaken under most favorable circumstances. In vain did the Commission of Sacred Archæology, under De Rossi’s guidance, seek for the four marble columns and the two beautiful _sarcophagi_ that had been seen there twenty years before. The proprietor is supposed to have carried them away. But they found instead the floor of the church or basilica, with its three naves, the bases of the four columns, the apse, the place where the altar stood, and the space occupied by the episcopal chair behind the altar. The basilica is as large as that of San Lorenzo beyond the walls. The left aisle is sixty feet long by thirteen broad; the central nave is twenty-four feet broad; and the right aisle, which is not yet entirely unearthed, is considered to be of the same breadth as the first mentioned; the greatest depth of the apse is fifteen feet. “The church,” says De Rossi, “is of gigantic proportions for an edifice constructed in the bowels of the earth and at the deep level of the second floor of a subterranean cemetery.”

Here, then, was a basilica or church discovered in the midst of a catacomb. That the latter belonged to Flavia Domitilla was well known; and yet another proof, which illustrates archæological difficulties and the method of overcoming them, was found here. It was a broken slab of marble containing a portion of an inscription:

......RVM .....ORVM (*)

and having the image of an anchor at the point(*). It was concluded that the anchor was placed at an equal distance from both ends of the inscription, and the discoverer, with the knowledge he already has of the place, supplied the letters which he considered wanting to the completion of the inscription, and thus produced the words,

SEPVLCRVM FLAVIORVM *

(sepulchre of the Flavii). This reading is very probably the right one, and its probability is greatly strengthened by the position of the anchor, since the full inscription, as here shown, leaves that sign still in the centre.

But to find the name borne by these ruins when the building of which they are the sole remnants was fresh and new presented a task to their discoverer. It was necessary to seek in ancient works--pontifical books and codices--for some account of a basilica on the Ardeatine Way. In the life of S. Gregory the Great it is related that this pontiff delivered one of his homilies “in the cemetery of S. Domitilla on the Ardeatine Way, at the Church of S. Petronilla.” The pontifical books and codices, although they differ in details--some saying in the cemetery of Domitilla, and others in that of Nereus and Archilleus, which is the same place under another name--agree in the principal fact. On the small remnant of plaster remaining on the wall of the apse an unskilled hand had traced a _graffito_, or drawing scratched on the plaster with a pointed instrument, somewhat resembling those found on the walls of Pompeii. This _graffito_ represents a bishop, vested in episcopal robes, seated in a chair, in the act of delivering a discourse. This rude sketch of a bishop so occupied, taken in conjunction with the fact that S. Gregory did here deliver one of his homilies, is a link in the chain of evidence which identifies the ruin with the ancient basilica of S. Petronilla.

But a still more convincing testimony was forthcoming. A large fragment of marble, containing a portion of what appeared to have been a long inscription, was found in the apse. There were but few complete words in this fragment, and these were chiefly the termination of lines in what seemed to have been a metrical composition. Odd words, selected at random from a poem, standing alone, devoid of preceding or succeeding words, might not seem to furnish very rich materials even to an archæologist. These wandering words were, however, recognized to be the terminal words of a poem or eulogium written by Pope Damasus in honor of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus. Now the connection between this metrical eulogium and the basilica was to be sought for. In the Einsiedeln Codex the place where this poem was to be seen is stated to have been the sepulchre of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, on the Appian Way, at S. Petronilla. The poem, or rather this fragment of it, being found at this sepulchre, it was natural to conclude that the church was that of S. Petronilla. The Appian Way is the great high-road from which the Ardeatine Way branches off near this spot.

Again, the basilica of S. Petronilla was frequented by pilgrims from many nations in the VIIth century. Among these were Gauls, Germans, and Britons. In their itineraries of the martyrs’ sepulchres in Rome, and in the collection of the metrical epigraphs written at these places, it is proved that the original name of this church was that of S. Petronilla. “Near the Ardeatine Way is the Church of S. Petronilla,” say these old documents, and they likewise inform us that S. Nereus and S. Achilleus and S. Petronilla herself are buried there: “Juxta viam Ardeatinam ecclesia est S. Petronillæ; ibi quoque S. Nereus et S. Achilleus sunt et ipsa Petronilla sepulti.”

A second fragment of the slab containing the metrical composition of Pope Damasus has since been found, and this goes to confirm the testimony furnished by the former fragment. In the following copy of the inscription the capital letters on the right-hand side are those on the fragment first discovered; those on the left belong to the recently-discovered portion:

“NEREUS ET ACHILLEUS MARTYRES.

“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebant Officium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanni Præceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARati Mira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORem COnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNT PROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTA CONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOS CREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIA CHRISTI.”

The date of the church was likewise ascertained. It is known that Pope Damasus, the great preserver of the martyrs’ graves, would never allow the Christian cemeteries to be disturbed for the purpose of building a church therein; and although he himself strongly desired that his remains should repose in one of these sacred places by the side of his predecessors, he abandoned this desire rather than remove the sacred ashes of the dead. It may naturally be concluded, then, that this church was built after his day--he died in 384--as were the churches of S. Agnes, S. Lawrence, and S. Alexander, all of which are beyond the city walls and built in catacombs. The catacombs under the Church of S. Petronilla showed an inscription bearing the date of 390, and in the church itself a monumental slab with the date of 395 has been found. It is thus almost certain that between the highest date found _under_, and the lowest date found _in_, the church--that is, between the years 390 and 395--the basilica of S. Petronilla was constructed.

For about three centuries and a half this church was well frequented. We have records of gifts sent to it, precious vestments, etc., by Pope Gregory III., who reigned from 715 to 741. But in 755 the Longobards came down upon Rome; they desecrated the churches and cemeteries around the city, and then began the siege of Rome. After peace was made, the pontiff of the period, Paul I., transferred the relics and remains of the saints to safer custody, and the Church of S. Petronilla became deserted. From unmistakable signs it seems that this desertion was conducted in a most regular manner, and that it was closed and despoiled of its precious objects. The door which entered the left aisle was found walled up; the altar, the seats of the choir, the episcopal chair, and the ambons or marble pulpits ware all removed and transported elsewhere. The floor of the church, so far below the level of the surrounding soil, formed a resting-place for the water which drained through the neighboring lands after rains had fallen, and this undoubtedly formed the strongest reason for the abandonment of S. Petronilla. Nothing was left in it but _sarcophagi_ and sepulchres, the pavements with their marble epitaphs--so valuable to-day in revealing history--some columns with their beautifully-carved capitals, which time or an earthquake has overturned and hidden within the dark bosom of the earth for more than a thousand years.

The hundred pilgrims who came from America, with a hundred new-found friends, assembled on the 14th of June, 1874, to pray in that disentombed old church. They had come from a world unknown and undreamt of by the pilgrims who had formerly knelt within these walls; and as they looked around on the wide and desolate Campagna, and on the monument of Cecilia Metella shining in the distance white and perfect, in spite of the nineteen centuries that have passed away since it received its inmate, and at the blue, changeless sky overhead, and then turned their eyes upon the church, decorated that morning with festoons of green branches and gay flowers, the same as it may have been on other festive occasions a thousand years ago, they may have felt that time has effected almost as little change in the works of man as in those of nature, and that all things in Rome partake of Rome’s eternity.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LE CULTE CATHOLIQUE OU EXPOSITION DE LA FOI DE L’EGLISE ROMAINE SUR LE CULTE DU AUX SAINTS ET A LEURS RELIQUES, A LA BIENHEUREUSE VIERGE MARIE, AUX IMAGES, etc., en réponse aux objections du Protestantisme, suivie d’une dissertation historique et critique sur le celibat du clergé. Par l’Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Docteur en Théologie, Professor à la Faculté de Théologie de l’Université Laval. Quebec: Typographie d’Augustin Cote et Cie. 1875.

_Le Culte Catholique_ is another valuable addition to controversial literature, by the author of _The Bible and the Rule of Faith_.

It is true that the days of controversy seem to be drawing to a close. The Greek schism still holds itself aloof in sullen isolation; but the controversy is exhausted, and all that is left of a church has become the mere unfruitful appanage of a northern despotism.

