CHAPTER XVII.

THE END.

The admiral telegraphed at once to Sir Simon, informing him of what had happened. It was no surprise, therefore, when, on the morning of the funeral, the baronet walked into Clide’s room. The meeting was affectionate but sad. Clide had no heart to give a joyous welcome to his old friend. Even Franceline for the time was forgotten. The shock of the tragic death he had just witnessed had shattered his airy castles to pieces. He was, as yet, too much under the solemn spell of that event to turn his mind to the brightness that it might have made an opening for in the future.

Mrs. de Winton had come up from Wales, and was for taking Clide with her to a more suitable residence than his dingy lodgings; but he refused to stir until all was over, and she knew, as did all who knew Clide, that when he made up his mind to do or not to do a thing, he was immovable as fate. When the little band who had followed Isabel to the grave returned, they went by appointment to see the medical man under whose care she had spent the last months of her life. Mr. Percival, who, strangely enough, had not been at the funeral, was to be there to meet them. He was in the room when they entered. Sir Simon Harness started on perceiving him. “Mr. Plover! I hardly expected to meet you here.”

“Plover!” echoed Clide and Mr. Simpson.

“The same, at your service,” replied the other with cool effrontery. Then, turning to Clide, he said:

“Can I see you alone? What we have got to say had better be said privately.”

Clide made a gesture of assent, and the doctor showed them into an adjoining room.

The outline of Mr. Prendergast’s confession is already known; it is only necessary to fill it up with a few details of interest. Isabel was not his own niece, but the step-niece of his wife by her first husband, an Italian singer, from whom the girl inherited her gift of song. She was thrown on the care of Mr. Prendergast when quite a child. He was a needy adventurer, and determined to make her voice useful; for this end he cultivated it to the highest degree. But there was madness in her family. Just as her musical education was complete, and she was preparing to come out on a provincial stage in Italy, her mind became deranged, and he was obliged to place her in an obscure lunatic asylum near Milan. Meanwhile, he travelled as agent to a large London firm, and saw a great deal of life, chiefly in the West Indies. On his return he found Isabel recovered and in splendid voice. Complete change and travelling were advised as the best means of strengthening her against the danger of a relapse. He took her to America; then followed her marriage and her flight. Whether the fraud that she had practised on Clide was entirely a deliberate falsehood, prompted by that strange cunning which is one of the characteristics of madness, or whether it was the delusion of a disordered brain, it signified little now to him; it was certain that she had become fully alive to the fact that she had grossly deceived her husband, and that discovery would ruin her. Rather than face it, she fled and threw herself on her uncle for pity and protection. Then followed the checkered life: now the glare of the footlights, now the obscurity of a lunatic asylum. It had been her own passionate desire to go on the stage—so Mr. Prendergast said—and he had only yielded to it because he saw there was no other course open to her. Her terror of her husband’s anger was so great that the idea of being discovered by him threw her into a state of despair which threatened to unsettle her brain beyond all chance of recovery. She had caught a glimpse of him from her window at Dieppe, and insisted on her uncle’s carrying her off that very night, or else she would commit suicide. The excitement of the stage soon brought on a return of madness. Prendergast locked her up and went abroad again on a commission; fell in with Russian Jews on the borders of China, bought valuable stones from them, and returned to fulfil the dream of his life: to buy a country place and live “like a gentleman.” He found Isabel again recovered, and with her voice in greater power than ever. The offer of a fabulous sum for one season from a manager who had long had his eye on the beautiful young soprano tempted her uncle; he accepted an engagement for her at St. Petersburg. A London milliner who knew her slightly and had business of her own there accompanied them as a sort of chaperon for Isabel. Stanton had recognized her at the hotel, and she him. The rest of the story was already known to Clide. Mr. Prendergast was very emphatic, however, in declaring that he never intended to keep the poor child on the stage; this one season was so magnificently paid for that the sum, added to his own means, would make them both wealthy for the remainder of their lives.

“And now I have made a clean breast of it; you know everything,” he said, bringing his narrative to a close.

“No, not everything,” replied Mr. de Winton, fixing a searching look on him. “You have not explained the motives of your own conduct throughout. You changed your name twice; you persistently avoided me; you had recourse to unworthy subterfuges to escape detection. Admitting that my poor wife was, as you say, too frightened to trust me or to let me know what she was doing, it was your duty to communicate with me, and to give me at least the option of providing for her, instead of compelling her to foster the disease that was destroying her by adopting the career of an actress. What motive had you for not doing this? I give you the choice of telling the truth yourself; if you refuse, I must take other means of finding it out.”

Mr. Prendergast hesitated. There was evidently something yet to be told which he shrank from avowing; but, as Clide intimated, he must either confess it of his own accord or be driven to do so.

“You are right,” he said. “I had a motive in avoiding you; in keeping out of the way, not only of you, but of everybody. You may have heard of a great speculation started ten years ago in Canada, called the Ramason Company?”

“I remember hearing of it; it was a disreputable affair. My uncle, Admiral de Winton, took shares in it and lost heavily by the transaction.”

“I was the man who started that company, and I ruined many by inducing them to take shares in it. I was obliged to keep out of the way for several years, lest I should be seized and made amenable for felony. About a year ago the one man who swore to bring me to the hulks for it died. I don’t think there is any one now who would be at the trouble of prosecuting me; but I am in your power. You can hand me over to the law, if you choose; vengeance is sweet and it is within your grasp. Only remember,” he cried, with a sudden change from dogged indifference to a more appealing tone—“remember that as we judge we shall be judged; remember that we are standing both of us by a new-made grave, and that, if I have sinned, I have already eaten the bitter fruit of my misdoing. I was a poor man, struggling to live; fighting for the bread I ate. If I had been born to estates and a fortune, I should have been no worse than others who have done no evil because they have never been tempted. Think of this, Mr. de Winton, and for the sake of her who bore your name, and who, in the midst of her poor mad wanderings, brought no dishonor on it, be merciful!”

There was nothing abject in the way the wretched man thus threw himself on Clide’s clemency. He did not cringe or whine; he threw down his arms and appealed to the generosity of his conqueror. Clide was generous, and a generous nature is easily moved to pardon.

“What mercy is it that you ask of me?” he answered. “The mercy that you need most it is in no man’s power to give or to withhold. You have lent yourself for years to a course of cruelty and falsehood—cruelty to the unhappy child whose friendlessness and terrible misfortune should have claimed your pity and protecting care; falsehood to me, whom you well-nigh led into committing a great crime and involuntarily causing the shame and ruin of another. But I will take no vengeance on you. Go and ask for mercy where you have most sinned.”

* * * * *

Sir Simon had started without an hour’s delay on receiving the admiral’s telegram announcing Isabel’s death. If he had waited for the first post, it would have brought him a line from Ponsonby Anwyll to say that he was setting off the next day, and hoped to be at the Villa des Olives nearly as soon as his letter. Roxham would join him at Marseilles, and thence they would go on together.

So while Simon was rushing to London Ponsonby was rushing out of it; he presented himself with Lord Roxham at the villa the day after his host’s departure. Their surprise was very great when they were informed that Sir Simon was not there, and that M. de la Bourbonais and his daughter were the only occupants of the house. They asked to see them, and were very cordially received, but it was quite clear they were not expected. All the explanation Raymond could give of Sir Simon’s extraordinary conduct was that he had received a telegram the day before which obliged him to set out for London immediately; he had not entered into any explanation, but the intelligence was apparently rather exciting than painful, for he had gone away in very good spirits. The travellers looked at each other in perplexity. What were they to do? To come and install themselves at the villa was impossible, not so much on account of the host’s absence as because of Franceline’s presence. Raymond was discussing the same difficulty in his own mind, and was sorely puzzled as to what he was expected to do. Lord Roxham came to his assistance:

“The fact is, we have been too precipitate; we ought to have waited for another letter from Harness. However, it really does not much matter as far as the journey is concerned. I was on my way to these parts, and Anwyll is very lucky in getting a month’s leave and the chance of exploring this pretty place with a cicerone like myself. We shall have no difficulty, I dare say, in getting some tolerably comfortable quarters at a hotel in the town. You, count, will perhaps kindly put us in the way of that. What is the best hotel here?”

Giacomo, the odd man and general out-door factotum, runner-of-errands, and finder-out-of-everything, was called and despatched to the hotel with the gentlemen’s luggage and proper instructions about their requirements. This essential point once settled, all restraint was at an end. M. de la Bourbonais felt free to allow his courtesy full play and to offer all the hospitality that he wished to the two Englishmen. He insisted on their remaining to dinner; they had just half an hour to refresh themselves before it would be ready. Franceline joined her father so graciously in urging the request that they yielded a not unwilling assent.

Raymond had never met with Lord Roxham or Ponsonby since that memorable dinner at the Court, but he had received letters from both immediately on Sir Simon’s return and discovery of the ring. These letters were written in a frank, manly tone that it would have been difficult to resist if Raymond had been far more deeply incensed against the writers than he was. Both assured him of their unshaken esteem and their conviction all along that the mistake—for mistake they felt certain it was—would sooner or later be cleared up; if they had given any pain by not sooner expressing this opinion to M. de la Bourbonais himself, they sincerely regretted and apologized for it. Raymond had replied graciously to both, and so the old kind feeling was restored. He retained a grateful recollection, too, of Ponsonby’s prompt though formal salutation when Mr. Charlton had passed on, cutting him dead.

The evening passed pleasantly as the party sat chatting away on the terrace, with the young May moon shining down on the blue waves that beat against the pebbly beach with a murmurous plash. Franceline had all sorts of questions to ask about Dullerton after nearly three months’ absence—a long time at her age. She seemed astonished that there was nothing remarkable to tell about the place and the people during that interval, and I am afraid that Sir Ponsonby Anwyll drew on his imagination now and then, rather than acknowledge the humiliating fact that he knew nothing concerning the thing he was catechised about. He talked of probable plans and contemplated movements of the various persons, as if plans and movements entered into the lives of the homespun natives of Dullerton at all.

It was late when the two young men took leave, with the promise to return early next morning for a drive by the sea. Sir Simon had contrived a wonderful nondescript vehicle, a cross between a _char-à-banc_ and a wagonette, with an awning supported by iron rods, so as to obviate the necessity for umbrellas or parasols. Franceline was to do the honors of this and show them the beauties of the coast.

They were punctual to their appointment, and everybody enjoyed the drive exceedingly. They dined at the Villa des Olives again that day, and there was more sitting out on the terrace and endless conversations.

* * * * *

Clide, meantime, was waking up as from a bad dream. As soon as the cloud of those few hurried days was dispelled, he seemed suddenly to cast off the chill of awe that had fallen on him by his wife’s dying-bed, and clung to him until the grave had closed on her and shut out that chapter of his life for ever. Then youth vindicated itself, the elastic spring rebounded, and the future that yesterday was out of sight began to dawn brightly on him once more. The yearning to see Franceline, to claim her for his own, asserted itself with a force that was only the greater for being so long repressed. But now that all obstacles were removed on his side, it remained to be seen whether she was still free—free at heart, and willing to be his; it was possible—nay, did not his better sense add probable—that the seed of love he had sown in her heart had perished there before this, chilled by his neglect, crushed to death by his seeming faithlessness and desertion.

He must know first from Sir Simon how matters stood between her and Anwyll. Sir Simon told him the truth. He had left Franceline heart-whole, as far as he knew; but here was the irrepressible Ponsonby as good as installed under the same roof with her, walking, riding, making _parties_ by sunrise and conversations by moonlight; passionately in love with her, and Raymond most anxious for the success of his suit. Sir Simon had sounded him before he invited Anwyll to Nice. Was Franceline made of different stuff from every other woman in every other country that she could remain proof to all this, and not ignite at the contact of this faithful flame, not yield to this unyielding perseverance? Sir Simon thought not. Clide thought differently; but the wish, with him, might too easily engender the belief.

Strange to say, neither he nor Sir Simon felt the least alarm concerning Lord Roxham. Yet there could be no doubt as to which would be pronounced the more dangerous rival of the two by any competent jury of young ladies. He was far better-looking than Ponsonby Anwyll, more intelligent and agreeable, and he was the son of a peer to boot. This last attraction would no doubt constitute a much less dangerous man a formidable rival in the eyes of most English young ladies. But Franceline de la Bourbonais was not English, nor endowed with that fine native faculty which enables a woman to look at a man through the crystallizing medium of a peerage and discern its magically beautifying power. Still, considering that she did not love Ponsonby Anwyll when he presented himself at the Villa des Olives, there is no denying that Lord Roxham was a rival of whom the young squire of Rydal might justly have been afraid. Sir Simon had no deeply-laid plot or counterplot in his mind when he asked him; he did not mean to play him off against Ponsonby, as he had once played him off against Clide; he merely thought it would make it pleasanter to have him. It would throw Franceline more off her guard, too, perhaps. He was roving about the Pyrenees, and he might just as well come on and spend a little while with them at Nice.

Clide said very little while Sir Simon ran on about the contents of Franceline’s letter, and proceeded to expound his views on the possible state of affairs at the villa since he had left.

“Yes; I see the danger,” he said at length: “Anwyll has had the field so far to himself with all odds on his side; her father, who could make her do almost anything short of a sin to please him, is backing him up. Well, _à la grâce de Dieu_! I will start with you for Nice by this night’s mail.”

* * * * *

It was an hour after sunrise—the sweetest hour of the day. Franceline was an early riser, and seldom missed the enjoyment of a short walk by the sea in the freshness of the early morning. To-day, however, she was not walking; she was sitting on the beach at the foot of the garden that sloped down to the water’s edge, sitting with her milk-white hands in her lap, without book or work, gazing vacantly at the advancing tide and at the sunlight dancing on the waves. She was tired; she had slept badly—hardly slept at all, indeed—and she wanted the fresh sea-breeze to revive her, and the solitude of the silent beach to help her to come to a decision that she had spent the night vainly trying to arrive at. After a while she drew a letter from her pocket, opened it, and spread it on her knee. She had read it so often already that she might have repeated it word for word by heart; but she read it again, as if expecting to find some new light in it now. Things look different sometimes by daylight, just as faces do, and she had only read this letter by the light of her bedroom candle. But the sunbeams did not alter one line or modify the force of one word in the four pages covered with a large, straggling, but bold, legible handwriting. The letter was from Ponsonby Anwyll, asking her to be his wife. Her father had put it into her hand last evening when he kissed her and bade her good-night.

“My child, here is a message that I have been charged with for thee; thou wilt read it alone and give me thy answer to-morrow.”

He did not add one word as to what he hoped the answer might be, but the sigh, the close embrace with which he held her to him, told Franceline plainly enough what his longing desire was. She returned his embrace in silence and carried the letter to her room. She had thought over it all night; but the night had brought her no counsel. She was still hesitating, undecided. Yet she must make up her mind one way or the other within a very short time—oh! how short a time. Why could she not yield? Her father desired this marriage ardently, and there was everything to recommend it. Ponsonby loved her so sincerely, with such a humble, honest, manly love. It was no light thing to fling away such a gift as this. A faithful heart is not an offering to be cast aside as if it were a “common thing with more behind,” to be picked up at any moment. It was in all probability the turning point of her life that she was now called upon to decide; if she let the tide go by, it might never flow towards her again. Franceline would have made small account of this if she had had only herself to consider. She was happy as she was, and would gladly have renounced all hope or chance of changing her present lot; she had no ambition, and she did not realize the future keenly enough to forecast probabilities and take precautions against them. She knew her father was an old man, but she never let her mind dwell on the consequences of that fact. If he were taken away first, it seemed as if life must come to an end for her; she did not want to look beyond so remote and dreaded a possibility. But she knew that he looked beyond it, during his illness especially he had said things occasionally that showed he was painfully preoccupied about her future, about what was to become of her if he went and left her alone in the world with no one to love her or take care of her. She knew that nothing could sweeten his remaining years more than to see her happily married; that, in fact, such an event would, humanly speaking, be very likely to prolong his life. This it was that kept her trembling on the verge of surrender and pleaded loudly in favor of Ponsonby’s suit. Why was it so hard to yield? There was nothing to hinder her now. If she had cared for any one else.… A bright crimson suffused her cheeks; she covered her face with her hands with an involuntary movement, as if to hide that blush of exquisite shame from the roses that were its only witnesses.

But this emotion passed away and sober reflections presented themselves. The idea, once so firmly rejected as a presumptuous temptation, that she might convert Ponsonby by marrying him, appealed to her suddenly with a force altogether new. It would be no doubt a glorious thing to sacrifice her own personal feelings and wishes for such an object, and it seemed to Franceline, as she contemplated it for the first time calmly, that the generosity of the motive must ensure the reward of the sacrifice. If she could but consult Father Henwick! But that was impossible. The distance was too great. In those days railroads were few and far between. It took four days for a letter to reach Dullerton, and as many for the answer to return; and it was imperative that she should make up her mind at once. She drew from her pocket a little book in which she had written down some striking passages from various authors, and some words of advice that Father Henwick had given her from time to time. The words that had sounded so sustaining when uttered spoke to her now with even a more pointed significance: “Be sure of one thing: so long as we are sincerely seeking to do what is right God will guide us to it.… The danger is that sometimes we are all the time hankering after our own will when we say, and even fancy, that we are seeking the will of God.” Then later, in answer to some question about the mode of discerning between these two wills, the writer said: “Things that are not of our seeking or wishing are mostly of his ordering.… Obedience and circumstances are our safest guides.” Here Franceline closed the little book, murmuring to herself: “It is quite certain that this marriage is not of my seeking—nor of my inclination; if that be a sign, I am safe in doing God’s will in consenting to it.” Then she remembered how she had read somewhere that God would send an angel from heaven rather than let a faithful soul go astray when striving to do his will. No angel had come to forbid her yielding, and the time pressed for her decision. Franceline buried her face in her hands, and for the next few minutes a fierce struggle went on within her. She trembled from head to foot, her pulses beat fast, a sharp pang shot through her whole being and seemed to tear it asunder for one moment, then gradually recoiled upon her will, stimulating it to a firm, irrevocable impulse. All that she had hitherto known of energy or courage was as nothing compared to what she was feeling now. She looked up and pushed back her hair, as if to see a vision more clearly. A light had gathered in her eye, a high resolve shone upon her brow. The vision was vanishing, but she saw it still: angels were beckoning. The spirit of Renunciation pointed with golden palm-branch to that hour when every sacrifice receives its crown, when every selfish denial is avenged. She stood by her father’s death-bed; life was fading away like a dream; the hour of real awakening was at hand. Conscience spoke out: “Prove thy love,” said the clear, stern voice, “accept the reality which the kind will of Heaven has appointed for you, and cast from your heart once and for ever the vain dream that it has cherished too long. Make your father happy; become the wife of this good and faithful man who loves you. Go forth, immolate yourself, and lead him to the light of truth.”

When Franceline rose to her feet, Ponsonby’s cause was won. She folded his letter, and went in and sat down at once and answered it. Her hand did not falter; there was no trace of reluctance or hesitation visible in her countenance. As soon as the letter was finished she went down-stairs to meet her father, and handed it to him open.

“Am I to read it?”

“Yes, father; it is you who have written it,” she said, kissing him.

Before M. de la Bourbonais could reply, Angélique and the major-domo came in with the breakfast, and kept fussing in and out of the room while it lasted; so it was some little time before he was able to go out on the terrace and read the letter alone.

Franceline did not wait to see its effect upon him. She escaped to her room, and sat there until he should call for her; but instead of this Raymond took up his straw hat and went straight out of the house. She saw him walk with a quick, buoyant step down the garden and disappear into the road. He was gone with her answer to Ponsonby, guessing rightly that until he received it the young man would not venture to return to the villa, and that her father was impatient to make the lover happy. Franceline saw him go forth bearing the _fiat_ that decided her destiny, that placed a stranger henceforth between them, dividing with another the duty and the life that had hitherto been all his own. Oh! if she had but loved the other as it was in her to love the man who was to be her husband. A cry that was almost a shriek escaped from her, and she threw herself upon the ground in a paroxysm of tears. But this weakness was soon over; she arose and hurried out of the house, so as to avoid meeting Angélique or any of the servants, and went down to the beach.

The tide was in; she seated herself in the crevice of a rock—a favorite seat, where she was sheltered from the sun and surrounded by the beautiful blue sea on every side. She had taken a book with her, dutifully opened it where the marker was, and then leaned her head against the side of the rock and began to dream. How pleasant it would be if she could drift away in one of those white fishing-boats, herself and her father, to some “fair isle of the blest” where there is no marrying or giving in marriage, where no winged angels come with cruel messages of duty to weak, reluctant hearts! Was that steamer whose smoke was curling like a dark snake in the pure blue atmosphere bound for one of these happy isles? Oh! would that she were on it and making for that haven of rest. She must have sat a long time dreaming her dreams, for the steamer was a long while out of sight and the water had risen almost to her feet, when she heard Angélique’s voice calling her up and down the garden. She did not move. It was Ponsonby come back with her father, no doubt, to salute her as his bride. Let him wait; there was time enough. Angélique went on calling for some minutes, and then ceased. Franceline thought she had given it up, and was congratulating herself on the reprieve, when she heard the sound of footsteps falling heavily on the pebbles close behind the rock. There was no use resisting; she must go to this impatient lover at once, it seemed. She rose with a weary, resigned sigh, and was stepping over the ledge of the rock to gain the terrace, when, looking up, she beheld, not Angélique, but Clide de Winton. Franceline screamed as if a sword had been driven through her heart, fell forward, and was caught in Clide’s arms.

“Franceline! my darling! my own!” he murmured, straining her passionately to him.

She had not fainted; she was only stunned. Rallying in an instant, she struggled to free herself, and looking at him with a frightened, bewildered glance, “How is this? What do you mean? Are you free?” she exclaimed.

“Should I dare to come to you, to speak to you thus, to clasp you to my heart, if I were not free? O Franceline, Franceline! have you known me so little all this time?”

Her head drooped upon his shoulder, and she struggled no more; he gathered her to his heart, and she did not draw away her face from the warm kisses that he pressed on it.

Angélique’s voice breaking in upon this moment of rapture roused her to the remembrance of other things: her father’s errand, the letter, she had written engaging herself as Ponsonby Anwyll’s wife.

“O Clide, Clide!” she cried, putting her hand to her forehead with a look of agonized distress.

“My darling! what is it?”

But Angélique was down on them now, and began to scold the young girl for letting her shout herself hoarse calling to her this hour past without an answer, until she thought Mam’selle must have fallen asleep and dropped into the sea; that’s what would happen some of these days, and then her body would be carried off by the tide to the north pole, and M. le Comte would die of grief, and the only thing for Angélique to do would be to drown herself. Clide tried to divert the vials of the old woman’s wrath towards him, and so cut her short in this dismal horoscopic view of the family history. M. de la Bourbonais, meanwhile, was hastening to meet them; the sight of his smiling countenance sent a dagger through Franceline. She embraced Sir Simon, hurriedly, and then ran to her father.