As to Protestantism, it never had any positive existence as a confession. Three hundred years have exhausted its theological pretensions. As a religion it has ceased to exist, and it lies buried beneath the weight of its own negations. The only formidable enemies of the church now are the disowners both of Christ and God, and they seek her destruction because they know that she alone offers an insuperable obstacle to the universal atheism which they hope to bring about.

Under such circumstances works like Dr. Bégin’s are chiefly useful for the information of Catholics, and for the support they render to their faith.

_Le Culte Catholique_ is, the writer tells us, “an exposition of the faith of the Roman Church in the matters of the worship of the saints and of their relics, of the blessed Virgin Mary, of images, etc., in reply to the objections of Protestantism, followed by a historical and critical dissertation on the celibacy of the clergy.” On these trite subjects little that is new can be said. But the work before us is a terse and lucid summary of Catholic teaching on the above points.

It is the object of the society of Freemasons to effect the universal deification, the rejection, that is, of the belief in any existence higher than the human being, and in any superiority of one man over another. For this they find it convenient to support the foolish Protestant objection to a splendid ritual and costly churches, on the ground that “God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Dr. Bégin quotes the following telling passage from a contemporary writer in answer to this frivolous objection:

“I know the old tirades about the temple of nature. No doubt the starry vault of heaven is a sublime dome; but no worship exists which is celebrated in the open air. A special place of meeting is required for collective adoration, because our religious sociability urges us to gather together for prayer, as it were to make a common stock of our joys and griefs. Besides, should the time come when we shall have nothing but the cupola of heaven to shelter our religious assemblies, it would require a considerable amount of courage to betake ourselves thither, especially in winter. And the philosophers who find our cathedrals so damp would not be the most intrepid against the inclemency of the sanctuary of nature. Thus do great errors touch on the ridiculous. Reasoning begins their refutation; a smile ends it.”

The second chapter is an admirable exposition of the special worship (_hyperdulia_) paid to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the course of which he shows triumphantly that the definition of her Immaculate Conception was no new doctrine, but a mere definite and dogmatic statement of a doctrine which had been all along held implicitly in the church. The following simile, illustrative of this argument, appears to us to be worth quoting: “Modern science, which is daily making such extraordinary progress, discovers, ever and anon, fresh stars, which seem to float in the most distant depths of space, which become more bright as they are more attentively observed, and which end by becoming stars of continually-increasing splendor. These stars are not of recent date; they are not new; they are only perceived. Something analogous takes place in the heavens of the church on the subject of certain truths of our faith. Their light reveals itself and develops by degrees. Sometimes the shock of controversy illuminates them. Then comes a definition to invest them with fresh splendor. But in receiving this supplement of light, destined to make them better understood by the faithful, they lose nothing of their proper nature; their essence is not in the slightest degree changed; only our minds appropriate them with more facility.”

FLOWERS FROM THE GARDEN OF THE VISITATION; or, Lives of Several Religious of that Order. Translated from the French. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.

To those who have attempted to form an adequate conception of the charitable and ascetic spirit, the simple record of these saintly lives must have a wonderful fascination. To those, even, who are wholly absorbed in a life of pleasure it will at least possess the merit of a new sensation, if they can forget the silent reproof which such examples convey.

It affords matter of encouragement in these days of combined luxury and destitution to look over the history of those--many of whom were delicately reared--who left all for God, content to do whatsoever he appointed them to do, and to submit to extraordinary mortifications for his sake. The work embraces six brief biographies of Visitation Nuns eminent for their self-sacrificing labors for the moral and intellectual education of their charges, and in other good and charitable offices. Their names, even, may be quite new to English-speaking readers, but that fact is all the more in keeping with their hidden lives. We have said enough to indicate the general character of the volume.

JOHN DORRIEN: A novel. By Julia Kavanagh. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1875.

The writer succeeds, in the very opening chapter, in so portraying the character of a child as to make it a living breathing reality to the reader. The story of his humble life in childhood and his struggles and trials in later years is told without any attempt at fine writing--indeed, all the characters are simply and well drawn, and retain their individuality to the end. The heroine, neglected in childhood, and without any guide in matters of faith, is easily persuaded by a suitor that religion is contrary to reason; and thus, left to her own unaided judgment, and notwithstanding her innate love of truth, soon finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and hypocrisy. She only escapes the unhappiness which such a course entails by forsaking it.

The moral of the tale (if that is not an obsolete term) is what the reader would naturally infer--the necessity of early religious instruction, and the advantage, even in this life, of a belief in revealed truth. We are glad to note the absence of the faults which disfigure much of the imaginative literature of the day, not excepting, we are sorry to say, that which emanates from the writer’s own sex. We see no attempt to give false views of life, or to undermine the moral and religious principles of the reader; on the contrary, there is reason to infer much that is positively good, though not so definitely stated as we should have liked.

THE BIBLE AND THE RULE OF FAITH. By the Abbé Louis-Nazaire Bégin, Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval. Translated from the French by G. M. Ward [Mrs. Pennée].

Protestantism is well-nigh defunct. It is in its last throes. It has not sufficient vitality left to care for its own doctrines, such as they are. As a religion it has almost ceased to exist. Disobedience to the faith has been succeeded by indifference; indifference by the hatred of Christ. Its rickety old doctrines, whose folly has been exposed over and over again thousands of times, have quietly tumbled out of existence. Protestants themselves have almost forgotten them, and certainly do not care enough about them to defend them. Paganism has returned--paganism in its last stage of sceptical development. We have to contend now for the divinity of Christ and the existence of a God. The Bible and the rule of faith are up amongst the lumber.

Yet it may be--as the writer of this work asserts; we much doubt it, however--that there are still “many poor souls in the bosom of Protestantism a prey to the anguish of doubt.” To such the Abbé Bégin’s treatise on the rule of faith may be of the utmost service. The argument is extremely terse and lucid. In short, were the minds of Protestant fanatics open to reason, it could not fail to convince them of the unreasoning folly of their notions about the Bible being the one only rule of faith.

The first part of this work treats of the rule of faith in general, and proves, amongst other things, that such a rule must be sure, efficient, and perpetual to put an end to controversies.

The second part exhibits the logical impossibility of the Protestant rule of faith, remote and proximate. That is to say, that it is impossible for the unexplained text of the Bible to be a sure, efficient, and perpetual rule of faith, and for an immediate inspiration of its meaning to individuals by the Holy Ghost to be its means of explanation.

The third part proves very exhaustively that the Catholic rule of faith is the only possible sure, efficient, and perpetual one; namely, Holy Scripture, the remote rule, and the teaching church, the proximate one.

To any souls “in the bosom of Protestism” who are “a prey to the anguish of doubt,” if indeed there be such, we cordially recommend this treatise. Its tone is kind and gentle, its reasoning irresistible, and, with the blessing of God, is able to put an end to all their doubts on the fundamental question as to the true rule of faith.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. By Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.

This is another of the pleasant “Bric-à-Brac series,” edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. Miss Knight was that nondescript kind of being known as a “lady companion” to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. Her position gave her peculiar facilities for enjoying the privilege, so dear to certain hearts, of a peep behind the scenes of a royal household. Never having been married, she had plenty of time for jotting down her notes and observations on men, women, and things. Many of the men and women she met were famous in their way and in their time. As might be expected, there is much nonsense in her observations, mingled with pleasant glimpses of a kind of life that has now passed away. Mr. Raikes’ journal is similar in character to that of Miss Knight, with the advantage or disadvantage, as may be considered, of having been written by a man.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXII., No. 129.--DECEMBER, 1875.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

MR. GLADSTONE AND MARYLAND TOLERATION.

It was supposed that Mr. Gladstone had been so triumphantly refuted, as a polemic, that he would take a prudent refuge in silence. At a moment when neighboring nations were rent with religious dissensions, and when England needed repose from, rather than fuel added to, her internal agitations, a statesman and ex-premier of the British Empire assumes the _rôle_ of a religious agitator and accuser, and startles, as well as offends, the public sense of appropriateness by his useless and baseless indictment against the Catholic Church, to which England owes all that is glorious in her constitution and in her history; against English Catholics in particular, his fellow-subjects, who of all others, by their loyalty and Christian faith and virtues, can preserve the liberties and the institutions of their country, now threatened alike by infidel corruption, Protestant indifference, and communistic malice; and against that saintly and illustrious pontiff whose hand is only raised to bless, whose lips breathe unfaltering prayer, and whose voice and pen have never ceased to announce and defend the eternal truths of religion, to uphold morality, and to refute the crying errors and evils of our times. The unanswerable refutations which Mr. Gladstone’s attacks elicited from Cardinal Manning, Bishops Ullathorne and Vaughan, Drs. Newman and Capel, and Canon Neville, not to speak of the Italian work of Mgr. Nardi and the rebukes administered by the periodical press, had, it was believed, even by impartial Protestants, effectually driven this new champion of the old No-popery party in England from the field of polemics. But, like all new recruits, the ex-premier seems incapable of realizing defeat, or perhaps is anxious, at least, to retire with the honors of war.

Not content with the serial publication of his three tracts, he has just now republished them in one volume, with a _Preface_, under the title of _Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion_--a title as unbecoming the gravity of his subjects as it is unsupported by the contents of the work. The preface to the republication not only reiterates his accusations on all points, but the author, not satisfied with his new part as theologian, essays the _rôle_ of historical critic, and thus gives prominence to a historical question of deep interest and of especial importance to the Catholics of this country.

The same _animus_ which inspired Mr. Gladstone’s attacks against the church, against his Catholic fellow-countrymen, and against the most august and venerable personage in Christendom, has also induced him to deny to the Catholic founders of Maryland the honorable renown, accorded to them heretofore by historians with singular unanimity, of having, when in power, practised religious toleration towards all Christian sects, and secured freedom of conscience, not only by their unwavering action and practice, but also by giving it the stability and sanctions of statute law. This is certainly the only phase in this celebrated controversy upon which it remains for Mr. Gladstone to be answered.

His Eminence Cardinal Manning, in _The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance_, at page 88 (New York edition), writes:

“For the same reasons I deplore the haste, I must say the passion, which carried away so large a mind to affirm or to imply that the church of this day would, if she could, use torture, and force, and coercion in matters of religious belief.… In the year 1830 the Catholics of Belgium were in a vast majority, but they did not use their political power to constrain the faith or conscience of any man. The ‘Four Liberties’ of Belgium were the work of Catholics. This is the most recent example of what Catholics would do if they were in possession of power. But there is one more ancient and more homely for us Englishmen. It is found at a date when the old traditions of the Catholic Church were still vigorous in the minds of men.… If the modern spirit had any share in producing the constitution of Belgium, it certainly had no share in producing the constitution of Maryland. Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under James I., in 1633 emigrated to the American plantations, where, through Lord Stafford’s influence, he had obtained a grant of land.… They named their new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the governor was in these terms: ‘I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.’ Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts--who, like himself, had renounced their country for conscience’ sake--to come into Maryland. In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in England, the Council of Maryland, on the 21st of April, passed this statute; ‘And whereas the forcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in the commonwealth where it has been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within the province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be anyways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.’ The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into Maryland. Such was the commonwealth founded by a Catholic upon the broad moral law I have here laid down--that faith is an act of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible.”

Mr. Gladstone, in his _Vaticanism_, page 96, replies to the above as follows:

“It appears to me that Archbishop Manning has completely misapprehended the history of the settlement of Maryland and the establishment of toleration there for all believers in the Holy Trinity. It was a wise measure, for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the highest honor. But the measure was really defensive; and its main and very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion. Immigration into the colony was by the charter free; and only by this and other popular provisions could the territory have been extricated from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia, who claimed it as their own. It was apprehended that the Puritans would flood it, as they did; and it seemed certain that but for this excellent provision the handful of Roman Catholic founders would have been unable to hold their ground. The facts are given in Bancroft’s _History of the United States_, vol. i., chap. vii.”

Again, in his _Preface_ to _Rome and the Newest Fashions in Religion_, page viii., Mr. Gladstone writes:

“It has long been customary to quote the case of Maryland in proof that, more than two centuries ago, the Roman Catholic Church, where power was in its hands, could use it for the purposes of toleration. Archbishop Manning has repeated the boast, and with very large exaggeration.

“I have already shown from Bancroft’s _History_ that in the case of Maryland there was no question of a merciful use of power towards others, but simply of a wise and defensive prudence with respect to themselves--that is to say, so far as the tolerant legislation of the colony was the work of Roman Catholics. But it does not appear to have been their work. By the fourth article of the charter we find that no church could be consecrated there except according to the laws of the church at home. The tenth article guaranteed to the colonists generally ‘all privileges, franchises, and liberties of this our kingdom of England.’ It was in 1649 that the Maryland Act of Toleration was passed, which, however, prescribed the punishment of death for any one who denied the Trinity. Of the small legislative body which passed it, two-thirds appear to have been Protestant, the recorded numbers being sixteen and eight respectively. The colony was open to the immigration of Puritans and all Protestants, and any permanent and successful oppression by a handful of Roman Catholics was altogether impossible. But the colonial act seems to have been an echo of the order of the House of Commons at home, on the 27th of October, 1645, that the inhabitants of the Summer Islands, and such others as shall join themselves to them, ‘shall without any molestation or trouble have and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in matters of God’s worship’; and of a British ordinance of 1647.

“Upon the whole, then, the picture of Maryland legislation is a gratifying one; but the historic theory which assigns the credit of it to the Roman Church has little foundation in fact.”

Let us first test Mr. Gladstone’s accuracy and consistency as a historical critic. He begins by alleging that the Maryland Toleration Act was a measure of defensive prudence in the interests of the Catholics themselves, and that “its main and very legitimate purpose plainly was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.” He then asserts that this act of toleration was not the work of the Catholics at all, but of a Protestant majority in the legislature which passed it. We have, then, here presented the extraordinary picture of an alleged Protestant legislature passing a law which was really intended to protect Catholics against Protestant ascendency and apprehended Protestant persecution, and whose “main and very legitimate purpose was to secure the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.” Surely, the Protestants of that day were liberal and generous, especially as it was an age of persecution, when not only were Catholics hunted down both in England and her Virginia and New England colonies, but even Protestants of different sects were relentlessly persecuting each other. And in what proper sense can _they_ be said to have been Protestants with whom it was “_a very legitimate purpose_” to legislate in the express interests of Roman Catholics?

Mr. Gladstone also states that the Toleration Act was passed in the apprehension of an influx of Puritans, and to protect the colony “from the grasp of its neighbors in Virginia”; whereas his favorite author, Mr. Bancroft, informs Mr. Gladstone that Lord Baltimore invited both the Episcopalians of Virginia and the Puritans of New England into his domains, offering a gift of lands as an inducement; and it is a historical fact that numbers of them accepted the invitation.

Again, Mr. Gladstone, while apparently treating the Toleration Act as a Catholic measure, animadverts with evident disapproval on that feature in it which “prescribed the punishment of death for any one who denied the Trinity,” and then immediately he claims that the legislature which passed the act was a Protestant body--“two-thirds,” he writes, “appear to have been Protestants”--thus imposing upon his Protestant friends the odium of inflicting death for the exercise of conscience and religious belief; and that, too, not upon Papists, as they were not included in the punishment.

Mr. Gladstone, in _The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance_ (page 83), expressing no doubt the common sentiments of Protestants since the time of Luther and Henry VIII., uses these irreverent words in regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that peerless and immaculate Lady whom four-fifths of the Christian world venerate as the Mother of God:

“The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism.… Both rest on pious fiction and fraud; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism.… The worship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ.”

And yet with such sentiments, in which doubtless the Protestants of Maryland in 1649 concurred, he attributes to, and claims for, those Protestants who, he says, constituted two-thirds of the Maryland Colonial Legislature in 1649, the passage of a law which enacted “that whosoever shall use or utter any reproachful words or speeches concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Saviour, … shall for the first offence forfeit five pounds sterling, or, if not able to pay, be publicly whipped and imprisoned during pleasure, etc.; for the second offence, ten pounds, etc.; and for the third shall forfeit all his lands and goods, and be banished from the province.”

The following anecdote, related by the Protestant Bozman,[98] is quite pertinent to our subject and to our cause:

“And in the time of the Long Parliament when the differences between the Lord Baltimore and Colonell Samuel Matthews, as agent for the colony of Virginia, were depending before a committee of that parliament for the navy, that clause in the sayd law, concerning the Virgin Mary, was at that committee objected as an exception against his lordship; whereupon a worthy member of the sayd committee stood up and sayd, that he wondered that any such exception should be taken against his lordship; for (says hee) doth not the Scripture say, that all generations shall call her blessed? (The author here cites in the margin, ‘Lu. i. 48.’) And the committee insisted no more on that exception.”