“You went with that letter?” she whispered.

“Yes, my little one; I went straight off with it.”

“Ha! Then he knows already? You have given it to him?”

“No; unluckily, he was not at home. They had just gone out when I got to the hotel.”

“O father! thank God! Then give it to me quick!” She flung her arms round his neck, and kissed him with an energy that nearly sent his spectacles flying into the Mediterranean.

“Eh, eh? What is the matter? What is this?” said Raymond, rescuing the precious _lunettes_ and refixing them on his nose.

“Father, I will not marry him. I am engaged to Clide de Winton!”

* * * * *

The sun was not long risen—for the dew was still glistening on the deep-bladed grass, and the birds were babbling in their nests as they do in the fresh dawn before men are astir to drown the delicious concert—when three figures might be seen wending towards the little gray church, where Father Henwick was awaiting them. They found the door open and the candles lighted on the altar, although there was not a soul in the church but themselves.

I dare say you recognize the three at a glance, though it may surprise you to see Clide de Winton there and at so unwonted an hour.

The church was beautifully arrayed in flowers and evergreens and banners of every hue. For this is to be Franceline’s wedding-day, and she has come with her _fiancé_ and her father to ask a blessing on it.

There was something peculiarly sweet and thrilling in the sound of the bell through the almost empty church, and the voice of the priest reverberating in the solemn silence, tender and tremulous as a throb that broke from his inmost heart.

The walk home was silent; only, when they entered the park, M. de la Bourbonais stood a moment and, looking down on the little cottage where he and his child had suffered so much and known so many happy days, he said with an emotion which he made no effort to conceal: “My children, God has been very good to us; to me especially—for I have deserved it least. I shall not live long to prove that I am grateful; but you who are young—you will both of you love him and thank him for me all your lives.”

Clide’s only answer was a silent pressure of the hand, while Franceline fell upon her father’s breast and wept a few sweet tears.

* * * * *

Yes, the wedding-day had arrived; the sun shone brightly, everything was bright, everybody seemed happy. Miss Merrywig sported a splendid new gown for the occasion—pale blue silk, with rosebuds and forget-me-nots on a broad, white satin stripe, most appropriate for a wedding; and _such_ a bargain! She was entreating Lady Anwyll to make a guess—just one guess—at what it had cost; but Lady Anwyll fought off, declaring it would only make her envious if she knew, and, besides, she wanted Miss Merrywig to keep her bargain as fresh as possible for another episode like the present which would be taking place soon, she hoped, in the neighborhood. She would not say more; it was rash to speak of these matters until everything was _quite_ settled; but it had long been suspected by the whole county that that sweet little Lady Lucy B—— and Ponce were planning some mischief together. Then followed whisperings and squeezing of hands between the two old ladies, which were presently interrupted by a loud, premonitory buzz through the great Gothic hall where the guests were fast assembling from the adjoining rooms. Sir Simon appeared, marshalling the twelve pink and white bridemaids into ranks on the broad landing at the top of the stairs. Down they came gliding as softly as a sunset cloud, and stood below awaiting the bride. Everybody whose acquaintance you have made ever so slightly at Dullerton is present, I think—everybody except Sir Ponsonby Anwyll, who sent his good wishes and regrets by his mother, explaining that he had not been able to get home just at present.

And now a murmur, deep and prolonged, runs through the gay crowd. The bride is coming; stately she steps down the grand oak stairs, leaning on her father’s arm. To my mind, she is the sweetest, loveliest bride that ever “the sun shone on.” But then, to be sure, I may be prejudiced. I wish I could describe her dress to you; but it would be very much like trying to describe the texture of a moonbeam. I can only certify that it was white, diaphanous, and fleecy as a cloud, and that, in some mysterious way, eucharista lilies floated here and there over the soft, snowy foam. The graceful head, too, bowed modestly under its golden weight of hair, was crowned by the same lovely flowers, and a cloud-like veil of gossamer tissue encircled her like a morning mist.

M. de la Bourbonais looked very happy as he passed through the sympathetic groups with his clair-de-lune on his arm; there was subdued joy on his venerable face that smoothed away all painful traces of his late illness, and almost obliterated the lines of age and the deeper furrows of care on his thoughtful brow.

As to Clide de Winton, everybody declared that he bore himself admirably on this most trying occasion, presenting a model of what a bridegroom ought to be—manly, dignified, and simple; he made a speech at the wedding breakfast, and it was pronounced capital. I don’t think the effort proved such a very severe trial to him, either, as he had once expected, for when Mrs. de Winton, who had expanded like a sunflower in cordiality that day, asked him with an arch smile whether he found the ordeal very dreadful, Clide answered frankly that it was not so trying as he had anticipated, and that, even when the worst was said, a wedding ceremony, with all its fuss, was not an unmitigated evil.

THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.[104]

There is some evidence of the undue conceit which the present age has of its learning and culture in the fact that the works of the great writers of the middle ages indefinitely surpass our best literary productions in intellectual acumen and in the depth and width of real philosophical science. St. Thomas commences his _Summa Theologica_ by telling us that it is to be an elementary work for the use of beginners in the study of sacred doctrine, according as the apostle says, _Tam parvulis in Christo, lac vobis potum dedi, non escam_. This book for junior students, this “milk for babes” of the mediæval times, is nowadays somewhat strong for the mental digestion of full-grown men, not excepting those whose minds have been carefully trained under the tuition of judicious preceptors. It was no doubt the modesty of the saint which prompted him to speak in this manner of that most wonderful work. Had he lived in such days as ours, so remarkable for feebleness of intellect, so conspicuous for contemptuousness, for self-confidence and self-sufficiency, such language would not have been possible with him; for he could only have used it in the bitterest sarcasm, which is utterly foreign to his meek and gentle character.

Since the days of the Angelic Doctor, it has become necessary to dispose the minds of those who would drink of this source of science by previous instruction in the first elements of his philosophy. Of all the elementary philosophies of the strictly Thomistic school, the most universally esteemed has been that of Father Goudin, who gave lectures in the Dominican College of Paris towards the end of the seventeenth century. The great aim of this faithful professor of Thomism is to be true to his master in every point, not only in the higher principles of philosophy, but even in the details of physics. He wrote at a time when a great revolution was taking place in men’s minds with regard to science, and he saw with concern that the new doctrines would prove in their results subversive of all that was Christian. He therefore set about opposing the doctrinal novelties of Descartes and his school by an uncompromising reassertion of the teaching of St. Thomas. In the judgment of posterity Goudin has erred somewhat, but not so much, certainly, as the school which he opposed; for the Cartesian doctrines have proved the source of many subsequent errors, as scepticism, rationalism, pantheism, atheism. The mistakes of Goudin simply regard some of the details of physical science which, whether correctly or erroneously explained, tend little to the benefit of our fellow-beings, although interesting enough to the minds of the well educated.

We are assured that the strictest Thomists are not bound to adhere to the details of the physics of their master. The Angelic Doctor, in matters of this kind (which, we submit, concern little the theologian, or the metaphysician, or the moralist), adopted the prevailing opinions of the time. We do not read that he ever showed much enthusiasm for natural or experimental science, and in this respect he differed from his friend and quondam preceptor, Albertus Magnus. But in those fundamental questions of philosophy which are intimately connected with our moral conduct and with natural or positive religion, and indeed in all questions where St. Thomas is bound to think for himself, we do not find that he simply endorses the teaching of another. When it is objected by knowing people that Aquinas teaches doctrines which are exploded or puerile—as, for instance, that the earth is stationary, or that the east is the right hand of the heavens—it would be well for them to reflect that these are rather the doctrines of the universally-admired Aristotle than of his Christian disciple.[105]

Father Gonzales (since created Bishop of Cordova) has given to the church an excellent manual of Thomistic doctrine. At the outset, he seeks to determine the sense of the word _philosophy_. This is no easy matter, as the definitions given by different authors are many and various. Cousin declares it to be—_reflection completely emancipated and freed from the trammels of authority, so that reason depends solely upon itself for the acquisition of truth_. By the subjectivists of Germany it is defined—_the Ego as it places and offers itself by thesis and antithesis_. According to Kant, it is _the necessary science of the laws and causes of spontaneous reason_. Cicero says that philosophy is _rerum divinarum et humanarum causarumque, quibus hæ res continentur, scientia_; and this is, perhaps, the popular notion of the word, so that all scientific studies are included in the general term of philosophy. Thus we speak of the philosophy of history, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of manufactures, of laws, and so forth. A writer of the name of Mr. Robert Hooke tries to impress upon his readers the vast extent of philosophy in the following curious dissertation:

“The history of potters, tobacco-pipe makers, glass-grinders, looking-glass makers or foilers, spectacle-makers and optic-glass makers, makers of counterfeit pearl and precious stones, bugle-makers, lamp-blowers, color-makers, color-grinders, glass-painters, enamellers, varnishers, color-sellers, painters, limners, picture-drawers, makers of babies’ heads, of little bowling stones or marbles, fustian-makers, music-masters, tinsey makers and taggers; the history of school-masters, writing-masters, printers, bookbinders, stage-players, dancing masters and vaulters, apothecaries, chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, barbers, laundresses, and cosmetics, etc., etc. (the true nature of each of which being exactly determined), will hugely facilitate our inquiries in philosophy.”

By most scholastics philosophy is defined as a _cognitio certa et evidens_. These are the words of Goudin, and we observe that they are adopted by Father Lepidi in the first volume of his new work. Gonzales, however, demurs to assent to this, for the reason that in philosophy many questions are discussed of which we have neither evidence nor certainty. The objection is inserted and responded to in Father Lepidi’s book, and also in the works of Goudin. The proper and primary object of philosophy is certain and evident; it treats of questions that are obscure only secondarily and _consequenter_. Nevertheless, Gonzales prefers to define philosophy as _cognitio scientifica et rationalis Dei, mundi et hominis, quo viribus naturalibus per altiores causas seu principia habetur_. In the latter words of the definition he is in conformity with the rest of his school, but in the first part—that is, in the genus of the definition—he differs from them.

The essence of philosophy being determined, at least in the sense in which the author is going to treat of it, we are next invited to decide upon a suitable division. The older scholastics had divided it into four parts: logic; physics, whose object was _ens mobile_, or all changeable nature; metaphysics, which treated of being in the abstract, and all concrete objects which transcend the powers of the senses; and ethics. Some added a fifth part—namely, mathematics. Goudin’s definition of philosophy seems capable of embracing this science also; however, he disposes of it, whether consistently or not we need not stop to inquire.

Later Christian writers, who have adhered in the main to the doctrines of the scholastics, have somewhat varied their division. Physics in its details is excluded from philosophy strictly so called, while in its more universal relations it is considered as belonging to metaphysics. Thus the science of the laws of the world is called cosmology, and the science of the soul, its essence, its faculties, and its operations, is called psychology. Cosmology and psychology, together with theodicy or natural theology, are the subdivisions of _special_ metaphysics, while the science of being is called ontology or _general_ metaphysics.

However, Gonzales refuses to grant that psychology belongs properly to metaphysics, because, although the soul of which it treats is beyond the ken of the senses, yet the operations of the soul depend upon them and are recognized by them. He determines, therefore, that this science belongs as much to ethics and to logic as to metaphysics: to metaphysics, inasmuch as it treats of the essence of the soul; to logic, as it regards the faculties of cognition; to ethics, as far as it concerns the moral power. Later on, when Gonzales comes to treat of psychology _ex professo_, he suggests that it should be either reduced again to physics or made a distinct and special portion of philosophy. Such is the unsatisfactory consideration of the question by men eminent for their science. We see in the newly-issued volume of Father Lepidi’s philosophy that in his division he leaves out altogether the words physics and metaphysics, and proposes the following heads: logic, general ontology, cosmology, anthropology, natural theology, and ethics. This mode of division seems to us, with all due deference to Bishop Gonzales and other writers, the most satisfactory. Moreover, it is explained by Father Lepidi in a most logical manner, based as it is upon two incontrovertible philosophical maxims. Before we leave this subject of the division, we will mention that proposed by the late Canon Sanseverino in his great work, which, unfortunately, was never completed. He considers philosophy under a twofold aspect, subjective and objective. _Subjective_ philosophy is divided into four branches—_logica_, _dynamilogia_, _idealogia_, and _criteriologia_. _Objective_ philosophy has also four parts—_naturalis theologia_, _cosmologia_, _anthropologia_, _ethica_. We observe that he is one with Father Lepidi in discarding the use of those vague terms of which we have spoken.

Father Gonzales has published his work in three volumes, the first of which comprises the tractates of Logic and Psychology. In the Logic we have noticed nothing particular to be mentioned, excepting its completeness and the exceeding clearness with which the subjects are treated. The treatise of Psychology, however, has greatly interested us, and is the best we have seen. It is divided into two parts, _empiric_ and _rational_. _Psychologia empirica_ treats of the powers of the soul, and we notice in a few instances a deviation from the explicit doctrine of Goudin. For instance, those _species_ or representations of objects which are received in the cognitive senses, are stated by Gonzales to be immaterial and spiritual, while Goudin has said that they are material. It might, perhaps, be suggested that these _species_ may be called _immateriales negative_. This epithet is allowed by the author to be applied to the _anima_ of brutes; and as the _species_ we speak of belong to animal life, they must be of the same nature. Cognition is a vital act, and all vitality is above the condition of that which is merely material. A very recent writer has implied that St. Thomas distinguishes immaterial and spiritual existences. We do not remember to have noticed such a distinction in his works. Perhaps the writer makes allusion to the doctrine that some operations of material beings transcend the qualities of matter—_v.g._, sensitive cognition. Yet these operations are not called immaterial by St. Thomas, at least not usually. This subject of cognition is well treated of by Gonzales. In another part of this treatise he endeavors to prove the necessity of an _intellectus agens_ as distinguished from the _intellectus possibilis_, the passive intellect, the faculty of understanding.

In the second part of Psychology, the simplicity of the soul, its spirituality and immateriality, are clearly demonstrated. Its unity also is stoutly maintained, and the opposite errors, both ancient and modern, are stated with admirable terseness and pertinence, and then put aside as wanting in scientific consistency. With the hypothesis of one soul, all vital operations can be accounted for; with that of more than one principle of life, various phenomena could not be explained; therefore the doctrine of one principle is to be admitted.

Appended to the tractate of Psychology is a special chapter on Ideology. The various systems of Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Leibnitz, Bonald, Malebranche, Gioberti, Kant, Schelling, Fichte, and Cousin are set aside one after another as insufficient or absurd. Then we have an exposition of the subject according to the principles of the Angelic Doctor; and this portion of the work is of unusual originality, specially interesting and instructive to many readers. The reality of ideas, as distinct intellectual representations of objects, it first established in opposition to the doctrines of those philosophers who maintain that the understanding perceives objects without the intervention of ideas or the need of an _intellectus agens_. The doctrine of _impressed_ ideas as distinct from those that are _expressed_ is insisted upon.

The origin of our ideas is thus explained: There are four kinds of ideas, _ideæ primariæ abstractionis_, _ideæ pure intelligibiles_, _ideæ pure spirituales_, and _idea entis_, and this division is applicable to both impressed and expressed ideas. We must ask pardon for our attempt to Anglicize the scholastic terms. Now, as to expressed ideas, all these have their origin from the passive intellect. The difficulty, therefore, of explaining the origin of ideas regards only those which we call _ideæ impressæ_, and of these only we have now to speak.

Ideas of primary abstraction, which refer to corporeal or sensible objects—as, for instance, a man, a horse, the sun—come from the active intellect, which draws them out of the _species_ contained in the imagination. Ideas purely intellectual—as those of substance, cause, effect, good, evil—have their origin from both the active and the passive intellect: from the former, because in the ideas of primary abstraction it discovers other more universal relations, as those of good, bad, etc.; from the latter, as far as it works out and develops those germs of higher knowledge imperfectly manifested by the active intellect. As to purely spiritual ideas—those of God, of the angels, of our own souls—these have not all the same origin. If the idea of God is obtained by reasoning from that which is contingent to the conclusion that a necessary being must exist, such an idea is the product of the passive intellect, which has worked it out of impressions previously received. But if the idea of God be conceived as of the first cause of all things, then it is acquired in the same way as the ideas of causes in general, and belongs in reality to that class of ideas which are called purely intellectual. The idea of an angel is acquired from the analogy of our own soul; hence the _idea expressa_ of our soul may become the _idea impressa_ of an angel. As to our own soul, there is no impressed idea of it, but its operations are sufficient for the acquisition of an expressed idea of it, without any need of an abstraction of the active intellect. As to the idea of being, it is an abstraction of the active intellect, but natural and spontaneous; indeed, it is its first perception, as the expressed idea of being is the first conception of the passive intellect. And the reason of this is, that our intellectual faculties are reflections of the mind of God.

Father Gonzales next proceeds to explain in what sense scholastics understand the axiom of the Stagirite, _Nihil est in intellectu, quin prius fuerit in sensu_. All ideas depend upon the senses so far forth that sensible cognition must always precede that which is intellectual, and because all intellectual cognition requires an accompanying exercise of the imagination. Ideas of primary abstraction depend upon sensible representations directly and immediately; ideas purely intellectual, remotely and inadequately; ideas purely spiritual, especially of angels and of our own souls, depend upon the senses only indirectly and _occasionaliter_. Hence the senses are never the efficient causes of our intellectual ideas; the most that can be said is, that they are the material causes of some of them. In this sense only can we accept the maxim of the great pagan philosopher without becoming implicated in the sensism of Locke and Condillac. Gonzales next warns his students not to consider ideas as the object of intellectual knowledge; an idea is not _id_ QUOD _cognoscitur_, but _id_ QUO _cognoscitur_. These are the words of St. Thomas, and it is of the greatest importance to realize the doctrine, if we would avoid the Charybdis of idealism as well as the Scylla of sensism.

In the second volume we have the tractates of Ontology, Cosmology, and Natural Theology. In ontology the real distinction of essence and existence is affirmed and ably advocated, as, indeed, it usually is in works emanating from the Dominican Order. We have known personally more than one professor of that order who have differed from Gonzales and Goudin in this point, and who have taught their doctrines in the lecture rooms without scruple as the veritable teaching of St. Thomas. Our province is not to attempt to decide the question, either on its own independent merits or according to the authority of the Angelic Doctor. There are difficulties in the subject which seem to increase on examination. Father Liberatore, in the later editions of his _Institutiones Philosophicæ_, has passed from the ranks of those who deny the real distinction to join those who teach it, and he gives weighty reasons for doing so. We do not just now remember a conversion so conspicuous in the reverse direction; but we know of one or two such conversions, which, however, have attracted little notice.

In the treatise of Ontology there is an interesting dissertation on the principles of æsthetics. We are afraid to attempt a synopsis of it, as it would not be appreciated. Gonzales’ definition of beauty is worthy of a disciple of St. Thomas: _Splendor harmonicus veri et infiniti_.

The doctrine of St. Thomas, according to which he explains the mystery of the unchanged appearance of the elements of the Eucharist after consecration, is well sustained. Gonzales argues that substance and accidents are really distinct in essence, consequently the idea of their real separation involves no contradiction of terms; and the Protestant philosopher Leibnitz is quoted in support of this doctrine. Accordingly, after the words of consecration, when the substance of bread and wine is converted into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, all the accidents remain unchanged, both in appearance and in reality, except that extension subsists of itself after the manner of a substance. Cartesians, on the contrary, deny that the accidents of the elements really remain, and consider that the appearances of bread and wine are only phenomenal. Many modern philosophers who are scholastic in most points agree with the Cartesians in this; among others, Father Tongiorgi, S.J. This subject is worthy of the attentive study of all who believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation.

In the tractate of Cosmology the different systems of pantheism are explained and disposed of, and the doctrine of the creation of the world by a Being supreme, independent, and free is demonstrated. Then follows a discourse upon that interesting subject, the principles of bodies. Gonzales, as a staunch Thomist, upholds the doctrine of matter and form, and insists that it is the only system which is capable of satisfying the mind. Modern philosophers generally reject this system, and some of them in very contemptuous language. Cudworth, for instance, calls it _genus quoddam metaphysicæ stultitiæ_. Father Tongiorgi does not accept this doctrine, and seems to be persuaded that his arguments in favor of chemical atomism are unanswerable and destructive of the ancient theory. Gonzales discusses successively the systems of the atomists and the dynamists, and those go-betweens whom he calls atomistico-dynamists; and they are successively dismissed as incomplete or erroneous. Then the old scholastic or Aristotelian system is clearly and beautifully represented. There are changes going on in nature which are observed by all. Substances are corrupted and substances are generated; the corruption of one is the generation of another. These changes are called substantial mutations. And yet, in spite of all these changes, something remains ever the same. When wood is turned into fire, fire into ashes, these into earth, earth into vegetable or mineral substances, there is always something that remains unaltered in its essence. What is this thing? It is primary matter (_materia prima_). What is it that makes the change when wood becomes fire, or earth, or a stone? It is the new substantial form which succeeds the one that has departed by corruption. In scholastic language, the matter has changed its form.

As matter is something not knowable of itself, and could not exist, even by a miracle, without being actuated or perfected by substantial forms, it follows that its essence can be but vaguely understood. For the same reason, a scientific definition of it is not possible. Hence Aristotle thought it profitable to give a negative definition of it: _Nec quid, nec quale, nec quantum, nec aliquid eorum per quæ ens determinatur_. We have known this definition to excite the irrepressible merriment of several. Some people have the faculty of being able to laugh at will, even when they understand nothing of the subject that tickles them; and such a faculty is sometimes of great convenience. Gonzales defines primary matter as—_realitas substantialis et incompleta, nullum actum aut formam ex se habens, sed quæ capacitatem et potentiam habet ad universas formas substantiales_. He defines substantial form. _Realitas substantialis et incompleta, materiam primo actuans ac determinans ad constituendam simul cum ipsa substantiam complete subsistentem._ Matter is the subject of the form; form is the perfection or actuality of matter. It is worth while to observe that Father Liberatore is a firm supporter of this theory.

To the principal objections, so cleverly put by Father Tongiorgi, against the Peripatetic system, Gonzales has always a suitable rejoinder. After a categoric _respondeo_ to each one severally, he makes some general reflections upon them all which we will try to do into English:

“Although no answer were forthcoming to the famous objections of Tongiorgi, the scholastic system would continue to hold its own in respect of the first principles of bodies. Our system regards chiefly bodies which are simple, and bodies endowed with life. Now, none of the arguments of the Italian philosopher have any reference to either of these kinds of bodies. Consequently, they not only do not overturn the Peripatetic system of matter and form and of substantial generation, but they do not even touch the question. The most that can be inferred from his arguments is, that substantial generation does not take place in respect of inanimate bodies which are compound. Now, these compound bodies can be considered merely as bodies which are imperfect in unity of nature and substance, and as such they belong to that class of bodies which were styled by the old scholastics _mixta imperfecta_.”