The authorities relied upon by Mr. Gladstone, besides Bancroft, whom we shall presently refer to, are _Maryland Toleration_, by the Rev. Ethan Allen, and _Maryland not a Catholic Colony_, by E. D. N. The former is a pamphlet of sixty-four pages addressed by the author, a Protestant minister, to his brethren in the ministry in 1855, is purely a sectarian tract, hostile to every Catholic view and interest, and partisan in spirit and in matter. The latter is a few pages of printed matter, consisting of three newspaper articles published last year in the _Daily Pioneer_ of St. Paul, Minnesota, and recently reprinted in the _North-Western Chronicle_ of the same place, the editor of which states that the author of the letters is the Rev. Edward D. Neill, also a Protestant minister, and president of Macalester College. The letters of “E. D. N.” were sharply and ably replied to by Mr. William Markoe, formerly an Episcopal minister, now a member of the Catholic Church. The letters of “E. D. N.” are more sectarian than historical, and cannot be quoted in a controversy in which such names as Chalmers, Bancroft, McSherry, Bozman, etc., figure. The attack of “E. D. N.” on the personal character of Lord Baltimore is enough to condemn his effort.

But Mr. Gladstone’s principal author is Bancroft, from whose pages he claims to have shown that “in the case of Maryland there was _no question_ of a merciful use of power towards others, but _simply_ of a wise and defensive prudence with respect to themselves.” Motives of _self-interest_ are thus substituted for those of _benevolence_ and _mercy_. If this were correctly stated, why does Mr. Gladstone state that the Act of Toleration was a measure “for which the two Lords Baltimore, father and son, deserve the highest honor”? But our task is now to inquire how far his author sustains Mr. Gladstone in denying to the Catholics of Maryland, who enacted religious toleration, all motives of benevolence and mercy.

Mr. Bancroft, on the contrary, asserts that the “new government [of Maryland] was erected on a _foundation_ as extraordinary as its results were _benevolent_.”[99] In speaking of Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland, its chief statesman and law-giver, he extols his _moderation_, _sincerity of character_, and _disinterestedness_,[100] and proceeds to say:

“Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise and _benevolent_ law-givers of all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious security and peace by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of power; to plan the establishment of popular institutions with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience; to advance the career of civilization by recognizing the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which, as yet, had hardly been explored, the _mild forbearance_ of a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the _basis_ of the state.”[101]

Referring to the act of taking possession of their new homes in Maryland by the Catholic pilgrims, the same author says, thereby “religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world, at the humble village which bore the name of St. Mary’s.”[102] And speaking of the progress of the colony, he further says: “Under the _mild_ institutions and munificence of Baltimore the dreary wilderness soon bloomed with swarming life and activity of prosperous settlements; the Roman Catholics who were oppressed by the laws of England were sure to find a peaceful asylum in the quiet harbors of the Chesapeake; and there, too, Protestants were sheltered against Protestant intolerance.”[103] Such, in fine, is the repeated language of an author whom Mr. Gladstone refers to in proof of his assertion that toleration in Maryland was _simply_ a measure of self-defence.

Chalmers bears the following testimony to the same point: “He” (Lord Baltimore) “_laid the foundation_ of his province upon the broad _basis_ of security to property and of freedom of religion, granting, in absolute fee, fifty acres of land to every emigrant; establishing Christianity according to the old common law, of which it is a part, without allowing pre-eminence to any particular sect. The wisdom of his choice soon converted a dreary wilderness into a prosperous colony.”[104]

And Judge Story, with the history of the colony from its beginning and the charter before him, adds the weight of judicial approval in the following words: “It is certainly very honorable to the liberality and public spirit of the proprietary that he should have introduced into his _fundamental_ policy the doctrine of general toleration and equality among Christian sects (for he does not appear to have gone further), and have thus given the earliest example of a legislator inviting his subjects to the free indulgence of religious opinion. This was anterior to the settlement of Rhode Island, and therefore merits the enviable rank of being the first recognition among the colonists of the glorious and indefeasible rights of conscience.”[105]

But there is another view, clearly sustained by an important and certain chain of facts, which has never occurred to the historical writers on Maryland toleration, at least in this connection, though they give the facts upon which the view is based, and which wholly destroys the theory of Mr. Gladstone and his authorities. The latter may dispute in regard to the merits and motives of the statute of 1649, but they do not touch the real question. It is an incontestable fact that the religious toleration which historians have so much extolled in the Catholic colonists and founders of Maryland did not originate with, or derive its existence from, that law of 1649, but, on the contrary, it existed long anterior to, and independent of, it. This great feature in the Catholic government of Maryland had been established by the Catholic lord-proprietary, his lieutenant-governor, agents, and colonists, and faithfully practised for fifteen years prior to the Toleration Act of 1649. From 1634 to 1649 it had been enforced with unwavering firmness and protected with exalted benevolence. This important fact is utterly ignored by Mr. Gladstone and his authors, the Rev. Ethan Allen and the Rev. Edward D. Neill, but the facts related by Bancroft, and indeed by all historians, prove it beyond a question. Bancroft records that the very “_foundations_” of the colony were laid upon the “_basis_” of religious toleration, and throughout the eulogiums pronounced by him on the religious toleration of Maryland, which we have quoted above, refers entirely to the period of the fifteen years preceding the passage of the act of 1649. The Toleration Act was nothing else than the declaration of the existing state of things and of the long and cherished policy and practice of the colony--a formal sanction and statutory enactment of the existing common law of the province.

Before proceeding to demonstrate this fact, we will briefly examine how far Mr. Bancroft sustains the theory or views of Mr. Gladstone in regard to the act itself. After extolling the motives and conduct of the Catholics of Maryland in establishing religious toleration, as we have remarked above, during the fifteen years preceding the passage of the act, Mr. Bancroft refers to that statute in terms of highest praise. He barely hints at the possibility that a foresight, on the part of the colonists, of impending dangers to themselves from threatened or apprehended Protestant ascendency and persecution, might have entered among the motives which induced them to pass that act; but he nowhere asserts the fact, nor does he allege anything beyond conjecture for the possibility of the motive. Indeed, his mode of expressing himself indicates that, though he thought it possible, his own impression was that such motive did not suggest in part even the passage of the act; for he writes: “_As if_, with a foresight of impending danger and an earnest desire to stay its approach, the Roman Catholics of Maryland, with the earnest concurrence of their governor and of the proprietary, determined to place upon their statute-book an act for _the religious freedom which had ever been sacred on their soil_.” Compare this with the language of Mr. Gladstone, who excludes every motive but that of self-interest, and refers to Bancroft in support of his view, but does not quote his language. Mr. Bancroft, on the other hand, after quoting from the statute, exclaims, such was “its sublime tenor.”

Mr. Griffith does not agree with the suggestion that a sense of fear or apprehension entered into the motives of the Maryland lawgivers, and says: “That this liberty did not proceed from fear of others, on the one hand, or licentious dispositions in the government, on the other, is sufficiently evident from the penalties prescribed against blasphemy, swearing, drunkenness, and Sabbath-breaking, by the preceding sections of the act, and proviso, at the end, that such exercise of religion did not molest or conspire against the proprietary or his government.”[106]

Let us now proceed to examine still further whether Maryland was a Catholic colony, whether it was by Catholics that religious toleration was established there, and whether it had its origin in the act of 1649 or in the long previous practice and persistent generosity and mercy of the Catholic rulers of the province. It is true that while the territory afterwards granted to Lord Baltimore was subject to the Virginia charter, a settlement of Episcopalians was made on Kent Island; but they were very few in numbers, always adhered to Virginia rather than to Maryland in their sympathies, were so turbulent and disloyal that Governor Calvert had to reduce them by force of arms, and no one has ever pretended that they founded a State. We will show what relation they had in point of numbers and political influence to the colony, and that they did not form even the slightest element of power in the founding of the province.