The rest of the treatise of Ontology is well handled, especially that which regards the principle and manifestations of life. It is here that we observed a distinction we have before mentioned. The _anima_ of the brute creation is immaterial _negative_ and _similitudinarie_, for its operations transcend the conditions of matter; it is material _positive_, because it exists and acts only in dependence on matter.

The tractate of Theodicy is good, and contains in a short compass all that is necessary for the course of the young philosopher. As was to be expected of a Dominican author, the questions which have come to be regarded as distinctive of the schools of the order—_v.g._, _præmotio physica_ and predestination _ante prævisa merita_—are taught and defended with the most able of available arguments.

In the third volume we have first of all a treatise of Ethics, which is interesting and contains much that is of importance for our own days. The duty of regulating our conduct according to the law of reason and of God, by the commands of the church, of our civil rulers, of society, is well set forth, and the superiority of Christian morality to all others is proved. We only regret that the treatise is not longer.

The latter part of the third volume gives an excellent epitome of the history of philosophy. This history is divided into two periods. The first starts with the beginnings of philosophy and continues to the time of Christ, _in quo instaurata sunt omnia_. It is subdivided into three epochs: the first from the beginning of philosophy to its introduction into Greece; the second, from that time to the days of Socrates; the third, from Socrates to Christ. The second period is from the time of Christ to our days, and has likewise three epochs: the first, from the early ages of Christianity to the time of Charlemagne; the second, from Charlemagne to the Renaissance of the fifteenth century; the third, from thence to our own time. For a literary student this short history is very valuable. All the systems of philosophy that can be thought of are sketched in their principal characters, with a short notice of their originators and champions. Father Gonzales does not weary his readers with a special refutation of each particular system; this is unnecessary after having taught his principles so well in the didactic essays. About fifty systems of the period before Christ are briefly stated, and above a hundred and fifty of those which have appeared since. This short history is evidently the result of very extensive reading.

As a student’s manual, we know of nothing more complete than the _Philosophia Elementaria_ of Bishop Gonzales. It is an excellent course, both for the young cleric who is preparing for the study of the scholastics, and for the secular youth about to take his place in the world. The style of writing is simple, but by no means devoid of elegance. Spanish writers who have been trained in the schools of Melchior Cano have never been at a loss to express their thoughts in a becoming form.

We have heard many regrets that there was no modern text-book of philosophy of the school of Goudin. This want is now fully supplied by Gonzales, and it will be doubly satisfied when the rest of the volumes of Lepidi’s _Elementa Philosophiæ Christianæ_ have appeared. We do not say that Goudin will become unnecessary; the serious student will still continue to consult him. But there can be no doubt that Gonzales’ work is more adapted to the times. It is also more terse, more interesting, more suitable to captivate the minds of youthful students. We hope that what we have said may help to make Bishop Gonzales more known among us. He has published a remarkable work in his own mother tongue, _Estudios sobre la Filosofia de Santo Tomas_, which would be productive of good if it were translated into English.

[104] _Philosophia Elementaria ad usum Academicæ ac præsertim Ecclesiasticæ Juventutis._ Opera et studio R. P. Fr. Zephyrini Gonzales, Ordinis Prædicatorum. Matriti apud Polycarpum Lopez, Cava-Baja, 19. MDCCCLXVIII.

_Philosophia juxta inconcussa tutissimaque D. Thomæ Dogmata._ Auctore P. F. Antonio Goudin, Ordinis Prædicatorum. Editio novissima. Urbevetere: Prælis speraindeo pompei. 1859.

[105] The writer was talking recently with a clergyman of the Anglican Establishment, who gave it as his opinion that the _Summa Theologica_ was not worth studying, “because it was based on the false decretals of Isidore.”

THE DEVOUT CHAPEL OF NOTRE DAME DE BÉTHARRAM.

“Tu mihi, Virgo parens, in carmine suggere vires Audacesque animos et grandibus annue coeptis.” —_Pierre de la Bastide._

_La dévote chapelle de Notre Dame de Bétharram_, about ten miles from Lourdes on the way to Pau, has been for eight hundred years the most renowned sanctuary in Béarn, and, to quote St. Vincent of Paul, “the second, or at least the third, most frequented in the kingdom.” Founded by the Crusaders, endowed by kings and nobles, favored by supernatural graces, the favorite resort of the poor and afflicted, sung by poets, and its history written by learned men, it has every claim on the interest of the pious heart.

We left Lourdes one pleasant morning in September in advance of a large pilgrimage from Marseilles, that we might have an opportunity of examining the church of Bétharram at our leisure. The railway runs along the valley of the Gave, leaving at the left the sacred grotto of Massabielle and the fair church of the Immaculate Conception, which stand in full view on the further shore. We passed the forest of Lourdes at the right, and in fifteen minutes came to the little village of St. Pé—_Sanctus Petrus de Generoso_, as the old chronicles call it—on a bend of the river, shut in by the mountains. Keeping along in sight of the clear, green current of the Gave, everywhere the most wayward, the most picturesque, and most fascinating of rivers, we came, in ten minutes after leaving the narrow gorge of St. Pé, to the station of Montaut-Bétharram, where, away to the left, we could see the cross on the Calvary, and the domes of the white oratories of the Passion gleaming among the trees on its sides. The _Devout Chapel of Notre Dame de Bétharram_ is at the foot of the mount, on the further bank of the Gave, and wholly shut out of sight. A straight road leads to it from the station, which is about half a mile distant. The bridge that spans the river with a bold arch is extremely picturesque, the sides of the arch being completely covered with ivy, which trails to the very water and lines the steep banks. Nothing could be more romantic. Trees lean pensively over the limpid stream, and flowers bloom along the shore. The Gave, as the poet of Bétharram remarks, after rushing through the broad valley with impetuous haste, threatening to overflow the meadows with its swelling current, suddenly slackens its speed as it approaches the chapel of the Virgin, and flows gently by with a murmur of softest homage. Opposite the bridge is a long range of monastic-looking buildings with narrow windows and thick walls, the asylum of meditation and prayer. Connected therewith is the church, which stands with its side to the river, facing the west. The front, of Pyrenean marble, is adorned with white marble statues of the Evangelists with their emblems—two each side of the mild-eyed Virgin who stands above the open door treading the serpent beneath her feet.

It being early in the afternoon, we found the church delightfully quiet. There were only a few persons at prayer, and, having paid our vows at the altar of Our Lady, we proceeded to examine the building and recall its varied history. The interior of the church consists of a nave and two aisles. The latter are literally lined with confessionals. The clerestory walls are covered with paintings supported by gigantic caryatides amid a profusion of gilding and ornament somewhat Spanish in character. The whole effect is imposing, and there is an impressive air of antiquity and gloom about the church, though it was rebuilt only two centuries ago. The Madonna, a modern production, by Renoir, a pupil of Pradier, is over the high altar in the centre of a reredos, rich with gilding and carving, which extends to the very arches. At the end of the right aisle is the chapel of the _Pastoure_, so called from the bas-relief depicting the legend of the shepherds who discovered the Virgin of Bétharram.

The devotion to _Notre Dame de Bétharram_, so popular all through the Pyrenees, is supposed to have arisen in the eleventh century—an age of simple faith, when God loved to manifest the wonders of his grace. The church is fondly believed by many to have been founded by the Crusaders, who perhaps gave it its pleasing Oriental name. Gaston IV., a prince of the Merovingian race, noted for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, then reigned in Béarn. One of the bravest warriors who went to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, he directed the construction of the war-machines before the walls of Jerusalem, and was one of the first to commence the assault at the side of Godfrey of Bouillon.

We are chiefly dependent on the ancient traditions of the province for the early history of Bétharram, as the old church was burned down by the Huguenots. One of the legends attributes the name of Bétharram to a miraculous occurrence. A young girl, who was one day gathering flowers on the banks of the Gave, accidentally fell into the stream and was carried away by the current. She instinctively cried to the Virgin for assistance, who instantly appeared, holding out a leafy branch, by which she was drawn to the shore. The girl gratefully offered her celestial protectress a _beautiful branch_—or, to use the language of Béarn, a _beth arram_—of gold.

“‘Youb’ offri dounc ma bère arrame; Qué l’ab’ dépalisi sùs l’aüta; Y-mey que hey bot en moun ame Qu’aci daban bous, Nouste Dame, Gnaüt _beth arram_ que lusira.”

That is to say, literally:

“I offer you, then, my golden bough, Which I lay on the altar divine; Furthermore, in my inmost soul I vow, In this blest place, O Mother of Grace! For ever a _beautiful branch_ shall shine.”

La Bastide, the poet-priest of Bétharram in the time of the Fronde, is the first writer to mention this derivation, which furnishes him with a comparison to illustrate the mysterious effects of divine grace: “This name signifies, in the language of the country, a _beau rameau_—a beautiful branch—planted on the shore of the Gave by the august Virgin, yielding fruit of a delicious savor that serves for the nourishment of souls.”[106]

The old legends say a girl of the neighboring village of Lestelle, named Raymonde, predicted the erection of a church on this spot in honor of _Nouste Dame_, but her prophecy was scoffed at, even by her own parents. Not long after, some children, who were amusing themselves at the foot of the hill of Bétharram while tending their flocks, saw a bright flame among the sharp rocks on the banks of the river, in the very place where now stands the high altar of the Devout Chapel. Like the mysterious bush on Mount Horeb, it burned intensely without consuming the thicket around. After a moment of stupefaction the little shepherds timidly approached, and what was their astonishment to behold in the midst of the flames a beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child! They fell down before it in pious reverence, and then hurried away to Lestelle to relate the wonderful event. The inhabitants ran in crowds to the place, followed by the priest in his white surplice, who fell on his knees amid the prostrate throng and bent his face to the ground before the marvellous image.

As the place was rocky and apparently unsuitable for a chapel, the people proceeded to construct a small niche at the further end of the bridge, to which the priest carried the statue amid the joyous shouts of the people. But it was not there that Mary chose to be honored, and the following day the niche was discovered to be vacant, and the miraculous Virgin standing on the rocks where she originally appeared. She was taken back, but, mysteriously returning again and again, the people of Lestelle concluded to transport her to their village church, which they did with great pomp, and carefully fastened her in, that they might ascertain whether she had been moved by human agency or some higher power. In spite of this precaution, the statue was again found at dawn on the rocks of Bétharram. Then Raymonde took courage once more, and declared this was the spot the _Reyne deü Ceü_ had chosen for her sanctuary. Again the people began to laugh at her revelations, but she now spoke with authority, and, moved by divine inspiration, threatened them with a terrible chastisement if they refused to obey the command. And, as if to give force to her words, while they stood hesitating a sudden cloud appeared in the sky, from which fell a torrent of hailstones. The people cried to heaven for pardon and mercy, and immediately vowed to erect the chapel.

The learned Abbé Menjoulet of Bayonne thinks the church of Bétharram was built in the eleventh or early in the twelfth century, from the style of the portions still to be found here and there in the modern building. It certainly existed long before the ascendancy of the Huguenot party in Béarn, and had been for ages regarded as the holiest spot in the land. Pierre de Marca says its remote origin is lost in obscurity. The distinguished Jesuit, Père Poiré, in his _Triple Couronne de la Mère de Dieu_, thinks it of a later date, but he had never visited it in person. His account was derived from a magistrate of Pau. He says the ancient pilgrims, as soon as they came in sight of the Devout Chapel, fell on their knees, and completed their pilgrimage in this way with a lighted torch in their hands. Cures without number were wrought, the divine anger stayed, and whole armies put to flight at the intercession of the _Boune Bierge_ of Bétharram. The walls were hung with the crutches of the paralytic, the chains of liberated prisoners, and the wax limbs given by those who had been healed, many of which offerings resisted the flames, and were found after the destruction of the church by the emissaries of Jeanne d’Albret.

This princess cherished a lively resentment against the Holy See on account of the alliance of Julius II. with Ferdinand the Catholic, which she thought led to the conquest of Navarre, to the injury of the house of Albret. After dissimulating her sentiments for some time, she threw off the mask and subjected the Catholics of Béarn to a violent persecution. Montgomery was the agent of her vengeance, and he was well fitted for the work. It was in 1569 that, on his destructive round through the country, he came to the sanctuary of Bétharram, which he laid waste. The miraculous Virgin, however, was saved, and, after being hidden for some time at Lestelle, was carried to Spain, where it became an object of veneration under the name of _Nuestra Señora la Gasconne_.

During this sad time, in which Mary’s altar lay desolate, there were marked instances of divine manifestation. By night the ruins were often seen lit up with a wonderful light, as of many torches, and the sound of angelic music was heard. The crumbling walls preserved their miraculous virtues, and unhappy mothers came with their sick children in the night-watches to pray among the ruins, and returned joyfully in the morning bearing the evidence of their answered petitions with them.

As soon as it was safe to do so, the inhabitants of Lestelle, in spite of their poverty, hastened to restore the church of their _Bonne Vierge_, who, for more than half a century, had preserved them from the contagion of heresy. Not a person in the place had joined the Huguenots, and it was the only village in Béarn where Catholic services had been maintained.

Leonard de Trappes was at this time archbishop of Auch, the metropolitan see. He was one of the most distinguished prelates of France, and honored with the confidence of Henry IV. A man of ardent piety, and solicitous for the spiritual welfare of his flock, he founded a congregation of missionaries for the wants of his diocese, and established them at _Notre Dame de Garaison_ under the charge of Pierre Geoffroy, who devoted his whole fortune to the work. Louis XIII. having granted permission for rebuilding the church of Bétharram, Geoffroy resolved to celebrate the event by a grand pilgrimage to this ancient shrine. He had trained a choir of mountaineers, whose superb voices greatly added to the solemnities of Garaison. Taking these men with him, Geoffroy set out with six priests for Béarn, in those days a fatiguing journey. Every one represented to him the danger of venturing into a country still in a state of agitation, but, in spite of some insults and threats on the part of the Calvinists, he pressed on, joined here and there by a band of Catholics, who at last numbered several thousand. Among them were the Baron and Baroness de Miossens from the Château de Coarraze, and many nobles.

It was a fine spring morning when this grand procession appeared on the banks of the Gave. The valley resounded with the glad hymns of the mountaineers of Garaison, in which the vast multitude joined with the utmost enthusiasm. The hill of Bétharram was literally covered with people from the neighboring towns, who, when they caught sight of the immense procession coming to reopen the church of their beloved Virgin, burst into tears and acclamations of joy. Geoffroy celebrated Mass in the church, and afterwards preached to five thousand people on the public square of Lestelle. This was forty-six years after the destruction of the sanctuary.

The niche of the Virgin was still empty. Mgr. de Trappes resolved to supply the deficiency, and had a new statue carved out of wood in the style of the old one, which he took to Bétharram himself. It was in July, 1616, he set out from Garaison with a numerous escort of priests. Passing through Lourdes, he stopped at St. Pé, whence he continued on foot, followed by all the monks, a vast number of priests from Bigorre and Béarn, all the nobility of the country, and an innumerable crowd of people with crosses and banners, carrying the new statue of the Virgin and filling the air with their hymns in her honor. Among them was Pierre de Marca.

The archbishop set up the votive Madonna over the high altar, and celebrated Mass in the presence of six thousand persons.[107] He remained several days at Bétharram, administered the sacrament of confirmation, received several Huguenots into the fold, and erected an immense wooden cross on the summit of the mount, as if he had a foresight of its future consecration to the divine Passion. He always cherished a delightful recollection of his pilgrimage, and when he died he bequeathed to the church a silver lamp, with a fund to supply it with oil to burn continually before the Virgin he had given to Bétharram.

Pierre de Marca, whom we find here with the Archbishop of Auch, was the learned author of the _Antiquities of Béarn_. He was made counsellor of state under Richelieu, and conceived so great a devotion to _Notre Dame de Bétharram_ that he became the historian of the chapel. He studied its past traditions, and recorded a vast number of miracles that occurred here, with the names, dates, and other particulars, often taken from the lips of the persons themselves, many of whom belonged to the nobility of Béarn, Guienne, and Languedoc, and sworn to by reliable witnesses in the presence of the chaplains and magistrates. He relates that not long after the visit of Mgr. de Trappes, five villagers of Montaut, while eating their noontide meal on a little hillock in the valley, struck by a noise, as of a furious wind, looked towards the Mount of Bétharram, and saw the cross planted on its summit suddenly wrenched from its place and thrown on the ground, and then, as if by its own might, rise again to its former position, crowned with a mysterious light.[108]

This miraculous occurrence merits the more particular attention because it led to the construction of the famous Calvary, which continues to attract pilgrims to this day. It happened about the time Louis XIII. re-established the Catholic religion in Béarn, and was, says Marca, one of the causes that determined him to go in person to Pau, from which time he cherished a special affection for Bétharram and became one of its benefactors.

A month after the facts of the case were established, the town of Lestelle gave the hill of Bétharram to the church. The bishop of the diocese now induced Hubert Charpentier to take charge of the Devout Chapel. He was a licentiate of the Sorbonne, for some time a professor of philosophy at Bordeaux, then a missionary at _Notre Dame de Garaison_, where he distinguished himself by his zeal and eloquence in the pulpit, and afterwards, devoted to charitable works, director of the city hospital at Bordeaux. He was appointed grand chaplain of Bétharram in 1621, and had six minor chaplains given him to aid in the work. The first sight of the holy sanctuary and the mountain above made a particular impression on his mind. Studying the traditions and features of the place, he was struck with the miracle of the Cross and the general resemblance of the neighborhood to the environs of Jerusalem. The mountain of Bétharram was higher than that of Olives; the valley at the foot more extensive than that of Josaphat; and the Gave a more abundant stream than the Cedron. He conceived the idea of building a succession of oratories along the side of the hill, in which should be depicted the principal scenes of the Passion, and crowning the summit with three crosses and a chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. To every one the project seemed like a divine inspiration, which he afterwards modestly confessed was the fact. About this time an abbess of St. Clare related to him that, when she first entered the convent at Mont-de-Marsan, she found an old nun of eighty years of age, a native of the vicinity of Bétharram, who was fond of describing the glories of the miraculous chapel before the rise of heresy in Béarn, and said the place was called the Holy Land.

Charpentier’s proposition was received with so much enthusiasm that, on Good Friday, 1623, a Christ on the Cross was solemnly set up, between the two thieves, on the summit of the mount, and the oratories of the Passion were at once begun. Louis XIII. built the Chapel of St. Louis, with two cells and a gallery looking off over the beautiful valley to the gorge of St. Pé. To ensure the quiet solitude of Bétharram, he forbade the building of any inn or public-house in the neighborhood, and at his death bequeathed three thousand livres to the church.

Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria also became its benefactors, as well as Louis XIV., who took pleasure in his youth in reading Marca’s _Traité des Merveilles opérées en la Chapelle Notre Dame du Calvaire de Bétharram_. Charpentier himself gave all he possessed. Madame de Gramont, Madame de Lauzun, and the Countess de Brienne also brought their offerings. La Bastide writes: “I have seen the great ones of the earth rivalling each other in the magnificence of their offerings to this august sanctuary.”

It is time we should speak of the poet of Bétharram—Pierre de La Bastide, a native of the diocese of Auch, who now became associated with the labors of Charpentier. His poems are in Latin. He is a graceful writer, with a pleasing cadence in his lines. His poem on _Notre Dame de Bétharram_ is at once historic and descriptive. It is divided into four parts, giving the history of the foundation, a description of the Calvary and surrounding region, a _résumé_ of the miracles in the Devout Chapel, and a picture of the life of the chaplains. The poem is at once brilliant, pleasing, and picturesque, and of great value to all who would study the history and spirit of the place.

It was at Bétharram La Bastide translated into Latin verse the French poem of Arnauld d’Andilly on the life of Christ, which was such an event in the literary world when it first appeared in 1634. At that time the graver part of society thought nothing serious could be expressed in the form of French poetry, and the religious held it in horror. D’Andilly broke loose from this prejudice, and, as he says in his preface, “abandoned the illusory praises of profane love to use the charms of poesy in depicting the life of Christ, in order to attract pious hearts by placing before their eyes a picture of the wonderful things wrought for our redemption.”[109]

La Bastide is not the only poet to sing the praises of Our Lady of the Beautiful Branch. M. Bataille, a few years since, received from the Archæological Society of Béarn a silver bough for his charming poetical version of the legend in the Béarnais language, which he hung up over the altar of the Virgin.

The Calvary of Bétharram became dear to all who loved to retrace the overwhelming mysteries of the Redemption. The sorrowful way up the mount’s steep sides seemed to them

“A road where aiding angels came.”

Every station was marked by some memory of God’s special grace. It was in the dim, shadowy oratory of the Garden of Olives a merchant from Grenade-sur-Adour was delivered from the adversary of souls. Further on, where Christ was represented blindfolded, a poor woman recovered her sight after seven years’ blindness. At the Holy Tomb where lay the sacred Body embalmed

“In spices from the golden shore,”

the sick obtained renewed life and the grace to give out henceforth the sweet odor of piety and good works. And so on. The very shadow of Christ Suffering seemed to have power. Fifteen thousand pilgrims often came here in a year—a great number for a remote mountain chapel, less accessible in former days. Marca relates that M. de Gassion, a zealous Calvinist of Pau, came to Bétharram to behold the superstitions he supposed practised on the mount, but he was so touched by the devotion he witnessed that he was impelled to pray at every station, and thank God he had inspired his ministers with so pious and praiseworthy a project.

The chaplains established a confraternity of the Holy Cross, composed of laymen animated with a special love for our crucified Lord, which became so numerous that Pope Urban VIII. accorded many indulgences to all who belonged to it. Several of its members retired wholly from secular pursuits to the solemn gloom of this Mount of the Passion as to “a holy tower against the world,” that, by self-chastening rod, vigil, and fast, they might subdue the baser instincts of their nature and put on Christ and him crucified. What ineffable nights they must have spent beneath the oaks of Bétharram watching with tearful eyes the Divine Sufferer in the Garden or treading with bleeding feet the rough Way of the Cross!

There were many of these hermits’ cells on the shaggy sides of the mount. First, there was St. Bernard’s cell, built by the Baron de Poyane, a brave soldier who was governor of Navarrenx under Louis XIII., who had the holy life of the Abbot of Clairvaux painted on its walls. A little higher was St. Cyprian’s cell, the favorite retreat of La Bastide, with a little terrace and stone steps leading down to the church. Then came the cell of St. Francis de Paul, for persons of rank who wished to pass a limited time in solitude on the mount. It stood below the chapel of St. Louis and commanded a lovely view of the plain of Montaut. Its foundations are still to be seen supporting a pretty hanging garden. St. Anthony’s cell was encrusted among the sharp rocks that served as a foundation to the chapel of Louis XIII.—a formidable cliff, bare in winter, but in summer covered with vines that surpassed the most beautiful tapestry. On its top was suspended the royal chapel among the verdant trees. Behind the church was St. Joseph’s hermitage, for a long time the only dwelling of the chaplains, where also were lodged the infirm who came for succor to the Virgin of Bétharram. Near the oratory of the Garden of Olives were the cells of St. Stephen, St. Anne, and St. Francis. A little above was the votive cell of St. Roch, built by the citizens of Mont-de-Marsan at the time of a great plague. Here was a little spring which still supplies the pretty fount of St. Roch near the entrance of the church. On the summit of the mountain was a small cell, beside the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where for more than two hundred years lived a succession of hermits who, buried with their Lord, gave themselves up to a life of contemplation. The last one died in 1857.