Maryland was founded alone by the Catholic Lord Baltimore and his colonists. Such is the voice of history. It is rather disingenuous in the reverend authors of the pamphlets mentioned by Mr. Gladstone that upon so flimsy a circumstance they assert that Maryland was not settled first by Catholics. Their voices are drowned by the concurrent voice of tradition and of history. It is only the reassertion of the pretensions of these zealous sectarians by so respectable a person as Mr. Gladstone, and that, too, in one of the most remarkable controversies of the age, that renders a recurrence to the historical authorities and their results at all desirable or necessary.

The colony of Maryland was conceived in the spirit of liberty. It was the flight of English Catholics from Protestant persecution in their native country. The state of the penal laws in England against Catholics at this period is too well known. The zealous Protestant Bozman writes that they “contained severities enough to keep them [the Catholics] in all due subjection.”

It was at this hour of their extremest suffering that the Catholics of England found a friend and leader in Sir George Calvert, who held important trusts under the governments of James and Charles, and enjoyed the confidence of his sovereigns and of his country. “In an age when religious controversy still continued to be active, when increasing divisions among Protestants were spreading a general alarm, his mind sought relief from controversy in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and, preferring the avowal of his opinions to the emoluments of office, he resigned his place and openly professed his conversion.”[107] Even after this he was advanced to the peerage under the title of Lord Baltimore--an Irish title--and was appointed one of the principal secretaries under James I. His positions in the government gave him not only an acquaintance with American colonization, but an official connection with it. Of these he now availed himself to provide an asylum abroad for his fellow-Catholics from the relentless persecution they were suffering at home. His first effort was to found a Catholic colony on the shores of Newfoundland. A settlement was begun. Avalon was the name it received, and twice did Lord Baltimore cross the ocean to visit his cherished cradle of liberty. Baffled by political difficulties, the severity of the climate, and an ungenerous soil, he abandoned the endeavor. That his motive all along was to found a place of refuge for Catholics from persecution is certain from the time and circumstances under which the enterprise was undertaken, as well as from the testimony of historians. Oldmixon says: “This gentleman [Lord Baltimore], being of the Romish religion, was uneasy at home, and had the same reason to leave the kingdom as those gentlemen had who went to New England, to enjoy the liberty of his conscience.”[108] Bozman writes that “by their [the Puritans’] clamors for a vigorous execution of the laws against Papists, it became now necessary for them [the Catholics] also to look about for a place of refuge.”[109] The same writer also refers to a MS. in the British Museum, written by Lord Baltimore himself, in which this motive is mentioned. Driven from Avalon by the hardness of the climate, he visited Virginia with the same view; but hence again he was driven by religious bigotry and the presentation of an anti-popery oath from a colony “from which the careful exclusion of Roman Catholics had been originally avowed as a special object.” His mind, filled with the thought of founding a place of refuge for Catholics, next turned to the country beyond the Potomac, which had been embraced originally in the Virginia charter, but which, upon the cancellation of that charter, had reverted to the crown. He obtained a grant and charter from the king, so liberal in its terms that, Griffith says, it became the model for future grants. The name was changed from Crescentia to that of Maryland, in honor of the Catholic queen of Charles; but the devout Catholics of the expedition, in their piety, extended the term _Terra Mariæ_, the Land of Mary, into an act of devotion and honor to Mary, the Queen of Heaven.

The first Lord Baltimore did not live to see his project carried into effect; he died on the 25th of April, 1632, was succeeded by his son Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, who, as Bancroft says, was the heir of his _intentions_ no less than of his fortunes; to him was issued the charter negotiated by his father, bearing date the 15th of June, 1632.

Founded by a Catholic, designed as an asylum for persecuted Catholics, is it to be supposed that Lord Baltimore and his brother, Governor Leonard Calvert, who organized and led forth the pilgrims, would be so inconsistent at this moment of their success as to lose sight of the main object of the movement, and carry _Protestant_ colonists with whom to found a _Catholic_ colony? If, as Rev. Edward D. Neill, author of _Maryland not a Catholic Colony_, says, there were only twenty Catholic gentlemen in the ship, and three hundred servants, mostly Protestants, would it have been deemed necessary to carry two Catholic priests and their assistants along to administer to the souls of so small a number? In point of fact, the Protestants were so few that they brought no minister with them, and it was several years before their entire numbers justified their having either a minister or a place of worship. The voyage on the _Ark_ and _Dove_ was more like a Catholic pilgrimage than a secular expedition. The principal parts of the ship (the _Ark_), says Father White in his _Narrative_, were committed to the protection of God especially, and to his Most Holy Mother, and S. Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland. The vessel was a floating chapel, an ocean shrine of Catholic faith and devotion, consecrated by the unbloody sacrifice, and resounding with Latin litanies; its safety from many a threatened disaster was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, whose mediation was propitiated by votive offerings promised and promptly rendered after their safe arrival at St. Mary’s. The festivals of the saints were faithfully observed throughout the voyage, the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin was selected for landing, and the solemn act of taking possession was according to the Catholic form. Father White thus describes the scene:

“On the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Virgin Mary (March 25), in the year 1634, we celebrated the Mass for the first time on this island [St. Clement’s]. This had never been done before in this part of the world. After we had completed the sacrifice, we took upon our shoulders a great cross which we had hewn out of a tree, and advancing in order to the appointed place, with the assistance of the governor and his associates, and the other Catholics, we erected a trophy to Christ the Saviour, humbly reciting on our bended knees the Litanies of the Sacred Cross with great emotion.”[110]

They founded a city, the capital of the colony, and called it St. Mary’s. A Catholic chapel was subsequently erected there; and this too was dedicated to S. Mary. The city has passed away, but the little chapel still stands, preserved alike by Catholic and Protestant hands, as a monument of the faith and zeal of the Catholic pilgrims of Maryland. Mr. Griffith, the historian, uniting his voice to that of Bancroft and other writers, speaking of the object which inspired the settlement from its inception by Lord Baltimore in England, says: “Out of respect for their religion they planted the cross, and, after fortifying themselves, plainly and openly set about to obtain, by the fairest means in their power, other property and homes, where they should escape the persecutions of the religious and political reformers of their native country at that time.”[111]

The church and parish of S. Mary were for many years the headquarters of the Jesuit missions of Maryland. During the succeeding years prior to 1649 there was a steady influx of Catholics into the colony from England, as is evident by the land records and other official documents, and by the fact that the number of Catholic priests required for the settlement increased from two in 1634 to four priests and one coadjutor prior to 1644. The Catholic strength was also increased by numerous conversions, as is shown by Father White’s _Narrative_, in which, at page 56, he relates that, “among the Protestants, nearly all who came over from England, in this year 1638, and many others, have been converted to the faith, together with four servants … and five mechanics whom we … have in the meantime won to God.” So numerous were these conversions, and they created so great a sensation in England, that measures were taken there to check them.

That the colony was Catholic in its origin, and so continued until after the year 1649, when the Toleration Act was passed, has never been denied, according to our researches, except by Mr. Gladstone and the two Protestant ministers whom he quotes. Bancroft, writing of the religious toleration which prevailed in Maryland during this period, always speaks of it as the work of Catholics. In referring to the original colonists he adds, “most of them Roman Catholic gentlemen and their servants.” Even so unfriendly a writer as Bozman says: “The most, if not all, of them were Catholics.” Chancellor Kent speaks of the colony as “the Catholic planters of Maryland,” and Judge Story says they were “chiefly Roman Catholics.” Father White, in his _Narrative_, speaks of the few Protestants on board the _Ark_ as individuals, and not as a class. Bozman, alluding to the year 1639, and to “those in whose hands the government of the province was,” says: “A majority of whom were, without doubt, Catholics, as well as much the greater number of the colonists.” Mr. Davis, a Protestant, who drew his information from the official documents of the colony and State, gives unanswerable proofs of the fact for which we are contending. We give a single passage from his work on this point:

“St. Mary’s was the home--the chosen home--of the disciples of the Roman Church. The fact has been generally received. It is sustained by the tradition of two hundred years and by volumes of unwritten testimony; by the records of the courts; by the proceedings of the privy council; by the trial of law-cases; by the wills and inventories; by the land-records and rent-rolls; and by the very names originally given to the towns and _hundreds_, to the creeks and rivulets, to the tracts and manors of the county. The state itself bears the name of a Roman Catholic queen. Of the six _hundreds_ of this small county, in 1650, five had the prefix of _St._ Sixty tracts and manors, most of them taken up at a very early period, bear the same Roman Catholic mark. The creeks and villages, to this day, attest the widespread prevalence of the same tastes, sentiments, and sympathies. Not long after the passage of the act relating to ‘religion,’ the Protestants, it is admitted, outgrew their Roman Catholic brethren, and in 1689 succeeded very easily in their attempt to overthrow the proprietary. But judging from the composition of the juries in 1655, we see no reason to believe that they then had a majority.”[112]

Mr. Gladstone seems to favor the view that religious toleration in Maryland was derived from the charter. We are surprised at this, since “E. D. N.” (Rev. Edward D. Neill), whose pamphlet has furnished the substance of the entire passage we have quoted from Mr. Gladstone’s _Preface_, says in his _Maryland not a Roman Catholic Colony_, “The charter of Maryland granted to Lord Baltimore was not a charter of religious liberty, but the very opposite.” McSherry, a Catholic historian, says that “the ecclesiastical laws of England, so far as related to the consecration and presentation of churches and chapels, were extended to the colony, but the question of state religion was left untouched, and therefore within the legislative power of the colonists themselves.”[113] And Bozman, a Protestant historian, adopts the same view of the charter, for he regards the “Act for Church Liberties” passed in 1639, enacting that “Holy Church within this province shall have all her rights and privileges,” as an attempt to exercise a control of religion, and says: “We cannot but suppose that it was the intention of the Catholic government to erect a hierarchy, with an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, similar to the ancient Church of England before the Reformation, and to invest it with all its rights, liberties, and immunities.”[114] The same views are expressed by the same author at pages 68 and 350 of his history. While civil liberty was guaranteed by the charter to all within the province, we find no mention of religious toleration in its provisions. Nor do we find that immigration was made free by the charter, as alleged by Mr. Gladstone; the provision to which he refers simply assures to the subjects of England, “transported or to be transported into the province, all privileges, franchises, and liberties of this our kingdom of England,” but the decision of the point as to who should be transplanted or admitted to settle there was left to the lord proprietary and the provincial legislature. The grant by the king to Lord Baltimore of all the lands of the province in itself gave him the full control over immigration, by enabling him to fix the conditions to the grants of land to colonists, which would have kept out all except such as the lord proprietary wished to enter.

We think we have shown that the Catholics were in the majority during the whole period covered by our discussion, and that the charter left them free to protect themselves from intrusion; that they were, consequently, all-powerful to perpetuate their numerical preponderance and control of the government. Why had they not the same motives for practising intolerance as the Puritans? Their positions, respectively and relatively, were the same in this particular, and the same reasons apply to both. No, they were actuated by a different spirit, and guided by different traditions. They possessed the power, and used it with mercy and benevolence; not only permitting but inviting Christians of every shade of opinion to settle in the province, but also offering grants of land on easy terms, and protecting the settlers from molestation on account of their religion. If they had not the power to proscribe, why should Bancroft, Griffith, Chambers, Kent, Story, and nearly all writers on the subject, have bestowed such encomiums on them for doing what they could not have refrained from doing? Why extol the toleration enjoined by Lord Baltimore and proclaimed by Governor Leonard Calvert, and the subsequently enacted Toleration Act of 1649, if the liberty it enacts was already secured by the charter of 1632?

It is not necessary for us to go further into this question, since in either event the honor and credit of religious toleration in Maryland is due to a Catholic source. If the charter secured it, our answer is that the charter itself was the work of a Catholic, for Lord Baltimore is the acknowledged author of that document. “The nature of the document itself,” says Bancroft, “and concurrent opinion, leave no doubt that it was penned by the first Lord Baltimore himself, although it was finally issued for the benefit of his son.”[115] “It was prepared by Lord Baltimore himself,” says McSherry, “but before it was finally executed that truly great and good man died, and the patent was delivered to his son, Cecilius, who succeeded as well to his noble designs as to his titles and estates.”[116] It will be more than sufficient to add here that both Mr. Bozman and the Rev. Ethan Allen concede that Lord Baltimore was the author of the charter.

We propose now to show that the religious toleration which prevailed in Maryland had its origin in the good-will, generosity, and mercy of the Catholic lord proprietary and his Catholic government and colony of Maryland; was practised from the very beginning of the settlement, and that we are not indebted for it to the Toleration Act of 1649, except perhaps as a measure by which its provisions were prolonged. Toleration was the course adopted in organizing the Maryland colony, even in England and before the landing of the pilgrims. Thus we find that some Protestants were permitted to accompany the colonists and share equal rights and protection with their Catholic associates. Father White speaks of them on board the _Ark_ and _Dove_. The author of _Maryland not a Catholic Colony_ refers to the fact that “Thomas Cornwallis and Jerome Hawley, who went out as councillors of the colony, were adherents of the Church of England,” as evidence in part that Maryland was “not a Catholic colony.” We take the same fact to show that not only were Protestants tolerated in the colony from its inception, but were liberally and generously given a share in its government. The Rev. Ethan Allen relates a succession of proofs of this fact, though not for that purpose, in the following passage: “Witness the fact of so large a portion of the first colonists being Protestants; his invitation to Capt. Fleet; his invitation to the Puritan colonists of Massachusetts to come and reside in the colony in 1643; his constituting Col. Stone his governor in 1648, who was a Protestant, and was to bring five hundred colonists; his admitting the Puritans of Virginia in the same year; and in the year following erecting a new county for Robert Brooke, a Puritan, and his colonists.”[117] McSherry says, speaking of the act of possession on landing in 1634: “Around the rough-hewn cross, on the island of St. Clement’s, gathered the Catholic and the Protestant, hand in hand, friends and brothers, equal in civil rights, and secure alike in the free and full enjoyment of either creed. It was a day whose memory should make the Maryland heart bound with pride and pleasure.”[118] The same author says that the Toleration Act of 1649 was passed “to give _additional_ security to the safeguards which Lord Baltimore _had already provided_.” Bancroft makes religious toleration commence from the first landing “when the Catholics took possession,” and extend throughout the fourteen years up to the passage of the act of 1649. He says that “the apologist of Lord Baltimore could assert that his government, in conformity with his strict and repeated injunctions, had _never_ given disturbance to any person in Maryland for matter of religion.”[119] The Rev. Ethan Allen relates that the Protestants in the colony were allowed to have their own chapel and to conduct therein the Protestant service. He cites a case in which a Catholic was severely punished for abusive language towards some Protestant servants in respect to their religion, and remarks that “the settling of the case was unquestionably creditable and honorable to the Catholic governor and council.”[120] Mr. Davis, a Protestant, says: “A freedom, however, of a wider sort springs forth at the _birth of the colony--not demanded by that instrument_ [the charter], but permitted by it--not graven upon the tables of stone, nor written upon the paper of the statute-books, but conceived in the very bosom of the proprietary and of the original pilgrims--not a formal or constructive kind, but a living freedom, a freedom of the most practical sort. It is the freedom which it remained for them, and for them alone, _either to grant or deny_--a freedom embracing within its range, and protecting under its banner, all those who were believers in Jesus Christ.”[121]

Again, the same author writes: “The records have been carefully searched. No case of persecution occurred, during the administration of Gov. Leonard Calvert, from the foundation of the settlement at St. Mary’s to the year 1647.”[122] Langford, a writer contemporaneous with the period of which we are treating, in his _Refutation of Babylon’s Fall_, 1655, confirms the result of Mr. Davis’ investigation of the records. The Protestants of the colony themselves, in a _declaration_, of which we will speak again, attribute the religious toleration they enjoyed not solely to the Toleration Act, but also to “_several other strict injunctions and declarations of his said lordship for that purpose made and provided_.” Gov. Leonard Calvert also enjoined the same by a proclamation, which is mentioned by numerous historians. A case arising under this proclamation is given by Bozman and others in 1638, eleven years before the passage of the Toleration Act. Capt. Cornwallis’ servants, who were Protestants, were lodged under the same roof with William Lewis, a zealous Catholic, who was also placed in charge of the servants. Entering one day the room where the servants were reading aloud from a Protestant book--Mr. Smith’s _Sermons_--at the very moment the Protestants were reading aloud a passage to the effect “that the pope was Antichrist, and the Jesuits were anti-Christian ministers,” supposing that the passage was read aloud especially for him to hear, he ordered them with great warmth not to read that book, saying that “it was a falsehood, and came from the devil, as all lies did; and that he that writ it was an instrument of the devil, and he would prove it; and that all Protestant ministers were ministers of the devil.” All the parties were tried before the governor and his council; the case against the servants was postponed for further testimony, but Mr. Lewis, the Catholic, was condemned to pay a fine of five hundred pounds of tobacco (then the currency of the colony), and to remain in the sheriff’s custody until he found sufficient sureties in the future. Bozman thus remarks upon this decision: “As these proceedings took place before the highest tribunal of the province, composed of the three first officers in the government, they amply develop the course of conduct with respect to religion which those in whose hands the government of the province was placed, had resolved to pursue.”[123] Not only did the Catholic lord proprietary, in 1648, appoint Mr. Stone, a Protestant, to be the governor of the province, but also he at the same time appointed a majority of the privy councillors from the same faith.

We will close our testimony on this point with the official oath which Lord Baltimore required the governor and the privy councillors to take; it was substantially as follows:

“I will not by myself nor any person, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any person whatsoever in said province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect to his or her religion, nor in his or her free exercise thereof.”

We cannot determine when this oath began to be used. Bancroft places it between 1636 and 1639. Chalmers, Dr. Hawks, and others give the time as between 1637 and 1657. It is certain that this oath was prescribed prior to the passage of the Toleration Act; for Governor Stone and the councillors took the oath in 1648, and there is reason to believe that it was in use at a much earlier period.

Referring to the period anterior to the passage of the Toleration Act, Bancroft says: “Maryland at that day was unsurpassed for happiness and liberty. Conscience was without restraint.”[124] Mr. Davis, in reference to this subject, writes: “The toleration which prevailed from the first, and for fifteen years later, was formally ratified by the voice of the people” (in 1649).

Mr. Gladstone’s view of the subject is evidently superficial; it relates exclusively to the passage of the Toleration Act, and was conceived and published without the knowledge of the fact, which we have demonstrated, that the toleration for which the Catholics of Maryland have been so much praised had been practised for fifteen years before the passage of that act. Surely, there can be no rival claim set forth in behalf of Protestants for the period we have mentioned. Mr. Gladstone sets up his claim for the Protestants under that act. We cannot admit the justice or truth of the pretension. Let us examine it. This law enacted that “no one professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his religion, or the free exercise thereof, nor compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his consent.” Now here, too, the claim set up by Mr. Gladstone, and by the authors of the pamphlets he quotes, is met by stern facts.

In the first place, the Toleration Act of 1649 was the work of a Catholic. It was prepared in England by Lord Baltimore himself, and sent over to the Assembly with other proposed laws for their action. This fact is related by nearly all writers on Maryland history, including those consulted by Mr. Gladstone, except the writer of _Maryland not a Roman Catholic Colony_, who does not refer to the subject, except to claim that it was but the echo of a previous and similar order of the English House of Commons in 1645 and of a statute passed by it in 1647. The last-named writer even intimates that the Rev. Thomas Harrison, the former pastor of the Puritans at Providence, afterward Annapolis, in Maryland, suggested the whole matter to Lord Baltimore. We might even admit this pretension without impairing the Catholic claim. It does not destroy the credit due to the Catholics of Maryland in passing the Toleration Act to show that others, even Puritans, entertained in one or two instances similar views and enacted similar measures. We know that the Puritans in England were proscriptive, and that in New England they did not practise the toleration of Maryland. Even if Lord Baltimore had the measure suggested to him by the Puritan Harrison, the act itself, when adopted by him and put in practice, is still his act and that of the Assembly which passed it. It remains their free and voluntary performance. The merit which attaches to the good deeds of men is not destroyed by having been suggested by others. A Puritan might even share in the act without appropriating the whole credit to himself. But whatever merit is claimed for the Puritans in these measures--which we cannot perceive--is lost by their subsequent conduct. They overturned the government of Lord Baltimore in Maryland, and under their ascendency Catholics were persecuted in the very home of liberty to which Catholics had invited the Puritans. But of the existence of the English toleration acts mentioned by the writer referred to and by Mr. Gladstone, we have been supplied with no proof. That the Puritan Harrison suggested the measure to Lord Baltimore is hinted at, not roundly asserted, certainly not sustained by proof.

But public facts give the negative to these pretensions. The Toleration Act of 1649 was the immediate echo of the actual toleration which, under the injunctions of Lord Baltimore, the proclamation of Governor Calvert, and the uniform practice of the colonists, had long become the common law of the colony. Why seek, in the turbulent and confused proceedings of the Long Parliament, a model or example for the Maryland law, when such exemplar is supplied nearer home by the colony itself from its first inception? To the people of Maryland, in 1649, the Toleration Act was nothing new; it was readily and unanimously received; it produced no change in the constitution of the province. Toleration was not the law or the practice of that day, either in England or her colonies; the echo was too remote and too readily drowned by the din of persecution and of strife.

But the Maryland Toleration Act contains intrinsic evidence of a purely Catholic origin. The clause enforcing the honor and respect due to “the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Saviour,” which we have already quoted, gives a Catholic flavor to the whole statute, and excludes the theory of parliamentary or puritanical influence in originating the measure. The claim thus set up is also against the concurrent voice of history, which, with great accord, gives the authorship of the law to Lord Baltimore, who, as he had enjoined and enforced its provisions on the colony for fifteen years, needed no assistance in reducing them to the form of a statute, which we are informed he did.

But who were the lawgivers of 1649, and what was their religion?

By the charter the law-making power was vested in Lord Baltimore and the Assembly. It was for some years a matter of contest between them which possessed the right to initiate laws. The lord proprietary, however, finally conceded this privilege to the Assembly. It was not uncommon for the Assembly to reject the laws first sent over by the lord proprietary, and afterwards to bring them forward themselves and pass them. But in 1648, when Governor Stone was appointed, the Toleration Act was among the measures sent by Lord Baltimore, for the action of the Assembly. The government, then, consisted of Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, without whose sanction no law could be enacted, and whose signature to the measure in question was given the following year. The journal of the Maryland legislature was lost or destroyed, but fortunately a fragment of it is preserved, consisting of a report from the financial committee of the Assembly, and the action of that body on the bill of charges. With this document, and the aid of the historical facts recorded by Bozman and other historians, we are enabled to ascertain the names of the members of the Assembly in 1649.

Gov. Stone was lieutenant-governor and president of the council, which was composed of Thomas Green, John Price, John Pile, and Robert Vaughan, commissioned by the lord proprietary; and the remaining councillors were Robert Clarke, surveyor-general, and Thomas Hatton, secretary of the colony, _ex-officio_ members of the council. The other members of the Assembly were the representatives of the freemen, or burgesses, as follows: Cuthbert Fenwick, Philip Conner, William Bretton, Richard Browne, George Manners, Richard Banks, John Maunsell, Thomas Thornborough, and Walter Peake, nine in number. The governor, councillors, and burgesses made sixteen in all; but as Messrs. Pile and Hatton, one Catholic and one Protestant, were absent, the votes actually cast were fourteen. On the memorable occasion in question the councillors and burgesses sat in one “house,” and as such passed the Toleration Act. Of the fourteen thus voting, Messrs. Green, Clarke, Fenwick, Bretton, Manners, Maunsell, Peake, and Thornborough were Catholics, and Messrs. Stone, Price, Vaughan, Conner, Banks, and Browne were Protestants. The Catholics were eight to six Protestants.

But the Assembly was not the only law-making branch of the government. The executive, or lord proprietary, was a co-ordinate branch, and without his co-operation no law could pass. Now, the executive was a Catholic, and a majority of the Assembly were Catholics; so that we have it as a historical fact that in a government composed of two co-ordinate branches, _both branches of the law-making power_ which enacted the Toleration Act _were Catholic_. It is an important fact that if all the Protestant members of the Assembly had voted against the law, the Catholic majority could and would have passed it, and the Catholic executive was only too ready to sanction his own measure. It cannot, therefore, be said that the Catholics could not have passed the law without the Protestant votes; for we have seen that both of the co-ordinate branches of the government were in the hands of the Catholics.