Louis XIII., in authorizing the Calvary of Bétharram, wished there were many others like it in his kingdom, and requested Charpentier to establish one on Mount Valerian, near Paris. This holy priest, whose soul was devoured with longing to extend the devotion to the sufferings of Christ, was struck with the grand idea of setting up the cross over the splendors of the capital and displaying the emblems of the Passion in sight of the gay city, as a constant reproach to its pleasure-loving people. Charpentier tore himself away from his beloved Bétharram. At Paris he was hospitably welcomed to the house of the pious Countess de Brienne, who took pleasure in conversing with him on the things of eternity, and said she had no greater enjoyment than this holy intercourse.

The devotion to Calvary took root in Paris. Richelieu favored the work. Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld lent his aid. Louis XIV. authorized the consecration of the mount; and the Archbishop of Paris approved of the congregation of the _Prêtres du Calvaire_, similar to that in Béarn.

As soon as Charpentier arrived at Paris, in 1633, he became the object of the most flattering attentions on the part of the Port-Royalists, then under the direction of a priest from Bayonne—the famous Abbé St. Cyran, a man of an ardent, austere nature, who at that time seemed devoted to the revival of Christian and ecclesiastical discipline. Nothing must be inferred against the orthodoxy of Charpentier or La Bastide on account of their innocent relations with Port Royal. Not the least suspicion ever rested on their orthodoxy. Charpentier was occupied in good works rather than controversy. He died on Mount Valerian, with a reputation for extraordinary sanctity, December 10, 1650, three years before the _Augustinus_ was condemned by the Holy See. His body was found, without any trace of corruption, in 1802. His heart, at his own request, was sent to the church of _Notre Dame de Bétharram_, where it is enclosed in the wall on the epistle side of the chancel. The place is marked by a tablet of black marble, on which is the inscription: “_Ici est le cœur de Hubert Charpentier, fondateur du Calvaire_.”

The most distinguished chaplain of Bétharram in the eighteenth century was the Abbé Cassiet, for several years connected with the Canadian mission. It seemed strange in this distant mountain chapel of Béarn to come upon the traces of an old American missionary, and a natural curiosity was felt to know something of his history. We cannot forbear the pleasure of giving it pretty nearly as related by M. l’Abbé Sébie, the _curé_ of Montaut, from details given by the nephews of M. Cassiet, now living at an advanced age in that place.

M. Pierre Cassiet was born at Montaut, in the Landes, in 1727. He made his preparatory studies at the seminary of Agen, and, feeling a strong desire to devote himself to the work of foreign missions, entered the _Séminaire des Missions Etrangères_ at Paris, the superior of which was also from the diocese of Aire. He was at first destined for the mission of Cochin China, but a few days before the time fixed for his departure a missionary intended for Canada falling ill, it was proposed that the Abbé Cassiet should take his place. He consented and went to Canada, where he remained nine years, till the country was ceded to the English by the treaty of Versailles, February, 1763. At the time of his arrival the see of Quebec was vacant, and the diocese was governed by M. de Lalanne, likewise a native of Montaut, who, after sixteen years of useful labor, returned to France and died superior of the seminary at Dax, about the year 1775, beloved and honored by every one.[110]

In Canada M. Cassiet had charge of the parish of St. Louis, where the festivals of the church were celebrated with as much splendor as in Europe. He was successful in winning the confidence of his parishioners. He mingled among them, interested himself in their pursuits, taught the natives the culture of many useful vegetables and the raising of domestic animals. As there was regular commercial intercourse with Bordeaux and Bayonne, he was able to procure many serviceable things from his native land.

When the English took possession of Canada they called together all the French priests in the country, wishing, they said, to regulate their relations with the new authorities. Several of them had a presentiment of evil, among whom was Abbé Cassiet, who buried the sacred vessels in the ground, packed his trunk, and took a faithful servant with him. The treaty of Versailles stipulated the maintenance and protection of the Catholic religion, that the French priests should receive an annual salary from the English government, and be allowed to continue the exercise of their ministry under the direction of the bishop of Quebec. This treaty, according to the French accounts, was kept with Punic faith, though the English deny, or at least greatly extenuate, the atrocious _coup de main_ so contrary to the law of nations, to say nothing of humanity and religion. One hundred and sixty-six French priests assembled at Quebec, according to orders. They were surrounded by troops, seized, and put on board a ship, which was instantly ordered to set sail for Europe. Nothing could exceed the inhumanity with which these martyr-priests were treated during the voyage by the brutal and fanatic Englishmen who had charge of them. Anchoring at Plymouth, England, they kept their prisoners on board for three months. They did not massacre them, but, with the most refined barbarism, subjected them to all the tortures of hunger and thirst. Their rations were reduced to an insufficient quantity to sustain life, and the distribution of water was delayed every day, till they were extenuated by the privation. Thirst killed more than hunger, and, when the ship at last touched at Morlaix in Brittany, of the one hundred and sixty-six priests who left Canada, only five remained, and these were barely alive. M. Cassiet was of the number. He had the sorrow of losing his faithful Canadian on the way, and was himself so low that he lost his senses and was speechless. He was taken charge of by a lady at Morlaix, who, for some days, only sustained his life under horrible sufferings by infusing a few drops of honey from time to time into his mouth.

His health re-established in a measure, he proceeded to Paris to report himself at the _Missions Etrangères_, where his condition excited general sympathy. The government, though too weak to demand satisfaction from the English, promised him a pension of six hundred livres a year. Thence he went to Rome, where he was received with the respect due to his sufferings for the faith.

After his return to Montaut, finding his pension not forthcoming, he resolved to go to Paris again to claim it. Accordingly he bought one of the small horses of the Landes for twenty crowns, and proceeded by short stages to the capital. He put up at the _Missions Etrangères_ as usual, but was disappointed to find the court at Versailles, as well as the Abbé de Jarente, who had the portfolio of benefices and pensions, and formed part of the king’s household. M. Cassiet, undiscouraged, set out again the next morning on his way for Versailles. He little suspected the dramatic manner in which he was to present himself at the palace. Crossing a bridge, his horse, frightened at meeting a carriage, took the bit between his teeth and sprang forward like lightning. Our cavalier lost his hat, _calotte_, whip, and everything not secured to his person. In short, it was a repetition of the famous race of John Gilpin. In this way he was borne full tilt up to the palace gates. M. l’Abbé de Jarente, by some singular coincidence, happened to be there, and at once conceived a lively interest in the ecclesiastic who arrived at court in so queer a plight. M. Cassiet, as soon as his natural excitement was somewhat over, explained the cause of his unclerical appearance, and made known his object in coming. His pension was assured; and the Abbé de Jarente was so taken with such a feat of horsemanship that he offered a hundred crowns for the spirited steed. M. Cassiet, courteous and generous by nature, at once presented him to the minister, refusing any return.

Our Abbé was afterwards given a small benefice near Montaut, called _Las Prabendes_, but he resigned it in favor of a young priest who subsequently became a Carthusian at Bordeaux. He was then appointed canon of St. Girons de Hagetmau, but he found the life too calm and monotonous after so varied a career, and about the year 1772 he offered his services to the community of the _Prêtres du Calvaire_ at Bétharram. Here he so distinguished himself by his piety, zeal, and ability that he was soon appointed superior. The house became very prosperous under his rule. He put to account the practical knowledge of agriculture he had gained in Canada, laid out gardens, orchards, and vineyards on the banks of the Gave, and in the course of a few years increased the revenues five-fold. At the same time he infused a missionary spirit among the chaplains, and much of his own zeal in winning souls to Christ.

About this time the Abbé de Jarente, afterwards Bishop of Orléans, coming to the Pyrenees to breathe the mountain air and try the mineral waters, visited the Devout Chapel of Bétharram. He was delighted to find here the Abbé Cassiet, whom it was impossible to forget. No doubt the story of the horse came up, and the comical way in which he presented himself at Versailles. M. de Jarente offered M. Cassiet a benefice of six thousand livres a year without any obligation of residence or service. It was declined, though M. Cassiet no longer received his pension; but he was finally prevailed upon to accept a small benefice of one hundred and sixty livres a year in the Vicomté of Orthez. He was glad, he said, to have wherewith to shoe and clothe himself without being at any expense to his congregation. His brother presented Bétharram with ten thousand livres, on condition that the chaplains should give a mission every ten years at Montaut.

The Revolution brought mourning to this peaceful mountain chapel, and M. Cassiet, after trying in vain to propitiate the authorities, became for the second time a confessor of the faith and sought refuge in Spain. Somewhere in Biscay he met the Abbé St. Marc, a young _curé_ from Grenade-sur-l’Adour, also in exile, and persuaded him to go to the Canadian mission, where he remained several years, but finally died in 1845, at the age of ninety-one, at Mont-de-Marsan, where his memory is still honored.

When the Catholic religion was re-established in France, the Abbé Cassiet returned to his homestead at Montaut, being then too old and infirm to undertake the restoration of Bétharram. Of the twelve priests of Calvary in 1793, only two were living, and they were advanced in years.

M. Cassiet’s last days were quietly spent in his native place. The bishop of Bayonne allowed him to say Mass in his own apartments, on account of his infirmities. He died in 1809, aged eighty-two years, surrounded with the love and veneration of all, and was buried at the foot of the cross in the public cemetery of Montaut.

The church of _Notre Dame de Bétharram_ was saved from destruction at the time of the Revolution by the efforts of the mayor of the faithful town of Lestelle; but he was obliged to abandon the Calvary to its fury. The oratories were demolished, the statues broken to pieces, the paintings torn up, and the holy Way of the Cross rendered a _Via Dolorosa_ indeed. When the sacred image of Christ on the Cross was overthrown, a swarm of bees issued from the opening in the side, and one of hornets from that of the impenitent thief. An unhappy individual who had the audacity to knock off the head of the Virgin at the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre became from that moment the object of divine malediction, and some time after was beheaded.

The sacraments of the church were administered at Lestelle during this sad period by Père Joseph, a Franciscan friar, who sought in anything but “Franciscan weeds to pass disguised.” His various escapes from danger have become almost legendary. Wherever there was a person in danger of death or a child to be baptized, he suddenly made his appearance, and then as mysteriously disappeared—concealed, no doubt, by the good people of the village. Nine of the citizens purchased the hill of Bétharram, and some others the church. They were redeemed by the ecclesiastical authorities as soon as better days arrived, and a _Petit Séminaire_ was established in the residence and hospice. Here was educated Bertrand Lawrence, the restorer of _Notre Dame de Garaison_, afterwards bishop of Tarbes. The devout chapel was now reopened for public devotion; the oratories on the mount were hastily restored and once more frequented, in spite of the rude scenes of the Passion painted by the Père Joseph.

In 1823 the Duchess of Angoulême, accompanied by the bishop of the diocese and a numerous procession of clergy, came here to make the Way of the Cross and pray for a blessing on the royal army under the duke in Spain. The duchess presented the church with a monstrance of rich workmanship. Four years after her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Berry, also came to Bétharram, and was received with the same demonstrations of joy.

The most noted chaplain of Bétharram in this century was a holy Basque priest of great austerity—the Abbé Garicoïts, a genuine Cantabrian, to whom his fellow-priests loved to apply the words of Sidonius Apollinaris:

“Cantaber ante omnes hiemisque, ætusque, famisque, Invictus.…”

He founded the _Prêtres du Sacré Cœur_, who continue to serve the church. He restored the Calvary to its ancient beauty, and repeopled its cells. While he was superior of the house the sanctuary was visited by the Abbé de Salinis, a distinguished Béarnais priest, who had inherited a special devotion to _Notre Dame de Bétharram_. He afterwards received the pallium, as archbishop of Auch, at her feet, and thenceforth came here regularly to make his annual retreat. It was he who sent Alexander Renoir, a Christian artist imbued with the love and spirit of the middle ages, to design the bas-reliefs that now adorn the Stations of the Cross. This sculptor spent five years at the work, after passing whole days on the sacred mount looking down on the enchanting valley of the Gave and meditating on the scenes he has so ably depicted in the first eight oratories. His figures are dignified, the faces full of character, and the draperies graceful. The Saviour has everywhere the same superhuman expression. In the Garden of Olives he is supported by an angel whose outspread wings surround him like a glory. It is evidently by his own will he suffers himself to be sustained. In the Flagellation his face wears a wonderful expression of patience; in the Crowning with Thorns, of inexpressible suffering and divine submission. He stands in all the majesty of innocence and sorrow before Pilate, whose thoughtful, anxious face as he looks at him reveals the struggle within. Perhaps the most touching scene is when Christ meets his Blessed Mother. The Virgin is kneeling with arms yearningly stretched up towards him, with a look of ineffable tenderness and pity, and he for an instant seems to forget the weight of the overwhelming cross in the sense of his filial love. The Crucifixion is terribly real. The sacred Body visibly palpitates with suffering; the feet and hands quiver with agony; the face is filled with a divine woe. Mary, at the foot of the cross, is sustained by a form of enchanting youth and beauty.

The fourteen oratories of the _Via Crucis_ are of various styles of architecture, and built, with an artistic eye to effect, on admirable points of view. Visible at a great distance, they seem to sanctify the whole valley. Some of them are surmounted with a dome, others with turrets. The royal chapel of St. Louis, built between two cells, has three Oriental domes that swell out on the tops of slender, minaret-like towers and are extremely striking from the railway. Twenty-eight stone steps—a _Scala Santa_—lead up to the sixth oratory, that of the _Ecce Homo_. The seventh looks like a castle with its crenellated towers. The eighth has a hexagonal tower flanked by four turrets. The ninth is of the Roman style.

The three crosses on the summit of the mount were cast at Paris and exhibited with success at the _Exposition Universelle_ of 1867. In the Doric chapel beyond is a fine painting of the Descent from the Cross, saved from the revolutionists of ’93. It is intensely realistic. The _Pietà_ of Carrara marble opposite is the work of M. Dumontet, of Bourges—an _ex voto_ from the Marquis d’Angosse and his wife. Our Saviour’s form is of marvellous beauty. The fourteenth oratory is of the Doric style. There is a touching grief in the faces of the disciples bearing the dead body of Christ to the tomb. Mary stands in speechless sorrow. Magdalen is a prey to violent grief.

The top of the hill is a long plateau. The Crucifixion is at the east end, so that the Christ, according to ancient tradition, may face the west. At the left is the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where lies the holy Abbé Garicoïts, who died on the Festival of the Ascension, 1863.

At the west end of the esplanade, facing the Crucifixion, is the most imposing of all the chapels—that of the Resurrection. Two fine towers rise on each side of the gable on which stands the rapt form of our Saviour ascending to heaven, the work of M. Fabisch, the sculptor who executed the Virgin in the grotto at Lourdes.

Since the admirable restoration of the hill new devotion has sprung up among the people. Pilgrims to the grotto of _Marie Immaculée_, in the cliff of Massabielle, come to end their pilgrimage by weeping with _Marie désolée_ on the solemn heights of Bétharram. On great festivals crowds may be seen coming from all the neighboring villages in festive array, with a joyful air, singing psalms on the way. They carry their shoes in their hands, but put them on on their arrival at church. The women carefully lift their dresses with characteristic eye to economy. During Holy Week thousands often ascend the mount, group after group, chanting old Béarnais hymns of the Passion, the men wrapped in their mountain cloaks, and the women veiled in their long black _capuchons_, looking like Maries at the Sepulchre.

On the 21st of October, 1870, his Holiness Pius IX. granted the Calvary of Bétharram all the indulgences attached to the Holy Places at Jerusalem, as well as special ones to all who visit the devout chapel. Pope Gregory XVI. also paid his tribute of homage to Our Lady of Bétharram.

The royal family of France seems to consider devotion to this venerable shrine as hereditary. In 1843 the Countess of Chambord presented her wedding-dress and veil to the Virgin of Bétharram; and the Duchess of Angoulême, in memory of her pilgrimage here in 1823, sent the communion-veil of her mother, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette.

The statue of Mary by Renoir, over the high altar of the church, represents her seated, looking at the divine Child on her knee, who leans forward to point out the _beth arram_—the beautiful branch—of gold at her feet. It is a statue full of grace. We were once more praying at this favored altar when we heard the sound of a chant, and, going to the door of the church, saw the long procession of six hundred pilgrims from Marseilles coming with silver crosses glittering in the sun and gay banners wrought with many a holy device. The priests wore their surplices and stoles. The pilgrims were evidently people of very respectable condition, and the utmost order and decorum prevailed. They were singing the litany of the Virgin, and seemed impressed with the religious nature of the act they were performing. As they entered the church the organ, given by Napoleon III. and Eugénie at their visit in 1859, solemnly joined in their salutation to Mary, and, after a short exercise of devotion, they began the ascent of the Calvary. We followed them up the winding path to the top of the mount, stopping at every turn before the beautiful chapels. Nothing could be more solemn, more affecting, and at the same time more fatiguing than climbing this steep, rough Way of the Cross in the hot sun and amid the dense crowd of pilgrims. We went from one oratory to another, chanting the _Stabat Mater_, and at each station a _curé_ from Marseilles, with a powerful voice, made a short meditation on the sufferings of Christ, every word of which could be heard far down the hill where wound the long train. He identified these sufferings with the actual crucifixion of the church: “To-day also there are Pilates—sovereigns of Europe who wash their hands of the woes they might have prevented. Herod has set a guard at the very door of the Vatican. Rulers and learned men scoff at the church and give perfidious counsel to its members; and Christ is again raised on the cross in the person of his Vicar, whose heart is bleeding for the iniquities of the world. But faithful disciples rally around him. Devoted women pray. Yes, a sinner clings to the foot of the cross—France, the poor Magdalen of nations, wrapped in immeasurable woe, her head buried in her hands, bewailing her guilt, and destined to become the invincible heroine of the church!”

Nothing could be more impressive than this long file of pilgrims slowly winding up the sad way; the chants in the open air, the mournful plaint of the Virgin, which always goes to the heart, the stirring appeal of the priest calling on us to mourn over the divine Sufferer. The woods were odorous, the ground purple with heather, lovely ferns nodded, and harebells and herb-Robert bloomed by the wayside, giving out sweet inspirations to those who know how to find God in everything he has made. Clouds had gathered in the west by the time we reached the top of this Mount of Sorrows, and the sight of the immense cross with its pale Christ against the wild, stormy sky was something never to be forgotten, reminding us of Guido Reni’s Crucifixion in the church of San Lorenzo-in-Lucina at Rome. No one could behold it without being startled. It seemed to strike terror into the soul, and we gathered around it with tearful eyes and, let us trust, with contrite hearts.

We could hardly give a glance at the superb view unrolled before us—the immense plain with the beautiful Gave winding through it, the Pyrenees lost in the clouds, white villages scattered on every side, and Pau on a distant height.

O sacred hill of Bétharram! which has so often seen the cross overthrown and set up again in the land; mountain of perfumes, which so many generations have ascended on their knees with streaming eyes; predestined land, so beloved of Mary that on the shore of the same river, in the side of the same range of hills, she has opened two marvellous sanctuaries, how good it is to pray, to meditate, to hope, on thy heights!

[106] Others think it one of the numerous names left in the country by the Moors, the Arabic word _Beit Haram_ signifying the Sacred Abode. But the old chroniclers of Béarn, who attribute the foundation of the church to Gaston IV., believe the name brought from the Holy Land, the Hebrew words _Beth Aram_ meaning the House of the Most High.

[107] The statue remained in its niche until 1841, when it was replaced by the more beautiful one of Renoir. The gilt Virgin of Mgr. de Trappes is still to be seen on the wall of the left aisle near the chapel of the _Pastoure_.

[108] Marca enters into a long dissertation to establish the truth of this wonderful event, which may be thus summed up: There were five persons to witness it, four of whom were still alive when he wrote. They were cultivators of the soil—an innocent occupation that has often led divine Providence to make choice of those who pursue it to publish the wonders of his grace, as when shepherds were chosen to announce the Nativity. They were natives of Béarn, where the people are free from any undue credulousness, and where the Catholic religion had been proscribed for more than forty years, so that of course they had not been brought up with the care that would have rendered them particularly susceptible of religious impressions. Moreover, they knew a statement of this kind would be sifted to the bottom by Protestants as well as Catholics. They could have no interest in the matter, as Bétharram belonged to Lestelle, with which Montaut was often at rivalry. The chaplains were absent, and wholly ignorant of the affair. And these five men were people of probity, who swore to the truth of their statements on the Holy Gospels before the magistrates of Lestelle and Montaut.

[109] Arnauld d’Andilly was the eldest son of the Antoine Arnauld who, under Henry IV., pleaded for the University against the Jesuits, and whose twentieth and youngest child was the second Antoine Arnauld—the oracle of Jansenism. D’Andilly is looked upon as belonging to the first generation of Jansenists, though he had nothing of the austerity and repulsiveness of that sect. He scarcely broaches polemics. He celebrates in elegant verse the praises of the Blessed Virgin and the prerogatives of St. Peter, and after translating all that is grandest and sweetest in Christian literature—such as the works of St. Augustine, St. John Climacus, St. Teresa, etc.—reposed from his labors by tending the _espaliers_ of Port Royal, of which the beautiful and pious Anne of Austria always had the first fruits.

[110] M. de Beyries, a nephew of the Abbé de Lalanne, and a prominent citizen of Montaut, has many precious memorials of his uncle.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._ FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

VIII.

Meanwhile, a great agitation prevailed in the heart of the kingdom, at the court, and in every mind. The new favor of the new favorite; the discontent, ever growing but more and more repressed, of the queen’s partisans; the restless and shifting humor of those who in secret held fast to the new religious opinions; the uncertainty of events, new fears, new hopes, seemed to have communicated to the intriguing and ambitious of every degree a boldness and activity hitherto unknown. Delivered from the yoke imposed on him for so long a time by a man at once adroit and yielding, Henry VIII. had at last encountered a vile and abject creature who would gradually encourage him to display all the natural ferocity of his character. Already he was no longer able to separate himself from Cromwell, who, artfully flattering each one of his passions, constantly said to him: “To please you, to obey you—that is the sole end toward which all should aim, or they should fall!”

Every day, in consequence of their determined efforts, new complaints against the clergy were reported to the House of Commons. The time had come, they said, to distribute among the truly poor the treasures accumulated by the priests, and to destroy the abuses they had made of their power. These accusations, together with calumnies of a blacker character, emanating from sources always scrupulously concealed, were artfully disseminated among the people, circulated from mouth to mouth, and served wonderfully to irritate the stupid and ignorant masses; while in the House of Lords nothing was left undone to secure the influence and suffrages of the most influential members of that body.

Confident of success in all their designs, Henry VIII. and his favorite decided that it was time to strike the first blow; and while the attorney-general was in receipt of the order to carry to the King’s Bench an accusation which included the entire clergy of the kingdom as having become amenable to the penalties attached to the _Præmunire_ statutes, a measure and petition were presented to Parliament to prohibit every bishop from paying dues to the see of Rome; secondly, that for the future their body should neither promulgate nor execute any of its laws without the co-operation of the royal authority; and, finally, that all those laws which had been in force until that time should be re-examined by a committee whose members would be named and chosen by the king, in order that he might abolish them if he deemed expedient.

These measures at first excited universal murmurs of dissatisfaction; but people were not slow to perceive that such expressions could not be indulged in without danger, for it was no longer a matter of doubt that Parliament would yield to the slightest wish of the king. The fear inspired by this prince, together with his incessant threats and menaces, secured him the submission of those even whom avarice had not been able to corrupt.

Henry triumphantly congratulated himself on his success. The courageous firmness of one single man, however, sufficed to embitter all his pleasure; for, since the king had openly and boldly announced his intention of compelling the divorce to be granted, no matter by what means, More had scrupulously held himself aloof, no longer appearing at court, except when summoned by the king or when the duties of his office obliged him to be formally present. This was a source of deep chagrin and displeasure to Henry VIII., and the cold and reserved manner of the lord chancellor kept him, when in his presence, in a state of painful restraint.

“What!” he said to himself, “everything goes according to my wishes, and yet the silent reproaches of this man alone annoy me unceasingly. It would be better for him to yield,” he cried in his frenzy, “or I shall be compelled to force him into submission!”

But when More again appeared before him, he listened to the report of affairs which he had to submit, no longer knowing what to say to him, and he dared not even pronounce the name of Anne Boleyn in his presence. This day, however, he had summoned Cromwell at a very early hour, and appeared to be in an exceedingly joyful mood; he laughed aloud, then, suddenly resuming a serious expression, he exclaimed, slapping the head of a superb greyhound that held his black nose extended across his knees:

“You will see, Cromwell, what a good effect this will produce on the people; because it is useless to conceal that More is a man of such exalted character and brilliant worth that all the eyes of my kingdom are fixed upon his conduct.”

“Ah!” said Cromwell, whom this very just opinion of the king displeased mightily,” I do not believe it will be thus when your majesty has spoken.”

“Yes, yes,” replied the king; “and that is why I congratulate myself on the expedient which suggested itself last night. How can you imagine, after he has read in open Parliament the decisions of the universities in my favor, that the people will believe he does not favor the divorce? And it is most necessary to counteract by this means the effect produced by the promulgation of the papal bull.”

“Bah! that bull,” said Cromwell, “is no more than a scrap of waste paper. The pope forbids any of the clergy from celebrating your marriage before the queen’s suit is decided. Now, marry Lady Anne to-morrow!”

“To-morrow!” exclaimed the king.

At that moment the curtain of scarlet silk which hung in heavy folds before the entrance of the royal apartment was drawn aside, and Sir Thomas More appeared.

The king paused surprised; his fingers were entwined among the links of the gold chain suspended around the neck of Cromwell, and he was familiarly patting the breast of that base-born creature, now seated close beside him.

“Ah! it is you, Sir Thomas,” said Henry, affecting an air of unconcern; “you are always most welcome here. I believe this is one of your friends,” he added, pointing to Cromwell.

More made no reply; he simply inclined his head in response to the king’s salutation.

“Yes, yes, you understand each other very well,” continued the king, without appearing to remark that More made no reply. “Is it not so, Cromwell?”

“I hope so,” replied Cromwell, casting a furtive glance around him. For he was not able to encounter the penetrating gaze of More, whom he secretly feared and detested; and from the time he believed that More could no longer be of use to him he had ceased to overwhelm him with visits and continual solicitations, as he had formerly been in the habit of doing.

“Well, good Sir Thomas,” continued Henry, always indulging in badinage, “what would you have with us?”

“I would speak with your majesty alone for a few moments,” replied More.

“A reasonable request,” answered the king; “and you know we always grant anything you ask.”

He made a sign to Cromwell, who immediately withdrew, his heart fired with rage at the welcome always extended by the king to More.

“If ever I come into power,” murmured he in his heart, “More, thou shalt know me!”

“What, then, is it, More?” asked the king, and he regarded him with an impatient expression.

“Your majesty,” replied More, “this morning sent me an order to present myself in the House of Commons, and carry thither the decisions of the universities. Up to this time I have been loath to speak; but to-day, at the moment of giving such authenticity to these documents, I consider it my duty to make known to your majesty that they have been extorted by force and are far from being regular; a great many of the signatures are wanting, while others are counterfeit.”

“Counterfeit!” exclaimed the king angrily.” Who has told you that?”

“I am sure of it,” replied Sir Thomas quietly and in the calmest of tones; “and I have thought it my duty to inform the king of the fact before asking his permission to retire.”

“You retire!” cried Henry VIII.

“I had already requested the Duke of Norfolk,” continued More, “to express to your majesty how painful it was to me to quit your service and to find myself obliged to cease from fulfilling the office with which you have honored me; but my health is so feeble as not to permit me to hold it longer.” And he was silent.

The king sat stupefied. But surprise very soon changed into extreme displeasure; for he saw perfectly well why More retired, and felt that he had nothing to hope from a man so firm and as inaccessible to fear as to self-interest. It was for this he dissembled and evinced none of the vexation he felt.

“I am sorry,” he said coldly, “that you should leave me; because you were that one of my servants whom I have most esteemed and loved. But, nevertheless, since you wish it, I will not oppose your going. I shall always remember the services you have rendered me, and be assured that any request you may make shall certainly be granted.”

More made no reply, but the tears came into his eyes; he loved the king sincerely, and would have made any sacrifice to have saved him from the unhappy passion that had enchained him.

“You weep, More,” said the king. “If it gives you pain, why do you leave me?”

“Because I cannot do otherwise.”

“As you please,” replied the king curtly. “I force nobody to remain in my service. You will one day, perhaps, repent this step. You are rich now, I suppose?”

“Your majesty knows very well to the contrary,” replied More. “In losing the salary of the office I now resign, I am not sure that I shall have sufficient means remaining to provide becomingly for the wants of my many children. During the time I filled a lucrative employment at the bar, I saved enough to purchase a small tract of land which I now own; but when your majesty called me into your service, I was naturally obliged to abandon my profession, and since then I have saved nothing.”

“What!” said the king, “you have nothing remaining from the income of your office?”

“Not so much as one hundred gold crowns,” replied Sir Thomas.

“More,” said the king thoughtfully, “you are an honest man.”

“I endeavor to be so, sire.”

“It grieves me that you leave me. Why approve not of my marriage?”

“Because, sire, you may not have two wives at once.”

“Begone!” said Henry VIII.…

And Cromwell found the king in a state of excitement impossible to describe.

“I regret it! I regret it!” he exclaimed. “This will work me evil! A man of such integrity, such worth! No one can doubt it. I have done wrong in sending him to the Parliament; it was plain that he would refuse me.”

“What says he?” thought Cromwell to himself, surprised and anxious.

“Cromwell,” said the king, “he leaves me!”

“Who?”

“More.”

“More!” cried Cromwell, scarcely able to conceal his delight. “Well, is it only that that troubles you? It is a happiness rather. The hypocrite unmasks himself at last; it has been long since the happiness of his sovereign was that for which he cared the least.”

“You are mistaken, Cromwell; he loved me sincerely.”

“Ah!” cried Cromwell, “this is the way in which your majesty’s goodness of heart unceasingly opposes itself to your own interests. Sir Thomas More has never lost an occasion of sustaining the ridiculous pretensions of Queen Catherine. I heard him myself exclaim aloud in the presence of the legates assembled to try her: “May the queen triumph over all her enemies!” Would he have done this had he not presumed (if I may dare to say it) upon your majesty’s weakness? This is the opinion expressed to me by the illustrious Machiavelli: ‘It is always safer for a prince to inspire his subjects with fear than with love’; love holds men by that very feeble link called gratitude, while the bond of fear it is almost impossible to sunder.”

“And where has the fuller’s son known Machiavelli?” asked Henry VIII. disdainfully. “Truly,” he continued, with that ironical smile which was habitual with him, and that haughty and scornful tone with which he often chose to crush those who believed they stood high in his favor, “I was not aware that you had studied politics under Machiavelli.”

“I knew him in Italy,” replied Cromwell, profoundly humiliated. The recollection of the lowliness of his origin was a continual torment to the soul of this parvenu; nevertheless, without permitting the slightest emotion to appear in his countenance, he continued the conversation. “We often,” he said, “walked together in the gardens of the Oricellari Palace, which Machiavelli was in the habit of frequenting, and where multitudes of young men of the most distinguished families of the city eagerly came to listen to the words of this celebrated man. He had the kindness to notice me among them all, and received me with particular affection. He sometimes spoke successively of all the princes of Europe; but in mentioning the name of your majesty he could not conceal his admiration. ‘I do not know,’ he said, ‘any prince of our day who can be compared to him, either for courage or exalted ability.’”

“I feel flattered,” replied the king; “for he was a man of great discernment and superior judgment.”

And Henry’s gratified vanity brought to his features an expression of pleasure that did not escape the notice of the adroit liar. There was no truth in the statement he had made to Henry VIII. of having met the Florentine secretary, at least in his own society, as he wished to insinuate to the king, but in a public drinking-house where Machiavelli (whose tastes were not always the most elevated or refined) went to enjoy the amusements of the common people, in order to be relieved of the _ennui_ that devoured him when at his country seat and not absorbed in business.

“These gardens of the Oricellari Palace have a great reputation,” said Henry VIII. carelessly, after a considerable silence.

“Very great and very justly,” replied Cromwell with enthusiasm, “since they have been embellished by the famous Alberti—he who introduced again into Europe a taste for the pure and beautiful Grecian architecture. The celebrated Bernard Rucellai, to whom they belong, has collected there besides a great quantity of the precious fragments of antiquity—”

Cromwell paused—he thought the king was going to speak; but, finding he said nothing, he continued:

“Your majesty has seen, in the beginning of Machiavelli’s book on the art of war, the portrait he has drawn and his eulogies on the young Count Rucellai, the same to whom he has dedicated his discourse on Livy.”

“Possibly,” said Henry VIII. He turned his head and slightly yawned.

Cromwell was silent immediately and racked his brain for another subject of conversation, regretting that the one he had already introduced had been so speedily exhausted.

* * * * *

After leaving the king Sir Thomas More returned to the bank of the Thames, wishing, as soon as possible, to reach his home at Chelsea. In going down to his barge, which awaited him above Westminster bridge, he saw a crowd collected on the quay inspecting the boat, which, glittering gorgeously in the rays of the sun, seemed in every respect worthy of the exalted rank of her illustrious owner. Eight rowers dressed in uniform managed her with great dexterity; a large pavilion of purple silk protected the interior against injury from light and air; the bottom was covered with a heavy tapestry carpet; and the spacious seats, capable of accommodating a large number of persons, were supplied with rich crimson velvet cushions. The exterior was not less rich, and the ivory and little bands of gold with which the stern was encrusted gave it the appearance of being enveloped in a delicate network, each mesh of which seemed to sparkle with gems and gold. The heavens were serene and cloudless, and a multitude of small boats, painted green, darted rapidly over the river, propelled by their light sails of gleaming white. It was a festival day, and they were filled with citizens enjoying the revivifying country air, and resting from their labors to refresh themselves on the verdant and flowery lawns of Richmond, Twickenham, or Greenwich. Arrayed in their most elegant robes of worsted and silk, the women waved their handkerchiefs or sang to amuse their children, while groups of sailors in varied costumes representing different nations were engaged in playing boisterous games, or, gathering around one of their older companions, listened eagerly to the stories he told of expeditions he had joined or shipwrecks he had escaped.

“To-day these people are happy!” thought More, saddened by the contrast presented by their joy and the interior oppression he himself experienced. “Let me return to a life of peaceful obscurity like theirs, find again my plain wooden boat, take my seat on the straw matting which covers the bottom, and row in my turn without a fear of to-morrow; always sure of seeing my Margaret and my other children coming along the bank to give me a joyous reception, and hear them exclaim, ‘Here is our father!’ But why all these apprehensions?” he continued, passing his hand across his brow, as if to dispel some sad and painful reflection. “God reigns in heaven; and have I not this day experienced his divine protection? The king has given me a kinder reception than I had hoped to receive; he has, at least, not permitted his wrath to break forth in all its violence. Perhaps in the end it will only be more terrible; but never mind, the will of the Lord be done! Nothing can happen on the earth without his permission. I abandon myself to him; and when man, his creature, casts himself into his arms, he will not withdraw nor permit him to fall.”

In the meantime the tide began to rise, and the waves of the sea, flowing into the great bed of the river, very soon extended it to the surrounding banks. Carried along by the waves, More’s barge no longer required other care than the slight attention necessary to guide it. The tired sailors rested on their oars, while their eyes wandered over the charming borders of the Thames.

“My lord,” said one of the sailors, turning towards Sir Thomas, “here we are in front of Seat-House Gardens. We are passing the village of Nine Elms.”

But More heard them not; he seemed entirely absorbed in his own reflections.

The men were astonished, because ordinarily he conversed with them when he was alone in the boat, and questioned them about such subjects as interested them. Sir Thomas More thought it was his duty as a master and a Christian to take especial care not only of the bodies but also of the souls of his servants, in enlightening their minds by good advice and wise exhortations. Consequently, they were astonished at his silence, and, loving him as a father, they were fearful some misfortune had befallen him of which they were not apprised.

“There is the little point of Chelsea spire,” said the pilot, observing him with an anxious eye.

“My lord, here is Chelsea,” they exclaimed all together.

“Well, my children,” he replied, “land me at the foot of the crossroad.”

Sir Thomas thought, as it was the hour for evening devotion, his family would surely be at the parish church, and he would take his children back in the boat with him. He landed, therefore, and, ordering the sailors to wait, slowly ascended the beach by a rugged road, beyond which he encountered a worthy old peasant woman driving a number of cows to the river. On perceiving Sir Thomas an expression of satisfaction overspread her features, tanned and furrowed by age and hard labor. She stopped to salute him as usual.

“My good lord,” she exclaimed, “I am very glad to see you. We every day pray to the Lord to preserve you. Since you have been in this country everything has prospered with us. We have not lost a single calf nor had a bad crop since you rebuilt our barn, which was burnt at the same time as your own; and the other day we were talking among ourselves, and we said that you must be very rich to be able to make so many around you happy.”

“The barn is a strong and substantial one, at least,” said More, who could not avoid smiling at the idea of his reputed wealth.

“Oh! as to that, yes,” replied the simple woman; “it is of good stone, and very much stronger and better than it was before. It will outlast us all a long time.”

Having said this, she passed on, as she saw Sir Thomas wished to be detained no longer, and the cows had wandered from the road to graze on the surrounding pasture.

“Here comes the good lord chancellor,” said the village children in a suppressed tone. The crowd kneeling without on the pavement of the church, too small to accommodate the entire congregation on festival days, opened respectfully, and Sir Thomas proceeded down the aisle of the church to his pew, where he found all his family seated.

He remained standing near, as the service was almost over, and he did not wish to make any disturbance by opening the door of the pew; but Margaret soon discovered the presence of her father, and heard his voice mingling with those of the other faithful who sang the praises of God. Her heart throbbed with joy, and she looked around to try and get sight of him.

“William,” she said immediately to young Roper, “my father is here; give him your seat.”

But Sir Thomas motioned him to sit still; and when the devotion was ended, and the priests had left the altar, he approached, and, opening the door of the pew where Lady More was seated, presented his hand to lead her out, and said:

“Madam, my lord is gone.”

This woman, as disagreeable as she was coarse, raised her dull eyes to her husband’s face.

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

She always received in this ungracious manner the pleasantries More was so fond of indulging in, and it was customary for one of her husband’s retinue to open the pew door in his absence and say: “Madam, my lord is gone.”

“Come with me, nevertheless,” replied More, with imperturbable gentleness; “I will explain to you now my lord is gone.”

Lady More followed him, still, however, murmuring between her teeth because of this unusual mode of departure; and when they had passed through the crowd, and More had returned the salutations with which all greeted him, he called Margaret to his side.

“Listen, my child,” he said. “Your mother here cannot understand how my lord can be absent. Explain to her that I have conducted him this morning to London, where I have left him for ever; in a word, that I am no longer lord chancellor, having resigned my office into the hands of the king. Do you understand now, my good Alice?” he added, turning toward his wife.

Margaret, on hearing this explanation, looked at her father in dismay. She immediately understood there was something behind that she did not know, and her penetrating mind was filled with alarm; but Lady More flew into an ungovernable passion.

“What is this you say?” she cried,” and what have you done? More of your scruples, I warrant me. That tender conscience of yours will land us all in the ashes yet. Is it not better to rule than to be ruled? We are ten times worse off now than we have ever been before, and here are you about to strip us of everything.”

“Dear heart,” said Sir Thomas, without being moved in the least, “it would be impossible, I think, for me to strip you of your possessions; because, when I married you, you brought me no other dowry than your virtues and the qualities of your heart. Of this dowry I hope, indeed, never to see you deprived by any means in the world, much less by myself.”

“At least,” cried Lady More between her sobs and tears, “I was beautiful and young, and certain it is I might have easily found a husband more interested in his own affairs, and who would have profited more by his learning and the favor of the king.”

On hearing her express herself in this manner Margaret was unable to restrain a gesture of indignation; she idolized her father, and could not tolerate the coarse manners and selfish motives of her step-mother. This woman, narrow of mind and filled with vanity, had succeeded, singularly enough, by manœuvring and flattery, in winning the esteem of More at a time when, having had the misfortune to lose his wife, he saw with great sorrow his daughters deprived of the good example and tender care of a mother. It then seemed to him he could not better replace her than by selecting a widow lady of mature age whose beauty, if it had ever existed, was more than faded, and could no longer be (so, at least, he supposed) a subject of pretension or distraction. But, unfortunately, Lady More, he found, was one of those indifferent, selfish beings who only feel what touches themselves, who consider nothing but their own interests, and fear nothing but what may deprive them of the high social position to which they have been fortunate enough to attain. She could not endure, therefore, the thought of being deprived of the honor she was accustomed to receive as the wife of the lord chancellor. She never for an instant reflected on the possible difficulties experienced by her husband, or the reasons that might have determined him to resign his office. She at once divined, from the knowledge she possessed of his extreme scrupulousness, that his conscience had been the first cause of this step, and the thought only served to irritate her more, because she insisted that such a difficulty ought to have been avoided.

She continued to utter the most piercing cries, refusing to listen to anything More could say. At length, despairing of bringing her to reason, he began to ridicule her on her absurd conduct.

“My daughters,” he said, calling Elizabeth and Cecilia, “see to your mother’s dress; something has probably stung her under her garments, causing her to cry out in this manner.”

When the silly woman found her husband assume this tone of raillery, she immediately became silent; but, full of anger and spite, she seated herself in a corner of the boat and took no notice of anything around her.

Margaret then took her place beside her father; she drew close to him, and, seizing his hand, pressed it to her lips, without being able to utter a word; her heart was full, and her soul alone silently interrogated that of her father.

Endowed with an extraordinary superabundance of feeling and sentiment, Margaret was enthusiastic in doing good, and repelled evil, when she encountered it, with a degree of inflexibility amounting to severity. Beautiful beyond all expression, her beauty was never for a moment made the subject of her thoughts. Possessed by nature of a very strong mind, she felt unceasingly, and endured with restless impatience, and almost without being able to submit, the disadvantages which weakness and conventionalities imposed upon her sex. She possessed all the great qualities of her father, but none of his bright cheerfulness and admirable resignation—fruits of the long-continued exercise of the most exemplary virtue. The poor were always sure of finding in her an earnest and faithful friend; the afflicted, a comforter full of eloquence and sympathy; the vain and presumptuous man, a frigid scorn and piquant irony which concealed from him entirely the knowledge of her true character, replete with integrity, frankness, and simplicity. Scarcely emerged from childhood, Margaret felt she had arrived at mature age. The accuracy and loftiness of her judgment, united to that delicacy and exquisite tact which belong naturally to some women, rendered her worthy of becoming the most intimate and reliable friend of her father, whose entire joy and happiness centred in her alone. Educated by him with extreme care, she was familiar with all the sciences, and several works written by her in Greek and Latin of great purity have come down to us from that period.

“My daughter,” said More, “why distress yourself about me, since I am to remain with you?”

“Father,” answered Margaret, fixing her beautiful dark eyes on his face, “there is something behind all this that you have not told. Why conceal it from me?”

“No, dear daughter, nothing. Your father is old; he desires to leave you no more, to see you always, until the Lord shall call him to himself.”

Seeing Margaret’s eyes fill with tears, Sir Thomas repented immediately of what he had said, fearing to excite in her the nervous sensibility he had always vainly attempted to moderate.

“Father,” she answered, “let it be as you wish; I ask nothing more.”

“On the contrary, you shall know everything, dear child. God has blessed us; be assured of that. And see how green and fresh our garden looks from here.”

They were coming in view of their house at Chelsea, and soon found themselves opposite the small green gate opening, at the end of the garden, upon a path descending to the river. One of the men, taking a large silver whistle from his belt, blew several shrill notes as a signal to those in the house to come and open the gate for their master. Nobody appeared, however, and the family began to feel surprised, when at length they perceived some short and deformed creature advancing with irregular bounds, breaking the bushes and overturning the pots of flowers that he encountered in his passage.

“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Thomas, “there is my poor jester playing his pranks and spoiling all my garden.”

“Henry Pattison!” cried the children, laughing.

“Himself,” said Sir Thomas.

At that moment the little fool, dressed in a scarlet coat all covered with gold lace, opened the gate, and, putting out his great, flat head, made a thousand grimaces, accompanied by roars of laughter and savage cries, which he endeavored to render agreeable, in order to express the gratification he felt at the return of his master.

“Ah! well, what news do you bring us?” said More, looking at him.

“Master,” replied the fool, opening a mouth so wide that it might have better fitted a giant than a dwarf, “father is sick.”

“What! my father sick?” cried More, greatly alarmed.

“Yes, my lord,” replied the jester.

But Sir Thomas, without awaiting his response, rushed into the house and disappeared.

* * * * *

On learning the accusation brought against them in the court of king’s bench, the members of the convocation were seized with consternation, for they understood by the very mention of _Præmunire_ that the king had resolved to make them feel the weight of his authority, and to avenge himself for the opposition he had encountered in the affair of the divorce. They assembled, therefore, in all haste, and from the hour of prime[111] remained deliberating in one of the upper chambers of Westminster Abbey. After a lengthy discussion, they had sent, with unanimous accord, to offer the king the sum of one hundred thousand pounds in return for the pardon they solicited, never having doubted, they said in their petition, that Cardinal Wolsey had received the necessary letters-patent for exercising the authority of legate in the kingdom.