Waiving, however, the division of the government into two co-ordinate branches, by which method we have the entire government Catholic; and regarding the lord proprietary merely as individual, computing the lawgivers of 1649 simply numerically, we have the following result:

LAWGIVERS OF 1649.

_Catholics._ _Protestants._

Lord Baltimore. Lt.-Gov. Stone. Mr. Green. Mr. Price. Mr. Clarke. Mr. Vaughan. Mr. Fenwick. Mr. Conner. Mr. Bretton. Mr. Banks. Mr. Manners. Mr. Browne--6. Mr. Maunsell. Mr. Peake. Mr. Thornborough--9.

As Catholics we would be quite content with this showing; but we are indebted to several Protestant authors--more impartial than Messrs. Gladstone, Allen, and Neill, who write solely in the interests of sect--for a computation of the respective Catholic and Protestant votes in the Assembly in 1649, which, leaving out Lord Baltimore, and making the number of votes fourteen, gives, according to their just and strictly legal computation, _eleven Catholic votes and three Protestant votes for the Act of Toleration_. Mr. Davis, in his _Day-Star of American Freedom_, and Mr. William Meade Addison, in his _Religious Toleration in America_, both Protestant authors, take this view, and enforce it with strong facts and cogent reasonings. We will quote a passage, however, from only one of these works, the former, showing their views and the method by which they arrive at the respective numbers _eleven_ and _three_. Mr. Davis writes: “The privy councillors were all of them, as well as the governor, the special representatives of the Roman Catholic proprietary--under an express pledge, imposed by him shortly before the meeting of the Assembly (as may be seen by the official oath), to do nothing at variance with the religious freedom of any believer in Christianity--and removable any moment at his pleasure. It would be fairer, therefore, to place the governor and the four privy councillors on the same side as the six Roman Catholic burgesses. Giving Mr. Browne to the other side, _we have eleven Roman Catholic against three Protestant votes_.”[125]

We think, however, that if the computation is to be made by numbers, Lord Baltimore must be included, as the act received his executive approval, and could never have become a law without it. Thus, according to the views of Messrs. Davis and Addison, with this amendment by us, the numbers would stand twelve Catholic against three Protestant votes. But we prefer taking our own two several methods of computation, viz., by co-ordinate branches of the government, showing--

_Catholic._ _Protestant._

The executive, Lord Baltimore, None.

The Assembly, 2.

--and that estimated by numbers, counting Lord Baltimore as one, showing--

Catholics, 9. Protestants, 6.

This surely is a very different result from that announced by Mr. Gladstone, following the author of _Maryland not a Roman Catholic Colony_--viz., sixteen Protestant against eight Catholic votes. So far the numbers given by Mr. Gladstone and the writer he follows are mere assertion, unsupported by authority, either as to the composition of the Assembly or the respective religious beliefs of the members. Mr. Davis, however, gives in detail every member’s name, and refers to the proof by which he arrives at their names and number; and the same testimony is open, we presume, to the examination of all. In order that there may be no lack of proof as to the religious faiths they professed, he gives a personal sketch of each member of the Assembly in 1649, and proves from their public acts, their deeds of conveyance, their land patents, their last wills and testaments, the records of the courts, etc., that those named by him as Catholics were incontestably of that faith.

The population of the colony in 1649 was also largely Catholic beyond dispute. We have already shown that it was Catholic by a large majority during the fifteen years preceding and up to that time. The above computations, showing a majority of the legislature to be Catholic, strongly indicates the complexion of the religious faith of their constituents. Up to 1649 St. Mary’s, the Catholic county, was the only county in the State, and Kent, the seat of the Protestant population, was only a _hundred_ of St. Mary’s. Kent was not erected into a county until the year the Toleration Act was passed. While St. Mary’s was populous and Catholic, Kent was Protestant and thinly settled. There were six _hundreds_ in St. Mary’s, all Catholic except perhaps one, and of that one it is uncertain whether the majority was Catholic or Protestant. “But the population of Kent,” says Davis, “was small. In 1639, if not many years later, she was but a _hundred_ of St. Mary’s county.[126] In 1648 she paid a fifth part only of the tax, and did not hold in the Assembly of that year a larger ratio of political power. That also was before the return, we may suppose, of all the Roman Catholics who had been expelled or exported from St. Mary’s by Capt. Ingle and the other enemies of the proprietary. In 1649 she had but one delegate, while St. Mary’s was represented by eight. And this year she paid but a sixth part of the tax, and for many years after as well as before this Assembly there is no evidence whatever of a division of the island (of Kent) or the county, even into _hundreds_. Its population did not, in 1648, exceed the fifth, nor in 1649 the sixth, part of the whole number of free white persons in the province.”[127] After a thorough examination of the records, Mr. Davis arrives at the conclusion that the Protestants constituted only one-fourth of the population of Maryland at the time of the passage of the Toleration Act, in 1649. His investigations must have been careful and thorough, for he gives the sources of his information, refers to _liber_ and _folio_, and cites copiously from the public records. He thinks that for twenty years after the first settlement--to wit, about the year 1654--the Catholics were in the majority. He concludes his chapter on this subject with the following passage: “Looking, then, at the question under both its aspects--regarding the faith either of the delegates or of those whom they substantially represented--we cannot but award the chief honor to the members of the Roman Church. To the Roman Catholic freemen of Maryland is justly due the main credit arising from the establishment, by a solemn legislative act, of religious freedom for all believers in Christianity.”[128]

But, fortunately, we have another document at hand, signed in the most solemn manner by those who certainly must have known the truth of the case, as they were the contemporaries, witnesses of, and participators in, the very events of which we are treating. This is what is usually known as the Protestant _Declaration_, made the year after the passage of the Toleration Act, and shortly after it was known that Lord Baltimore had signed the act and made it the law of the land. This important document is an outpouring of gratitude from the Protestants of the colony to the Catholic proprietary for the religious toleration they enjoyed under his government. It is signed by Gov. Stone, the privy councillors Price, Vaughan, and Hatton--all of whom were members of the Assembly that passed the Toleration Act--by all the Protestant burgesses in the Assembly of 1650, and by a great number of the leading Protestants of the colony. They address Lord Baltimore in these words:

“We, the said lieutenant, council, burgesses, and other _Protestant_ inhabitants above mentioned, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do declare and certify to all persons whom it may concern that, according to an act of Assembly here, _and several other strict injunctions and declarations by his said lordship_, we do here enjoy all fitting and convenient freedom and liberty in the exercise of our religion, under his lordship’s government and interest; and that none of us are anyways troubled or molested, for or by reason thereof, within his lordship’s said province.”[129]

This important document is dated the 17th of April, 1650. It proves that the religious toleration they enjoyed was not due alone to the act of 1649, but to the uniform policy of Lord Baltimore and his government; and that even for the Toleration Act itself, which had recently become a law by his signature, they were indebted to a Catholic. Comment on such testimony is unnecessary.

Chancellor Kent, with the charter, the public policy of Lord Baltimore, of his colonial officers and colonists, and the Toleration Act of 1649, all submitted to his broad and profound judicial inquiry and judgment, has rendered the following opinion and tribute to the Catholic lawgivers of Maryland, to whom he attributes the merit of the generous policy we are considering:

“The legislature had already, in 1649, declared by law that no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in respect to their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against their consent. Thus, in the words of a learned and liberal historian (Grahame’s _History of the Rise and Progress of the United States_), the Catholic planters of Maryland won for their adopted country the distinguished praise of being the first of American States in which toleration was established by law, and while the Puritans were persecuting their Protestant brethren in New England, and Episcopalians retorting the same severity on the Puritans in Virginia, the Catholics, against whom the others were combined, formed in Maryland a sanctuary where all might worship and none might oppress, and where even Protestants sought refuge from Protestant intolerance.”[130]

Catholics have written comparatively little upon this subject. The historians of Maryland have been chiefly Protestants. As long as Protestants so unanimously accorded to the Catholic founders of Maryland the chief credit of this great event, it was unnecessary for Catholics to speak in their own behalf. It has remained for Mr. Gladstone and the two sectarian ministers he follows to attempt to mar the harmony of that grateful and honorable accord of the Protestant world, by which Catholic Maryland received from the united voice of Protestant history the enviable title of “_The Land of the Sanctuary_.”

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.