Hours passed away, and no response arrived from the king. Many became alarmed, and the greatest excitement prevailed in that venerable assembly, composed of all the archbishops, bishops, and abbots of the monasteries, who formed, by right of their ecclesiastical rank, part of the House of Lords or, by election, of the Commons.

Conspicuous in the midst of them was the learned and celebrated Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England. His head, entirely bald, was bowed on his breast. He seemed to take no part or interest in the numerous discussions which were carried on around him, and no one knew whether a gloomy sadness had overshadowed his soul, or if his advanced age had weakened the faculties of his mind together with those of the body. The Bishop of Lincoln, the king’s confessor, who sat beside him, vainly endeavored to attract his attention. Further on, arranged around him, were the Bishops of Durham, Worcester, Norwich, Salisbury, St. David’s, Hereford, Carlisle, Bath, Bangor, and others; the Archbishop of Armagh, near whom was observed the mild and noble physiognomy of the Dean of Exeter, young Reginald Pole, born of the royal blood of the house of York, and descended by Margaret, his mother, from the illustrious family of Plantagenets. The king, his relative, had tried in every way to bring him to approve of the divorce; but neither supplications nor reproaches, nor the fear inspired by Henry VIII., could induce him to act contrary to the voice of his conscience. Later on Henry VIII. taught him, by making the two brothers and the aged mother of Reginald Pole mount the scaffold, how far the excess of his revenge could carry him.

Already had the young Dean of Exeter fallen into disfavor with the king, who closed the door of his palace against him, at the same time that he was forced by the manifest respect of Pole, and the proofs he gave of his devotion, to acknowledge secretly the integrity of his heart and the rectitude of his intentions. At this moment he was talking to a man whose character was precisely the opposite of his own—the Abbot of Westminster, intriguing, active, and ambitious, well known to Henry VIII., whose spy he was, and to whose will he was entirely submissive.

With them also conversed Roland, chaplain to his majesty, and the poor secretary, Gardiner, whose simplicity and small aptitude for business had been alone sufficient to make his selfish master regret the indefatigable perseverance and the strong mind of Cardinal Wolsey. At this moment he wearied his colleagues with a lengthy recital of all the apprehensions which the violence of the king’s character caused him.

And now a sudden commotion made itself felt throughout the hall. They stood up, they leaned forward; the folding doors were thrown open. “In the name of the king!” cried the usher who guarded the entrance.

Cromwell stood on the threshold. He paused to salute the assembly.

They scarcely dared breathe!

“My lords,” he said in a loud voice, looking slowly around him, and endeavoring to give his sardonic features an expression of benignant persuasion, “the king, our master, always full of clemency and benevolence toward his unworthy subjects, deigns to accept your gift. He makes but one, and that a very slight, condition; which is, that you acknowledge him, in the act of donation, as the supreme and only head of the church and clergy of England.”

He paused to observe, with a malignant joy, similar to that of the demon when he dragged the first man into sin, the effect of these words on the assembly. But a gloomy silence was the only response they gave him. He again looked slowly around him, and proceeded in a lower tone:

“My lords, let not this either trouble or alarm you; the church, our mother, has not a child more faithful or submissive than our most gracious sovereign. Does he not prove himself such each day by the care he takes to choke up the seeds of heresy which the malice of the devil is trying to sow among us? You also know very well, and even better than I, that he devotes his nights to writing in defence of our holy faith, and nothing could ever induce him to deviate from it. Why should you feel any scruples about honoring a prince so virtuous by placing him at your head as your defender and most firm supporter? Remember, moreover, honored lords, that he who should refuse this title to the king will be regarded by him as a traitor and disloyal subject.”

He then seated himself in their midst, in order to take in the words of the first who should dare raise his voice in opposition to the will of the king.

All the bishops sat in silent consternation. Several wished to speak, but the presence of Cromwell seemed to freeze them with terror; for they were beginning to understand the base manœuvres of this man, and each one felt as though he was on the point of being seized by that wicked wretch, ready to spring upon the first unhappy victim who might present himself.

They looked from one to another, while a profound silence reigned among them.

Archbishop Warham seemed to be seized with a lively grief, but his voice was no more audible, and his pale lips remained silent and motionless.

Cromwell felt his heart thrill with malicious delight; beneath the frigid expression of a profound and calculating indifference this obscure intriguer exulted in seeing these men, the most learned and honored in all England, trembling and recoiling before him as before the genius of evil.

But suddenly a man whom nothing could intimidate, a saintly man, whose heart knew no fear except the fear of God, arose in the midst of them. An involuntary shudder ran through the assembly. All eyes were directed alternately toward Cromwell and him, as though to defend the one from the malice of the other. It was the Bishop of Rochester, the friend of Thomas More, who was about to speak; and all knew that no cowardly consideration of prudence could stop him.

“My lords,” he cried, as he stood up in their midst, “what impious voice is this that is raised in your presence to propose to us a thing which has never been heard of since the foundation of human society? What is it they wish to exact from us at this moment, if it be not to raise ourselves to the level of God himself by conferring the supremacy of his church on a temporal prince, a man who can have no possible right thereto? Shall we, then, say to-day, as our Lord Jesus Christ said to St. Peter: ‘I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’? And if we should have the pride and audacity to say it, where would be our power to execute it? Listen,” continued the holy bishop, inflamed with zeal, and turning toward Cromwell. “Go, and say to the king, our master, that he has been led into error; that he should remember the words of the Holy Scriptures: ‘As my Father hath sent me, so I send you,’ and ask him if he has been ordained one of the pastors of the church; if he has chosen her for his only spouse; if he is an apostle, if he is a doctor, or if he can build up with us the body of Christ; and say to him, moreover, that even though he should possess all these qualifications, yet, before he could be appointed supreme head of the Catholic Church, it would be necessary for her to acknowledge him as such, and that we cannot—we, a feeble fraction of the Christian world—impose a chief on the universe! Go, and let not the king’s majesty be compromised; for he has suggested a desire that cannot be accomplished.”

Cromwell, subdued by the power of this exhortation, arose and immediately withdrew. The Bishop of Rochester, turning toward the assembled prelates, continued:

“My lords, let not the fear of men blind us. Let us reflect well on what they demand of us to-day; for we are not only called on to renounce Clement VII., but also to cast ourselves out of Peter’s bark, only to be submerged in the waves of these countless divisions, sects, schisms, and heresies which it has pleased the mind of man to invent. Yes, I hesitate not to say to you that, in order to give the king the title he demands, it would be necessary to abandon all laws, canonical and ecclesiastical, the authority of the holy councils, the unity of the world and of Christian princes, the traditions of the church, by which we would at the same time acknowledge that we have never yet received the true faith or the veritable Gospel of Christ, since we openly revolt against the immutable doctrine which it teaches, and turn aside voluntarily and for ever from the one and only true way of salvation which it has marked out for us. During the fifteen hundred and thirty years that the Gospel has been preached throughout the world, have we seen a single prince make such a pretension? And when, in the fourth century, Constantine the Great assembled in his own palace, in the city of Nice, and for the first time since the apostles, the entire body of the universal Church, did he establish himself in the midst of them as their head and sovereign—he who wished, in spite of their deference and their request, to remain, without guards and without the pomp befitting his rank, in the meanest place of the hall wherein they were assembled? ‘No,’ said he, ‘I will not sit in judgment where I have no authority either to absolve or to condemn.’ … And who, my lords, were the men composing that illustrious assembly, if not the flower of all the saintly and learned who flourished among the nations of the earth? The patriarchs of Constantinople, of Antioch, of Alexandria, of Jerusalem, and of Carthage; the bishops of Africa, of Spain, of the Gauls, of the land of the Scythians and Persians—in a word, of the East and West—who gathered there in crowds, almost all had confessed the faith before tyrants, and bore on their mutilated bodies the glorious marks of the cruel tortures they had endured rather than renounce it. Well, you behold these holy pontiffs place at their head Vincent and Vitus, two simple priests, because they recognized them as the representatives of their chief, the Bishop of Rome, whose advanced age prevented him from being among them. And this regulation has been invariably followed through all ages even until the present day, and through all the storms and heresies which would have been sufficient to annihilate the church had she not been born of God himself. Far from us, then, be this culpable cowardice! To renounce his laws is to renounce Jesus Christ. We renounce his laws? No, my lords, we cannot! Nay, we will not.… Again, what would become of this sublime doctrine, if a temporal prince had power to make it yield to the whim of his vices and passions? To-day it is, to-morrow it is not; it changes with him, with his creeds, his opinions, and his wishes. His caprices would become our only laws, and vice and virtue be no longer but words which he would be at liberty to change at will. No, again and again no! If we love our king, we will never concede what he demands; because it is for us to enlighten him with regard to his duties, and, on the contrary, we should only be dragging him down with us in our unhappy fall.”

A murmur of applause rose from all parts of the hall, drowning the voice of the speaker. The Abbot of Westminster alone maintained a silence of disapproval. Many, however, while they acknowledged the truth of what the Bishop of Rochester had proclaimed, could not but reflect with dread on the terrible consequences of the king’s displeasure if they openly resisted him; while others, with less foresight and sound judgment, thought Fisher’s zeal carried him too far, and that it would be possible, without at all compromising their consciences, to grant their prince something which would be sufficient to satisfy him. Among this number was the Bishop of Bath, who immediately arose. After rendering public testimony to the esteem and deference due the Bishop of Rochester, he added that it appeared to him impossible that the king could think seriously of having himself acknowledged as the one and only head of the church “And, as for me, I believe,” he said, at the conclusion of his discourse, “this is only a snare that has been set in order to afford a pretext for punishing and despoiling us of all we possess. The king is always in need of money; his confidants have suggested this means for him to procure it, and make him distribute the greater part of it among themselves.”

“I agree with my lord of Bath,” cried the Bishop of Bangor, “the more especially as the king knows how absurd the accusation is of offence against the _Præmunire_, since he has compromised himself by appearing before the legate in the eyes of the whole kingdom. It was impossible to have acknowledged the legate’s authority by an act more authentic, and which surpassed in importance all the letters-patent that could have been demanded.”

“That is just and true,” exclaimed several voices: “and yet, although we may be able to prove it, if the king presses the accusation, we shall be most unjustly though most certainly condemned.”

“Oh! yes, most certainly,” said Gardiner in a low voice. He was cruelly frightened, being aware of the measures the king had taken, in conjunction with Cromwell, to secure for himself the influence of the judges of the court of king’s bench.

“Well, my lords,” said the Abbot of Westminster, who had used every effort to induce them to yield to the king, “consider also if our most gracious sovereign is wrong in making this demand, he will be responsible before God, and I do not see in what manner we could be considered guilty. In reality this title will be illusory, since he cannot ordain the humblest priest. When the Roman emperors had themselves declared gods, think you it ever entered the minds of the people that they were such? Just the same in this case: no one will ever consider the king as head of the church.”

“That is most sure,” exclaimed several other ecclesiastics, struck by this reasoning, and to whom this pretension began to appear more ridiculous than criminal.

“I assure you positively,” replied the Abbot of Westminster, “that this is an absurd humor which will fall through of itself.”

“You deceive yourselves, my lords; you deceive yourselves,” cried the Bishop of Rochester. “When the king shall have received from us the title he demands, it will be confirmed by Parliament, and afterwards he will believe himself invested with the right of deciding everything and making any innovation. Will there then be time left us to repent of our pusillanimous submission? Will you then command this supreme head to be so no longer, and to obey after having been invested with supreme authority?”

New tokens of assent were breaking out, when they were suddenly interrupted by the entrance of Cromwell, who returned, accompanied by Viscount Rochford and Thomas Audley.

With an air of the coolest effrontery he advanced to the centre of the hall and stood in the midst of the bishops. He then said in a loud and arrogant tone, pointing to the two men who followed him:

“My lords, here are the king’s commissioners; they come to hear your reply. But the personal devotion I feel for the interest of our holy mother church and the safety of your reverend lordships induces me to warn you that the king has resolved to punish with all the severity of the statutes of _Præmunire_ those among you who shall not have signed by to-morrow the act acknowledging him as supreme head of the church.”

On hearing these last words all grew pale and consternation seized on all hearts.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed to be making a desperate effort; a convulsive movement contracted the furrowed brow of the old man. He fixed his eyes on Cromwell, and, rising, stood before him.

“Knave!” he exclaimed.

The advanced age of Warham, and still more his learning and the high reputation he enjoyed, surrounded him with respect and strength; but a secret sorrow was gnawing at his heart, and hastening the destruction of a life that time had respected. He arose fiercely, although tottering, to his feet. “My brethren,” he cried, “my brethren!—no, I am not worthy to be seated in the midst of you, and yet you have accorded me the first place. I know not if the weight of years may not have partially unsettled my reason; but I have to reproach myself with having inclined to favor the king’s divorce. To-day I foresee all the evils that will fall upon my country because of the discord and heresies that will spring up and multiply among us. How far, then, have I been from anticipating the fatal consequences of the opinion I expressed in good faith! Meanwhile, I trust that God, before whom I must very soon appear, will pardon me for what I have done. My dear brethren, number me no more among you; for the anguish I feel oppresses me to such a degree that I can no longer endure it! Alas! why is it a man must feel his life extinguished before death has entirely benumbed his enfeebled members? I vainly seek within my soul the life and strength that have abandoned it; that energy I would wish to recover, if but for a single moment, to use it in opposing the ruin of religion, and repairing in an open and fearless manner the scandal I have given. But the time for action has passed for me. It is to your hands, young prelates, that the care of the flock is committed. Be firm; die rather than let it be decimated! The most violent persecution is about to burst upon the English Church; yes, but you will resist it, even unto death! Death is glorious when we suffer it for God! But, O my brethren! it is not death I fear for you; it is falsehood and treachery, the silent and hidden influence which undermines in the dark; far more dangerous than tortures or imprisonment, it destroys all, even the last germ of good which might expand in the soul! No, it is not death that kills, but sinful deeds. My brethren, pardon me all and pray for me!” The aged prelate, as if exhausted by the last effort he had made, fell back in his chair, entirely deprived of consciousness. He was immediately carried out, but the anxiety and excitement redoubled in the assembly.

“We are all lost!”… cried the Abbot of Westminster. “My lords, let us obey the king, if we would not see all our goods confiscated!”

“What!” cried the Bishop of Rochester, with an indignation he was unable to restrain, “is that the only argument you pretend to bring forward? What benefit will it be to keep our houses, our cloisters and convents—in a word, to preserve our entire possessions—if we must sacrifice our consciences? What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul? Yes, it is but too true: we are all under the rod of the king, we have all need of his clemency, but he refuses it to us! Well, then, let him strike; we shall be able to endure it!”

Electrified by these words, and still more by the wisdom and commanding presence of him who uttered them, the assembly arose and unanimously exclaimed:

“No, we will not sign it. Let the king do as he will. Go, Cromwell, say to his majesty that we are all devoted to him, but we cannot do what he asks.”

A wrathful light gleamed in Cromwell’s eyes, the while an ironical smile played upon his lips. Two ideas prevailed in the mind of this man; the one encouraged and supported the other.

“My lords,” he replied in a loud voice, “just as you please. The king, your lord and master, convokes you to-morrow at the same hour, and you will consider the subject in a new conference.”

He then turned on his heel and hastily withdrew.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[111] Eight o’clock in the morning.

DR. BROWNSON.

Some three or four years ago a little daughter of one of Dr. Brownson’s intimate friends, who was visiting his family, after gazing intently at him for some minutes, exclaimed: “Is he not just like a great lion”! Nothing could be more graphic or accurate than this sudden and happy stroke of a child’s wit. We never saw Dr. Brownson or read one of his great articles without thinking of the mien or the roar of a majestic lion; we have never seen a remarkably fine old lion without thinking of Dr. Brownson. His physique was entirely correspondent to his intellectual and moral power, and his great head, crowning like a dome his massive figure, and surrounded in old age with a mass of white hair and beard like a snowy Alp, made him a grand and reverend object to look at, such as we might picture to ourselves Zoroaster or Plato, St. Jerome or St. Bruno. The marks of infirmity which time had imprinted upon him, with the expression of loneliness and childlike longing for sympathy, added a touch of the pathetic to the picture, fitted to awaken a sentiment of compassion, tempering to a more gentle mood the awe and admiration excited by his venerable appearance. Mr. Healey has painted a remarkably good portrait of him as he was at about the age of sixty, in which his full maturity of strength is alone represented. The most perfect one, however, is a mere photograph, taken in haste and by accident by Mr. Wallace, an artist of great promise, who died at a very early age, leaving unfinished a marble bust of Dr. Brownson which he had commenced. The young artist met the doctor by chance in the studio of a photographer, who happened at the moment to be absent. Asking him to sit down, he placed him in position for a profile and took the photograph, one of the most successful specimens of this kind of art we have ever seen, and much superior to any other photographic likeness of Dr. Brownson—indeed, as we have said, the best likeness which exists, and the one above all others from which an engraver should copy.

The lion is dead; his thunderous voice is for ever hushed. The farewell utterance which closed his career as an editor with so much dignity and pathos was his valedictory to life and to the world. It is pleasant to think that, before he died, a response full of veneration and affection came back to him from the organs of Catholic opinion and feeling in America and Europe, and that he has gone to his grave in honor and peace, where his works will be his monument, and his repose be asked for by countless prayers offered up throughout all parts of the Catholic Church, in whose battles he had been a tried warrior and valiant leader for thirty years.

It is not an easy task to give a perfectly just and impartial estimate of such a man and such a career. The intimate relations between Dr. Brownson and those who have been the chief conductors of this magazine, together with the very active and extensive share which he had in their efforts to establish it and raise it to its present position, impose an obligation of personal friendship and gratitude somewhat like that which affects the relatives and family friends of a great man in the memorials which they prepare for the honor and fame of one whom they regard with a veneration and affection precluding the free exercise of critical judgment. On the other hand, the difference of opinion which afterwards severed the connection between Dr. Brownson and THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and the controversy we have had with him on some important theological and philosophical questions, may give to the expression of anything like a discriminating judgment the appearance of an adverse plea against an opposing advocate in favor of our own cause. Nevertheless, as the motive of our friendship was chiefly sympathy in the great common cause of the Catholic Church, which was not essentially altered by a disagreement that produced no bitterness or animosity, we trust that our mood of mind is not influenced by any partial and personal bias, so as to produce either exaggeration or diminution of the just claims the great deceased publicist possesses on the admiration of his fellow-men. We may fail from want of capability, but we cannot avoid making the attempt to satisfy in part the desire which all Catholics everywhere must feel to know what those who have been near to Dr. Brownson during his public life have seen, and what they think, of his character and his career, more especially since his conversion.

Dr. Brownson has told the world a great deal about his own history in the book which he published in 1857, entitled _The Convert_. The salient facts of his life are generally known to the public, and have been summarily stated in the obituary notices of the leading newspapers, so that we have no need to take up much of our limited space in recounting them. The principal interest they possess is in their relation to the formation of his mind, his character, his faith, and his opinions. He was not baptized in his infancy, but was nevertheless brought up strictly and religiously according to the old-fashioned Puritan method, in their simple, humble cottage at Royalton, Vermont, by an elderly couple, distant relatives of his family, who adopted the fatherless boy when he was six years old.[112] A wonderful child he must have been, and we can see in his brief narrative of his early years, as in the instances of St. Thomas of Aquin and Chateaubriand, though under circumstances as different as possible from theirs, a most interesting example of Wordsworth’s aphorism, “The child is father of the man.” From the dawn of reason he was a philosopher, never a child, thinking, dreaming in an ideal world, reading the few books he could find—especially King James’ English Bible, which he almost learned by heart—never playing with other children, and enjoying very scanty advantages of schooling. After his fourteenth year he lived near Saratoga, in New York State, and worked hard for his own maintenance. At nineteen we find him at an academy in the town of Ballston—a privilege which we believe he purchased with the hard earnings of his industry. At this time, from an impulse of religious sentiment, he sought for baptism and admission into the Presbyterian church, which he very soon found an uncongenial home and exchanged for another sect at the opposite pole of Protestantism, that of the Universalists, among whom he became a preacher at the age of twenty-one. The subsequent period of his life until he had passed somewhat beyond his fortieth year—that is, until 1844—was marked by various phases of rationalism, and filled with active labors in preaching, lecturing, writing, and editing various periodicals, all carried on with restless energy and untiring industry. He was married early in life to an amiable and intelligent lady who was a perfect wife and mother, and after her conversion a perfect Christian; and the six children who lived to grow up, five of whom were sons, all received an excellent education. The eldest son, his namesake, has passed his life as a teacher and farmer in a remote State, living the life of a good Catholic with the spirit of a recluse, altogether uninterested in the great affairs of the world. Two others were lawyers and died young. The fourth, after passing some years with the Jesuits, entered the army of the United States at the breaking out of the war as a captain of artillery, was severely wounded, and after the close of the war was admitted to the bar, married, and began the practice of law at Detroit. He is known to the literary world as the translator of Balmes’ _Fundamental Philosophy_. The youngest son also served gallantly as an officer of the army of the republic during the civil war, and died on the field of battle in the flower of his youth. The only daughter, who is the wife of a most worthy and respectable gentleman, before her marriage published several works, and particularly the _Life of Prince Gallitzin_, a biography of very considerable merit. All the fruits of the intellectual labors of Dr. Brownson were absorbed in the support and education of his family and some dependent female relatives, and beyond these simple means of keeping up his plain and unostentatious household, the great and patriarchal philosopher received no pecuniary recompense from his long and severe labors in the field of literature. His true profession was that of an editor and reviewer. The exercise of the functions of the Protestant ministry was not to his taste, and five years before his conversion to the Catholic Church, which took place in 1844, he founded a _Review_ at Boston, which was, with a change of title, continued during his residence in that city, then transferred to New York and sustained until 1864, revived once more by a kind of dying effort in 1873, and finally closed a few months before the end of Dr. Brownson’s mortal career. An active part in politics was taken by Dr. Brownson during several years of his earlier public career, but his restless, impetuous, independent spirit made it impossible for him to remain long within the ranks of any political party. Until his conversion he was an agitator, a reformer, associating by turns with Fanny Wright, Robert Dale Owen, the leaders of the working-men’s party, Channing, Parker, and the Boston clique of world-reformers, captivated by the theories of Leroux and St. Simon, and even fancying himself the providential precursor of a new Messias who was to do away with all old things and renovate the world. At last he became convinced that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church as the perpetual teacher, guide, and ruler of men and nations, and settled himself in his only true vocation as an exponent and advocate of her doctrines and order by the means of his written works. It was only as a Catholic publicist that he became a truly great man, and achieved a great work for which he deserves to be held in lasting remembrance. To this work the last thirty years of his life were devoted with a gigantic energy, which diminished toward the end under the influence of advancing age and enfeebled health, but never wholly flagged until the approach of death gradually quenched and at last extinguished the vital flame of his physical existence. During the last seventeen years of his life his residence was at Elizabeth, New Jersey, with the exception of a few months which he passed with his son, Henry F. Brownson, Esq., of Detroit, in whose house he died, and from which he was carried to his last resting-place in the Catholic cemetery of that town. His last years were filled with sufferings from severe physical infirmities, the sudden deaths of several of his children, above all from the death of his tenderly-loved and devoted wife, and from the desolation and loneliness which is usually the cloud in which the setting sun of genius goes down, especially when one survives the period of his great activity, and finds himself, as it were, walking among the graves of friends and past works, drawing always nearer to his own sepulchral resting-place. His death occurred on the morning of Easter Monday, April 17, 1876, when he was in the middle of his seventy-third year, and his obsequies were celebrated on the following Wednesday. From the time of his conversion he was not only a loyal but a pious and practical Catholic, constantly receiving the sacraments, and making his own salvation the chief object to be attained in life. There can be no doubt that he lived and died a just and good man, full of merit, and sure of a high place in heaven, as well as on the scroll of honor where the names of the great men of the age are inscribed by the verdict of their fellows.

If we were allowed to stop here, our task would not have any of that difficulty or delicacy which we said at the outset must necessarily belong to an effort at estimating Dr. Brownson’s character and career as a Catholic publicist. That he built on the true foundation as a wise master-builder, with gold, silver, and precious stones, much solid and fine work able to stand the fire and deserving a reward both on earth and in heaven, we can affirm with conscientious fidelity to our own conviction, and without fear of contradiction. That there was no wood, hay, or stubble in the great mass of materials which he used in his many and extensive works we dare not assert. The difficulty lies in discrimination, and in the relative estimate of a man certainly great and good, in comparison with other great champions of the Catholic faith, and with the standard of perfection. It must be remembered that Dr. Brownson was a self-made man, and, until he was past thirty, was in circumstances most unfavorable to his intellectual culture. He received in his youth only the rudiments of an education, was associated during his early manhood with vulgar sectaries and demagogues, engaged in a rude, turbulent struggle for a living and a position as a religious and political leader, as well as in a perpetual search after truth, without adequate means of satisfying the cravings of his restless intellect and passionate heart. He came into contact with intellectual and cultivated men for the first time in Boston after he joined the Unitarians. His efforts to educate himself were certainly strenuous. He acquired the Latin, French, German, and Italian languages sufficiently well to read books written in all those languages, and his knowledge of English authors was, of course, very wide and extensive. Nevertheless, the want of a systematic education in his early youth, and of regular, symmetrical intellectual training, was always a great disadvantage, as it necessarily must be to every self-made man. Moreover, the necessity of perpetually speaking and writing on the most important subjects as a teacher and guide of others, before he had thoroughly learned what he had to teach, made him liable to hasty and crude statements, to inaccuracies and errors, to changes and modifications in his views and opinions, and to a certain tentative, erratic course of thought. He was like a great ship making its way by waring and tacking, often changing its course, and frequently stopping for soundings, but on the whole making steady headway towards one definite point, escaping many dangers, and at last arriving on open sailing ground by the genius of its pilot, notwithstanding insufficient charts and an unknown coast. In certain favorite branches of study—as, for instance, in history, the history of philosophy, political ethics, and English philology—his knowledge was not only extensive, but extremely accurate. Of scholastic metaphysics and theology he had a considerable but by no means a minutely precise and complete knowledge; and with the physical sciences he was still less acquainted. In the _belles-lettres_ he was extremely well versed, and of works of fiction he was an omnivorous reader. For a number of years before his death he was prevented by the weakness of his eyes from reading very much, and was therefore, in the last series of his _Review_, thrown back on his old resources. On the whole, the mass of knowledge acquired by study which is displayed in his written works is more like a grand, complex structure, imposing in magnitude of outline, sublimity of design, variety of details, yet irregular in plan and incomplete in many of its parts, than like a finished, scientifically-constructed, and elaborately-completed edifice.

In his calibre of mind we think Dr. Brownson may be classed with those men whose capacity is only exceeded by a very small number of minds of the highest order of genius. Intellect, reason, imagination, and memory were alike powerful faculties of his mind, and his great weight of brain, with a corresponding nervous and muscular strength, made him capable of the most concentrated, vigorous, and sustained intellectual labor. Within the scope of his genius there was no work, however colossal, which he was not naturally capable of accomplishing. His gift of language, and ability of giving expression to his thoughts and sentiments, whether original or borrowed, was even greater than his power of abstraction and conception; and his style has a magnificent, Doric beauty seldom surpassed, rarely even equalled. Although Dr. Brownson was not an orator, and Mr. Webster was not a philosopher, there is, nevertheless, a striking similarity in the style of the two men, who mutually admired each other’s productions with the sympathy of cognate minds. In argument, but especially in controversial argument and philippics, Dr. Brownson wielded the hammer of Thor. His defect was in subtlety of thought, fineness of discrimination, completeness of induction, and minute, accurate analysis. In the capacity of grasping a first principle and following it out on the synthetic method lay his great power. Whenever he had these great first principles and fundamental ideas, either from reason or faith, he was unrivalled in the grand and mighty exposition of the truth, irresistible in the demolition of sophistical, inconsequent, and false theories and their advocates, many of whom he laid low with the ease and force of the blow of Richard Cœur de Lion on the cheek of the unlucky clerk of Companhurst. Humor, wit, and sarcasm were also at his command, as well as serious argument; nor were they always sparingly used, although generally with the good-humor of a giant conscious of his strength.

When we consider the absolute and permanent value of Dr. Brownson’s writings as a contribution to Catholic literature, not merely in respect to their quality as the productions of a great mind, but as to their substance; and estimate the effective worth of his efforts as a publicist in the promotion of Catholic truth and law, we cannot avoid taking into view the moral characteristics of the man and of his career. He was a man of great passions as well as of great intellect. He lacked a wholesome, sound moral and religious discipline during more than half his life, and was under the influence of ideas, associates, circumstances, most dangerous and injurious, but especially hostile to the fundamental virtues of humility, reverence for authority, intellectual and moral self-control, submission to a fixed, unvarying rule of conscientious obligation. After a stormy and turbulent life, he submitted himself to the authority of the Catholic Church over his mind and conscience, when he was more than forty years of age. He was always true in his allegiance, and in many respects morally heroic in the practice of the Christian virtues. His previous life was not wanting in nobility, and in his subsequent life as a Catholic there is a magnanimity, a generosity, a superiority to petty, selfish motives and considerations, such as wealth and popularity; a patient endurance of toil, privation, and suffering; a steady loyalty to the Holy See; a royal scorn of baseness and wrong, and sympathy with the things which are good, just, true, and honorable, worthy of a Catholic of the best mediæval type. He remained, however, as many of the old, heroic Christians who were converted from heathenism did, more or less, the lion of the forest, with many of the idiosyncrasies and other characteristics, the product of his past history, but partially subdued and modified. He was _sui generis_, and his works are like himself. To describe him we ought to borrow, if we may hint at such an impossible supposition, the pen with which Carlyle has described his heroes. The pen being unattainable, we decline the attempt. A few things we must say, in order to prepare the way for the estimate we are striving to make of his career and works.

Dr. Brownson was liable to be fascinated by some great writer, and for a time to surrender his mind almost completely to his influence with an impetuous enthusiasm which hindered calm deliberation. When this first fervor had passed, he would reconsider the matter, and sometimes end by a severe castigation of his late master. Like St. Christopher, he went in search of the strongest man to serve, whereas those whom he successively tried and abandoned were really weaker than himself. Cousin, Leroux, and last of all Gioberti were those to whom he was most specially devoted, and the influence of the last-named author was so strong over him that he never wholly freed himself from its detrimental effects. In many other ways the judgment of Dr. Brownson was liable to bias from prejudice, passion, and moods of feeling. In his judgment of men, and also of books, he was hasty, partial, capricious, swayed by accidental influences, and variable. It was the same in regard to theories, opinions, and doctrines which he regarded as open questions. Where his faith, his conscience, or his matured, deliberate reason were firmly settled he was steady and immovable. If he was thoroughly convinced that he had made a mistake or fallen into error, he would retract. But his old habit of roving all over the world of thought, and the lack of the regular, consistent intellectual and moral discipline of a systematic Catholic culture and education, made him restless of keeping steadily in one course of thought, fond of novelty, and ready to adopt or abandon ideas without due deliberation. This variability and want of steady balance in his intellectual operations detracted very much from his influence as a writer, and counteracted to a great extent the effect which his solid and weighty arguments might have otherwise produced. He has himself made a frank though not a contrite acknowledgment of his one great moral fault in _The Convert_: “I am no saint, never was, and never shall be a saint. I am not and never shall be a great man; but I always had, and I trust I always shall have, the honor of being regarded by my friends and associates as impolitic, as rash, imprudent, and impracticable. I was and am in my natural disposition frank, truthful, straightforward, and earnest, and therefore have had, and I doubt not shall carry to the grave with me, the reputation of being reckless, ultra, a well-meaning man, perhaps an able man, but so fond of paradoxes and extremes that he cannot be relied on, and is more likely to injure than serve the cause he espouses.”[113] To the last statement we must, to a great extent, demur. It is so far true, however, that it was extremely difficult to act in concert with Dr. Brownson, and impossible to count with security upon his movements. Like the lions described so vividly by Jules Gérard, who would be heard by him roaring in the night at distant points within a circuit of twenty miles, you could not foresee from what quarter the thunder of his voice would be next heard, or calculate his range. Many Catholics were alarmed at one time, lest he should stray beyond the boundaries of the faith. He had even so far lost the confidence of the hierarchy and the Catholic public, in the year 1864, that he was unable to keep up his _Review_. Complaints were lodged against him before one of the Roman tribunals, and the celebrated theologian Cardinal Franzelin, then professor in the Roman College, was deputed to examine his writings. The result was that they were not found worthy of censure, and the case was dismissed with a kind admonition to be guarded in his language on one or two points, conveyed through a well-known priest and Roman doctor of New York, who was at the same time directed to console him in his afflictions and encourage him to persevere in his labors. Like Montalembert, Lacordaire, De Broglie, and many other illustrious Catholic priests as well as laymen, and even a few bishops, Dr. Brownson was for a time dazzled by the specious phantom of liberalism; but he soon freed himself from this illusion, and no one has more thoroughly and heartily defended the decisions of the Council of the Vatican, and of the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864, than he has done, especially in the last series of his _Review_. He wavered for a time respecting the necessity of an uncompromising defence and maintenance of the temporal princedom of the Sovereign Pontiff, and an unfortunate expression to that effect even slipped into THE CATHOLIC WORLD from his pen through an oversight of the editor. But in this and every other respect in which he had been led astray for a time, he never failed in a right intention; and for all errors into which he was misled he made full and ample amends, even far beyond what could justly have been expected.

In regard to some points of Catholic doctrine he was rigoristic and exaggerated, sometimes censuring the most orthodox theologians as lax in their interpretation of dogmas. A satisfactory and systematic exposition of the complete theology of the Catholic Church cannot, therefore, be said to have been accomplished by Dr. Brownson. Nor, indeed, can we award to him the meed of success in constructing a system of metaphysics. That he made valuable contributions both to theology and metaphysics we are very glad to admit; and, moreover, we ascribe his imperfect achievement, not to the want of intellectual ability, but to other causes which we have sufficiently explained already. In point of fact, the great scheme always before his mind of the synthetic exposition of faith and science, reason and revelation, dogma and philosophy, was too vast even for his capacious mind and gigantic powers, without a preparation and a possession of materials which he did not and could not have at command. In our opinion, some parts of this great work have been much better done in our own time by other men than by Dr. Brownson. Whether any man will arise who will accomplish the complete work and produce another _Summa Theologiæ_, we cannot say; but such a man, if he appears, will be a second Angelic Doctor. On this head Dr. Ward, in the _Dublin Review_, has already written so well that we need not add anything more. He has also, in the number for January, 1876, while paying a most cordial and generous tribute to the genius and virtue of Dr. Brownson, pointed out in very clear, explicit terms the great defect in his method of metaphysical reasoning. This defect is traceable to the influence of Kant, and found expression in his perpetual criticism of the analytic method of the schoolmen, and insistance for the substitution of a synthetic process beginning from an _à priori_ synthetic judgment. Dr. Brownson’s great mistake lay in his attempting to reconstruct philosophy and theology from the foundation, instead of applying himself to learn both from the traditional scholastic system, which needs to be reconstructed and completed only where certain portions have been proved by real scientific discoveries to be weak or have been left unfinished. But we will not weary our readers with any further remarks on such abstruse topics. We have said enough to indicate to those who are familiar with them the grounds of our judgment on certain portions of Dr. Brownson’s writings, and for others the requisite explanation would occupy far more space than we are at liberty to appropriate.

While a considerable part of these writings belonging to domestic controversy will, in our opinion, be forgotten except as literary curiosities, there are others which deserve to remain as a portion of our standard Catholic literature, and to be studied while the English language itself endures. We are disposed to consider the various essays on subjects belonging to the department of political ethics as the most consummate productions of the great publicist. His work entitled _The Great Republic_ is the most extensive and complete of these essays, but there are numerous other single pieces, making together a great collection, to be found in various parts of his own _Review_ and of this magazine. The articles on the controversy with Protestants and various kinds of free-thinkers, those on transcendentalism, the autobiography entitled _The Convert_, and the whole series of articles contributed to THE CATHOLIC WORLD, with the exception of a few of minor importance, may be placed in the same category of excellence and permanent value. The quantity of literary labor accomplished by Dr. Brownson was literally astounding, especially for our day. A great part of that which he published during his fifty years of active life was necessarily ephemeral. But there might be selected from his extant publications as a Catholic reviewer a mass considerable enough to fill several volumes of the best quality of matter in the most excellent, admirable, and enduring form. Such competent judges as Lord Brougham, Cardinal Wiseman, Mr. Webster, Mr. Ripley, and the editors of the principal reviews in England, France, and Germany, have pronounced the highest eulogiums upon the masterpieces of Dr. Brownson’s pen, either in respect to the power of thought and beauty of style which are their characteristics, or the intrinsic value of their argument as an exposition or defence of great truths and principles. The terse logic of Tertullian, the polemic crash of St. Jerome, the sublime eloquence of Bossuet, are all to be found there in combination or alternation, with many sweet strains of tenderness and playful flashes of humor. There are numerous passages in his writings not to be surpassed by the finest portions of the works of the great masters of thought and style, whether in the English or any other language, in the present or in any past age. They render certain and immortal the just and hard-earned fame of their author, who labored not, however, at least not principally, for fame and honor, but for the love of truth, the welfare of mankind, and the approbation of heaven.

Dr. Brownson is the most remarkable of all the converts to the Catholic Church in the United States, and among the most remarkable in the group of illustrious men who have paid homage to her authority in the present age. His conversion was a great event and made an epoch. What the amount of good which has been and will be effected by his works may be, it is utterly impossible to estimate; for such things have no statistics, no criterion of measurement, no data for calculation. The weight of his testimony and the conclusiveness of his arguments have been slightingly treated, and represented as not worthy to be considered, on the plea that he was capricious, changeable, and possessed of a kind of marvellous art, a sort of intellectual magic, by which he could persuade himself, and make a plausible show of proving to others, that any theory, doctrine, or scheme which took his fancy was solid truth; somewhat as Kant attributes an illusory power to nature, by which all sorts of paralogisms are made to seem equally true and real to reason, whereas they are only phenomenal forms. To a great number of persons Dr. Brownson was an intellectual phenomenon, a sort of philosophical comet of the most eccentric orbit, a prestidigitator with magical formulas, a Prospero having a magic wand, a being such as the popular superstition of old represented Albertus Magnus. That a mind which is searching for the truth which it does not possess, and after a supreme good which it knows not except as an object of vague longing, should wander, is not strange. It is the principle of Protestantism, and of the rationalistic, sceptical philosophy which it has produced, to be always doubting, questioning; “ever seeking and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,” unless by the substitution of another, higher principle. That there was a law in his mental aberrations, a progressive movement in his eccentric orbit, a “method in his madness,” even in its utmost extravagance, a careful perusal of his autobiography will show. It requires intelligence and patience, however, to read that book. His intellect was one always _quærens causas altissimas_. When he became once convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, and surrendered his mind to the supernatural light of faith, although his faith was _fides quærens intellectum_, he never changed or wavered in his belief of the grand dogmas of Catholic Christianity. That such a mind and disposition as his could be firmly held under the dominion of authority with the full assent of the understanding and the joyful submission of the will, is no weak proof that the authority is divine which subdued so restive a spirit. Pegasus in the yoke with his wings tied was an unruly, troublesome steed; but when Apollo mounted on his back and cut his cords, he was docile to his rein, while with all the joy of liberty he flew through the air, proud to obey such a master.

Dr. Brownson’s demonstration of the divine institution and authority of the church is unanswered and unanswerable. It is childish trifling, unworthy of rational men, to ignore his arguments and escape from his logic by petty criticisms on his person. Reason is objective and real; the subjective qualities of the reasoner have nothing to do with its authority. Several years before Dr. Brownson’s conversion, the writer heard several of the professors of Princeton express their opinion that he was the ablest and most dangerous antagonist of Christianity in this country. Like Saul of Tarsus, he was changed from an enemy to a champion of the cause of Christ and his church. Though somewhat sudden, his conversion was from rational conviction and the purest motives. It is impossible to deprive it of its significance or deny its importance. It is one of many instances proving that now, as ever, the Catholic Church has power to win and master the strongest and most fearless minds, the most generous and disinterested hearts. Dr. Brownson was generous and disinterested. He obeyed his conscience, devoted himself to truth and justice, served God and his fellow-men, without price, in poverty, and with a total neglect of popularity and worldly honor, comfort, enjoyment, and every sort of earthly pomp and ostentation. In a merely natural point of view he was like the simple old men of the Greek and Roman heroic age, and the early fathers of our degenerate commonwealth. His austere figure is an example and a reproach to a frivolous, luxurious, sceptical, perfidious generation. What a contrast between his incorruptible integrity and unpurchasable allegiance to truth and right, to virtue and honesty, to order and liberty, and the venal trafficking of our so-called statesmen, who swindle soldiers and artisans, rob the country and the poor, barter and trade in votes and offices, renounce their faith for political preferment, bid for honors by appeals to sectarian animosity, sell the most sacred rights and interests for their own selfish advantage, flaunt in a vulgar magnificence which is maintained by theft, and abscond to escape the punishment due to their felonies! Amid this mean crowd he stands out like Aristides among the demagogues of Athens; and compared with that other brood which has settled down on the domain of the press and the lecture-hall, the professors of atheistic materialism, he is like Socrates among the sophists. Detected swindlers, defaulters and robbers are despised and denounced, disgraced and punished, if it is money and material goods which they administer fraudulently or appropriate unjustly. They are the small cattle-thieves of _Waverley_, but the great _lifters_ escape unpunished and are honored. Tyrants who rob their subjects of their rights or neighboring states of their possessions; defaulters to faith, conscience, and God, who abuse their gifts and power to debauch and degrade the minds of their fellow-men; swindlers in the priceless goods of the soul and eternity; the prophets of falsehood and licentiousness; are enriched and applauded. Neglect, aversion, martyrdom, are the portion of the genuine heroes, sages, patriots, lovers and benefactors of the race; and whatever homage they receive is extorted, reluctant, scanty in proportion to their worth and merit. Even when they are admired and praised, their teaching is not heeded or their example followed by the fickle, frivolous crowd. Morally, when not literally, exile and the cup of hemlock are their portion. Those who literally encounter death and receive the palm of martrydom are the happiest and most favored among them. But these are the men who redeem the race, and are the only lasting glory of the age in which their task of labor and suffering is fulfilled. Among these crusaders Dr. Brownson enlisted when he abandoned the camp of infidelity and revolution to receive the cross. The _corps d’élite_ of Catholic laymen distinguished by their eminent superiority and illustrious services to the church, in this century, is a confraternity even more chivalrous and honorable than the Order of the Temple in its purest, brightest days. Görres, O’Connell, De Gerlache, Rossi, Lamoricière, Montalembert, Veuillot, Dechamps, Marshall, Ward, Garcia Moreno, Mallinkrodt—these are names which represent a great battalion of more or less renowned warriors in the sacred cause of Christ, of his Vicar, of true religion, science, civilization, and man’s eternal welfare. The unshaken, loyal fidelity of Abdiel among the innumerable hosts of revolted angels shines forth, not with solitary lustre, but like the splendor of the cohort seen in the vision recorded in the Machabees: _Peraera equites discurrentes, auratas stolas habentes, et aureorum splendorem armorum_. The Catholic laity of the United States have furnished one illustrious champion to this band. He loved the church first of all, and next his country. He deserved well of both, for Christian and civic virtues, sacrifices on the altar of God and the battle-field of the republic, wise and eloquent pleadings for Catholic law in the Christian commonwealth, and constitutional right, freedom, and order in the American state. We trust that his instructions and example will always be a light and an encouragement, a glory and a model, to the Catholic laymen of the United States, and especially to the young men of education who aspire to intellectual culture and feel the impulse to act valiantly and usefully their part as citizens of this republic and Christian gentlemen.

[112] It is but a few years since the death of Dr. Brownson’s mother, and his twin-sister still survives.

[113] The Convert, p. 96

THE ASCENSION.

“Thou art gone up on high.”—Ps. lxvii. 18.

Gone up! But whither? To a star? Some orb that seems a point of light? Or one too infinitely far For our fond gaze beneath the night?

Some fairer world, to which our own, With all its vastness, is a grain? Is’t there the God-Man sets His throne— Fit centre of a boundless reign?

Let science coldly sweep away A fancied Eden here and there From out the starry space, and say ‘Tis _all_ brute matter—crude and bare

Or stern philosophy demand. May not yon myriad orbs we ken Be but a pinch of golden sand, To stretch the narrow minds of men?

Yet Faith makes answer, meekly bold Narrow to me your widest lore— Without the blessed truth I hold That God is man for evermore.

He came to wed our life to His: As man was born, and died, and rose: And in His victor Flesh it is Our hopes of Paradise repose.

He wore it through the sweet delay That kept him with His dear ones yet; Nor put it from Him on the day He passed from topmost Olivet.

Then still He wears it in the skies— Matter in place. And when the cloud Received Him from the gazers’ eyes— Before their brimming hearts allowed

That they had lost Him—swift as thought, He reached the bright Elysian home His own primeval word had wrought— New Eden for the race to come.

THE WILD ROSE OF ST. REGIS.

An earnest consideration of the “Indian question” must impress every lover of our country with the most serious conviction of its importance and the fearful accounting which awaits us before the solemn tribunal of the future, if we follow the policy which has unhappily been hitherto adopted in relation to it.

Leaving out all thought of the principles of eternal justice, and consulting only the promotion of our temporal interests, the course we have pursued could not have been more fatal if projected for the sole purpose of defeat and ruin.

How much more wisely did France deal with the aborigines from the start than England! With what untiring patience did her colonial governments meet each successive savage outbreak, subduing the ferocious foe with weapons of Christian forbearance and clemency! They waged no war of retaliation and extermination against these “children of larger growth,” whom they found roaming through the forests of New France. They made no treaties with them, as we have done from the first, with the sole purpose, as it would seem, of breaking them. In their traffic with the Indians they forced no worthless rubbish upon them at prices far exceeding the value of the very best, and in exchange for their wares at a rate much below the half of their real worth. The dealings of traders with them were not only jealously watched and guarded by every possible check to the greed for gain, but a breach of justice and equity in those dealings was sure to meet its provided penalty.

France bequeathed to England with the cession of her Canadian provinces, in 1763, the wisest system—wisest because based upon an immutable foundation of Christian equity—which could have been adopted in regard to her Indian tribes; and England, though not always so scrupulously watchful of the transactions of her traders, was sagacious enough to perceive its wisdom and to uphold and continue it, in all its leading features, throughout her American dependencies.

Herein, as we apprehend, lies the secret of her success in this matter, which contrasts so strikingly with our miserable failure—herein, and not, as has been asserted, in any essential difference between these aboriginal races; for the savage is, after all, much the same through all his nations and tribes, and has a vast amount of human nature in his unsubdued bosom, which is as easily melted by kindness as exasperated by cruelty and oppression.

Circumstances recently brought to our notice have served to confirm and illustrate convictions we had long entertained on this subject, and we have thought the relation of them might not prove inappropriate or without interest at this time.

In the autumn of 1874 we went with a party of friends to the railroad depot at St. Albans, Vermont, to take leave of a portion of our number who were about to depart for Florida to pass the winter. While we were awaiting the arrival of the train from the north our notice was attracted by a group of Indian children who passed among the crowd assembled there, in quest of purchasers for their toilet articles and Indian knick-knacks.

An old lady of our party—whose father left Vermont with his family early in this century, when she was very young, to settle in northwestern New York, and who was now visiting the home and friends of her childhood for the first time—seemed to take a particular interest in these children. Calling a little girl to her, she asked what place they were from. “From St. Regis,” was the reply. “And did you ever hear of Margaret La Lune?” she asked. “She is our grandmother,” they answered, “and is in this village now.”

At that moment a very old squaw, dressed in a remarkably neat Indian costume, with a blanket of snowy whiteness thrown loosely around her aged form, entered the room. To our astonishment, our friend no sooner saw her than she ran to her with open arms, embraced her, and kissed each of her wrinkled and swarthy cheeks!

This sudden demonstration was evidently no surprise to the Indian woman; for when, after a moment of silence, our friend asked, “Why, Margaret! how does it happen that you remember me after so many years?” she simply replied: “My daughter should know that our people never forget!” finishing the sentence with some expressions in her own language which fell upon our ears more like vibrations produced by the wind passing over the chords of some musical instrument, than like any articulate utterance. Our amazement was not diminished when we heard our friend reply in the same tone and language.

Before we could express our surprise the train arrived. The bustle of departure and last words were hardly over when we found that the Indian party had also gone on to Burlington in the same train.

Upon our return home we beset our visitor with questions as to this singular interview and the warm affection which seemed to exist between her and the old squaw.

“I became acquainted with her, for a brief space, long ago, when I was a little child,” she replied, “and, though I have never seen her since, incidents occurred some years later which revived my recollections of her and fixed them in my memory.”

When we insisted upon hearing all about it, she related the following story of

THE WILD ROSE OF ST. REGIS.

When my father removed in 1815 to the new settlement at Rossie, on the western confines of St. Lawrence County, N. Y., the forests covering the territory lying on Black Lake, and the borders of the Indian River—which empties into that lake a few miles below Rossie—had scarcely yet been disturbed by the axe of the settler. Hordes of wild beasts held almost undisputed sway over regions now occupied by cultivated farms and smiling villages.

A place of more weird and savage aspect than Rossie presented, situated on both sides of that dark stream, can hardly be conceived. Rich beds of iron ore of a superior quality abounding among its rugged hills, and extensive lead-mines, furnished material for the operation of numerous furnaces, which, with the necessary habitations for their operatives, formed the little village. The largest Indian encampment in the county was also pitched upon its border, a short distance down the river.

The young squaws of the encampment mingled with the little girls of the settlement, and often became strongly attached to them. I was fascinated from the first with the manner of life in a wigwam, and soon became a special favorite with the Indian women. They frequently persuaded my mother to let me pass day after day in their wigwams, where I was carefully guarded and taught many of the simple arts in which they excel, and, as an unusual mark of their high regard, instructed in some of the secrets of those arts—such as the process for dyeing the quills of the porcupine with brilliant, unfading colors of every hue, in which they are so skilful; the mode of embroidering with them; the use of the moose-hair in such embroidery, and the manner of preparing it. I entered upon these pursuits with enthusiastic ardor and diligence, acquiring also—as a necessary consequence of this intercourse and training—with the facility of a youthful tongue, a sufficient knowledge of their language to communicate readily with them on all ordinary matters.

My mother was so fully engrossed with cares attendant upon the management of a large household, required in my father’s extensive business, that she had little time to devote to me beyond assuring herself of my safety. I recall with vivid distinctness, after the lapse of so many years, the startled surprise, not to say horror, with which she met my triumphant exhibition of a superb pair of moccasins for herself, lined with the soft, snow-white fur of the weasel, the work of my own hands. I had dressed and dyed the skins of which they were made, colored the brilliant quills and moose-hair profusely wrought into them, and finally cut, stitched, and embroidered them, under the direction of a pious old squaw who always watched over me during my visits to the wigwams.

My mother examined them in great surprise, her countenance expressing mingled pride and pity as she exclaimed: “Poor child! we _must_ send you away somewhere to school; for I am afraid you will become a thorough little squaw if we keep you in this wild place among such savage companions.”

I felt deeply wounded by the want of respect for my dear friends which her remarks implied, and insisted warmly that the squaws were better, more gentle, and a great deal more pious than the civilized women of the place; that they were never guilty of backbiting or quarrelling among themselves; never raised their voices above the soft tones of their ordinary conversation, but lived in peace and harmony, saying their prayers devoutly morning and night, and requiring their children to do the same. I enumerated eagerly all the good qualities for which I admired them, to which she cordially assented, but insisted, nevertheless, that, as I was destined to live among civilized people, it was not desirable for me to acquire the habits and tastes of these children of the wilderness.

One morning not long after this occurrence, as I was playing with the Indian children near an untenanted house on the bank of the river, they told me in their own language that we must not make much noise; “for there was a fading flower in that house, and the medicine-women feared it had been chilled by the breath of the destroyer.” I understood their meaning and asked one of them to go in with me to see the young invalid.

When we entered, an elderly squaw, the fine texture and snowy whiteness of whose blanket marked her as one of the best of her race, was bending over the slight form of a beautiful young girl who was lying on a bed of hemlock boughs which had been prepared in one corner of the room, and wrapping a blanket around her, while she lavished upon her those tender epithets and pet names with which the Indian dialects abound. As she turned and saw me, she said: “See, here is the little pale-face of whom Loiska told us, come to see my Rose of the woods! Will not the sweet flower lift its head to the sunshine of the pale-face?”

The maiden smiled and extended her wasted hand to take mine. I shuddered at its clammy coldness.

“See, dear mother,” she said plaintively, “the White Lily shrinks from the touch of the dews that lie upon your Rose! You must not be false to yourself or to me; for it is an angel who whispers to the little one that these are the dews of death. Your best skill cannot stay them, and they will cease only at the call of the great messenger, who will remove your flower to the garden of that ‘Mystical Rose’ whose fragrance we love so well.”

“Oh! let not my blossom say so. The journey was long and the bed was hard. The rays of the sun upon the water were too strong for our tender bud, and it wilted, but will soon revive in these pleasant shades. The pale-face will procure from her mother, who is passing kind to our people, strengthening food and refreshment for the Wild Rose!”

“Yes! yes!” I cried, “she will and we will not let it droop. I will go directly to my mother, and I know she will help you!”

I was thrilled by their look of grateful surprise when they found I could understand their language, and their softly-ejaculated benedictions followed me as I bounded away in quest of my mother. I found her busily engaged in household matters, and, seizing her with irresistible energy, literally dragged her into the presence of my new friends, telling her what I knew of them by the way.

When we arrived she inquired tenderly as to the symptoms of the lovely invalid. Finding they had come from St. Regis by water, and had brought her on a bed of boughs in their canoe to Ogdensburg, thence up the Oswegatchie to Black Lake, and thus far up the Indian River, she also was of the opinion that the frail child was exhausted by fatigue, and that rest would revive her.

They had undertaken the journey in the hope that a change would be a benefit to her health. Her father came with them and was at the camp, but the mother preferred a place where her charge could be better sheltered than in a wigwam.

My mother went home, and, gathering comfortable furniture for their room, despatched a man with it; then, preparing some hot wine negus with toasted crackers, she sent them by me to refresh the sufferer while some nourishing broth could be made ready.

From that time I forsook the wigwams and devoted myself to my Wild Rose; who became so fond of me that she could scarcely consent to my leaving her for the nights. Each morning found me at her bedside before sunrise, with my own breakfast as well as hers, that we might partake of it together, and with a profusion of fresh flowers from the abundance of my mother’s flower-garden wherewith to adorn her room. The Indian children had helped me to festoon it with wreaths of ground pine and boughs, until it was an evergreen bower in which we took great satisfaction.

My mother gathered from her her little history. She had been betrothed to a young son of their chief, and they were to have been married the previous fall. The time for the nuptials had been appointed and her bridal dress prepared. The young man was sent by his father on some business to Montreal a few days before the time thus appointed. On the way his canoe was drawn suddenly into a whirlpool in the rapids, dashed to fragments upon the rocks, and he perished. The shock of this terrible calamity was fatal to her health, which had never been robust. From that moment she drooped, and, though quite calm, even cheerful, had been gradually wasting and sinking. They improved the first mild days of spring to try the effect of a change of air and scene, after she had received the last sacraments from their priest in preparation for the worst.

For a few weeks she seemed to revive, and even walked with me once as far as my own home. Her appetite improved, and she relished all that my mother’s care provided for her food.

As I remember her at this distant day, I know she must have been a being of superior beauty and loveliness; but there was nothing about her which so fascinated and impressed my young heart as the spirit of piety that governed all her words and actions, and seemed to flow from the depths of her pure soul like transparent waters from a fountain, refreshing every one who came within their influence.

One warm evening in the early summer we sat together for a long time in silence and alone, watching a beautiful sunset over the wild “Rossie Hills,” when her soft voice breathed in her own musical language expressions which subsequent events fixed indelibly in my memory.

“My sweet Lily,” she said, “will often uplift her pale face to the smiles of the glorious sunset when the Rose, who loved to bask with her in their golden gleam, will be blooming in gardens which need them not; for the ‘Sun of Righteousness’ will be their light, and will fill them with glories unknown to earthly bowers, and his Blessed Virgin Mother will smile upon them. But the incense of prayer, like the breath of its own perfume, will ever float from the Rose to the throne of the Eternal that her Lily may be transplanted at last to a place by her side in that happy home where sighing, and parting, and sorrow shall cease for ever! Oh! will she not strive for admittance to the garden of our Lord here, that she may rejoice in the light of his countenance hereafter?”

In a voice broken by my sobs I promised all she asked, and I doubt not her prayers helped me long afterwards in obtaining the grace to fulfil the promise.

The next morning I found her much exhausted, and that she had passed a restless night. Her mother raised her in her arms while she took the broth I brought for her breakfast, of which she was very fond. She seemed weary, and, as her mother lowered her gently to the pillow, she suddenly lifted her eyes to heaven, while a smile of celestial rapture stole over her beautiful face, and exclaimed, “Pray for me, my own mother; for, behold! the bright angel is spreading his wings to bear your Rose to the presence of her Redeemer!”—and was gone. The Indian mother and myself were alone with the lifeless form of our beloved one.

The change, the shock, was so sudden and unlooked for that I stood horror-struck and paralyzed, for the first time, before the dread messenger who had stolen the breath of my sweet Rose. The whole scene was so incomprehensible to me that I could not believe the tones of her dear voice were hushed for ever, but persuaded myself that she had only fallen asleep.

Amazed, I watched the poor mother as she calmly recited the prayers for the departing spirit over her child for some time, the only outward sign of her anguish being the tears which flowed in torrents down her cheeks, while every line of her wan features expressed unquestioning resignation to the will of Him who had given and taken her treasure.

The prayers concluded, she tenderly closed the dear eyes, adjusted the slender form, folded the delicate hands over a crucifix on her breast, and entwined the beads, which had so seldom been laid aside by them in life, closely around them in death. When she sat down at length, and, opening her blanket, extended her arms towards me, the first glimpse of the dread reality burst upon me in a flood of crushing agony, and, springing to the open arms which drew me in a close embrace to her bosom, I wept aloud in a paroxysm of frantic, uncontrollable grief. She fondly soothed and caressed me, bestowing upon me those expressions of tender affection which she had been wont to pour into the ears now closed for ever, and uttering fervent prayers to heaven that its choicest dews might descend upon the Lily which had cheered the last hours of her sweet Rose.

I was inconsolable, and told her vehemently that, since Heaven had taken the Rose, the Lily would go too, and that it would never lift up its head again; and, indeed, my grief was so violent as to injure my health, and I was soon sent away to new scenes.

My mother assisted in preparing the frail form of the Indian maiden for the grave. Her mother had brought with her the bridal dress of her child, and in that they arrayed the beautiful departed for the bridal of death. Then, enfolding her in a linen sheet, they wrapped her blanket about her and gently laid her down upon the bed of boughs her father had prepared in the canoe for her removal to the graves of their kindred at St. Regis. Then followed the sad leave-taking and the departure.

The dismal forests which clothed each margin of the Indian River seemed to bend over that sombre stream in reverential sympathy as the Indian father and mother, with their faded Rose, floated silently down its dark waters and out of our sight for ever!

* * * * *

Some years had elapsed since this event, and during the interval misfortunes had overwhelmed our family. At the very time of severe reverses in his business my father was taken with a malignant fever and died. My mother, my young brother, and myself were thus left in desolate affliction to battle with adversity as best we might. Our pleasant home was surrendered to creditors, and we sought the forests of Upper Canada, whither a family who had long been tenants on our farm had gone several years before. They had taken up a tract of land under a government grant to settlers, and, when they heard of our great calamity, wrote, urging us to do the same, as they could render great assistance to us if we were near them.

The land we took was covered with very valuable timber, and the first object was to get a portion of it to the Quebec market, that its avails might pay for clearing the land and preparing our new home.

My brother—hitherto the pet of the family, and in danger of being the spoiled child of fortune—set about the task with an energy that surprised every one. He was greatly beloved by the Indian hunters, who knew my father and had received many favors from him in the days of our prosperity. They assisted us in our removal, and remained to help and encourage my brother in the lumbering business, so new to him, under the direction of “Captain Tom,” an old Indian who was very skilful in such operations. We removed late in the fall, taking with us a supply of provisions more than sufficient for the winter, and but little else of worldly gear.

When the spring opened, thanks to our kind neighbors with their oxen, and the good Indians, a quantity of lumber of various kinds had been drawn to the river bank, and as soon as the ice went out they put it into rafts for transportation. These were constructed in separate sections, each with its rude little _caboose_ to shelter the two men who went with it. The sections were then firmly united in one long raft by means of strong withes, in such a manner that they could be readily detached by cutting the withes, if necessary, in making the dangerous descent of the rapids above Montreal.

A few days before they set out a vicious, drunken Indian called “Malfait,” who had been loitering around all winter, quarrelling with the men and giving no assistance, applied to Captain Tom for whiskey and for permission to go down on the rafts, both which requests were refused. He went away muttering threats, and the old Indian feared he was meditating mischief.

My brother wished to go with Captain Tom on the forward section, as was the custom for the one who conducted the navigation. We gave a very reluctant consent, and our parting with him was saddened by many misgivings.

They proceeded prosperously on their voyage as far as the “Long Sault,” so called, the first dangerous rapid, the chief difficulty in passing which, for experienced navigators, was to avoid being drawn, by an almost irresistible current at one point, into a furious maelstrom called the “Lost Channel,” from which few had ever escaped who once entered it.

They reached the head of the Long Sault late in the afternoon, and anchored there for the night, with the roar of the tumbling waters in their ears. The moon was shining brightly, and they betook themselves to rest early, that they might start betimes in the morning. Very late in the night my brother was awakened from a sound sleep by the old Indian, who laid his hand heavily upon him and told him to keep very calm and not to struggle or make the least effort to shield himself. “For,” said he, “we are entering the Lost Channel; our part of the raft has been cut loose. I have bound you firmly to the same stick of timber to which I am now binding myself. We can only leave ourselves in the hands of the Great Spirit; for no other arm can help us.”

My brother was paralyzed with terror as the maddened waters seized the raft as if it had been a child’s plaything, tore the heavy timbers apart, and bent and shivered many of them like saplings. The one to which he and the Indian were attached was often uplifted, by the force of the raging torrent, its full length, to be thrown violently down and swallowed in the depths of the foaming flood. The shock of these concussions soon benumbed his faculties, and his last conscious act was to recommend his soul to the mercy of God, before whose awful tribunal he supposed he was about to appear.

When he began to recover his senses, it was like waking from some frightful dream. He was too much bewildered to realize for some time that he was in a comfortable Indian lodge, with a kind old squaw in attendance upon him. She would not allow him to ask any questions or agitate himself, assuring him that all was well, and he should know the whole at a proper time. As soon as he was able to hear it she gave him the history.

On the day before their arrival at the Long Sault her son, with a party of Indian hunters who had been up the St. Lawrence and were returning to St. Regis, had fallen in with Malfait, and, from inquiries made by him, suspected that he was watching, with no good purpose, for rafts that he expected would come down the river. He suddenly disappeared, and they did not know in what direction. When her son told her the circumstance and their suspicions—for the bad character of Malfait was well known, and they had heard that Captain Tom was coming down with rafts-she set out at once with men and canoes up Lake St. Louis to the foot of the rapids, to give aid if it should be needed.

They discovered the timber to which my brother and his faithful friend were lashed, and, releasing them, brought their insensible forms as speedily as possible to her lodge on the shore of that lake, with very little hope that they would ever revive. The old Indian, however, soon began to show signs of life, and, when he was able, recounted what had happened. He had no doubt that Malfait came in the night, detached the raft, and steered it into the rapids to satisfy his malice against him.

As soon as he was strong enough to go, her son went with him down the river to look after the remainder of the raft, leaving his young friend in good hands, though still unconscious of the tender care he was receiving.

They found the rafts in Lake St. Peter below Montreal, and her son returned. She then sent him with some others to gather the timber of the wrecked raft. They collected all that could be found on the shore of the lake, to be taken when the rafts should come down next year.

“And now, my son,” she continued, when she had brought the narrative to this point, “I am known here as Margaret La Lune, but to your mother and sister as the mother of the Wild Rose of St. Regis. You may have heard them speak of her, though you were too young at the time of their acquaintance to know about it yourself. It was to her care the Great Spirit committed you in your extremity, that she might be allowed to make some return for their kindness to her and her sweet child, which she has never forgotten, and has ever since endeavored to repay by giving all the help in her power to navigators on these perilous waters. It was in one of these attempts that my husband lost his life some years ago. Great was my joy when I learned from your Indian friend that I had rescued one so dear to them from a grave in the rushing flood.”

My brother remained with her until the return of Captain Tom. He delivered the lumber to the merchant in Quebec to whom it was consigned—who had long known the sterling qualities of the faithful old Indian—and informed him of the situation in which he left his young employer. The merchant advanced money to him to pay off the men and to bear his own and my brother’s expenses home, sending by him a statement of the balance left and subject to my brother’s order. The money for their expenses was all that Captain Tom or his Indians could ever be persuaded to accept for their valuable services at that time and in after-years. Their only reply to my brother’s persuasions was, “We remember your father. He good to his Indian brothers.”

You may well imagine our surprise and gratitude when we heard from my brother’s own lips the story of all that had befallen him, and of the devotion of our excellent Margaret. She was absent when he went down the next year for the last time, and he did not see her.

Our affairs prospered beyond our expectation. We brought willing hands and courageous hearts to the strife with adverse fortunes, and, by the blessing of God upon our efforts, did not fail in time to retrieve them. My mother died a few years after my marriage with a son of our former tenant, whose sister my brother afterwards married. She divided her time between the two homes, tenderly beloved and cared for by her children and grandchildren, and honored by all who knew her.

You now understand the reason for my great surprise and affectionate meeting with Margaret at the depot, which must have seemed strange indeed to the witnesses. In our short chat I promised to go to pass some time with her upon my return home, and am not without hope that I shall persuade her to go with me to see the children and grandchildren who have often heard of her and of the fidelity with which her people treasure up the memory of kind acts.

HAMMOND ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.[114]

The wonderful relativity of psychology to the purely somatic phenomena comprised under the term physiology, while not having altogether escaped the observation of earlier thinkers, did not assume the significance it now possesses till modern science compelled mere psychicists to recognize the invaluable services this new handmaiden bestowed on their favorite pursuit. It had been too much the vogue to frown down attempts at chemical explanations of vital processes as verging towards materialism, and thus materialism was in reality strengthened, since the opponents of modern physiology had shut their eyes to facts as stubborn and undeniable as the soul itself whose cause they were championing. This antagonism was unfortunate; for, though of short duration, it gave rise to the impression in the popular mind that the old science dreaded the new light, and that recent discoveries tended rapidly to overthrow the time-honored belief in the distinct substantiality of the soul. To this same arrogant rejection by pedantic orthodoxists of facts that seemingly conflicted with accepted views, may be ascribed the sneering and triumphant manner of many scientists who fail to take account of the slowness with which men reconcile themselves to truths not hitherto suspected. Had, however, the data of modern science been at first fully considered, it would have become evident that theories and assumptions alone ran counter to the doctrine of a spiritual soul, and that scientific facts, startling and numerous as they were, did not, when viewed by the light of a just interpretation, conflict with any prior truth. The hasty and groundless character of the assumptions which tend to materialism may be inferred from the claim not long since put forward in the _Ecole de Médecine_ at Paris, to the effect that the science of physiology demands in advance the rejection of any principle of activity in man not amenable to its methods and instruments of research, on the ground that man in his totality is the true objective point of this science, and the admission of aught in him which it cannot determine is equivalent to stating that man is more than he is. According to this authority, therefore, the notion of a soul, viewed as a spiritual substance, distinct and different from the body, hampers science and circumscribes the field of its inquiry. But if the vast strides made by physiology within the last decade have been the occasion of some pernicious speculation, and have seemed to give countenance to materialism, this has been the case only when the science transcended its own data and soared into the region of conjecture. Its legitimate fruits are manifest in the flood of light it has thrown on the most intricate questions of psychology, and the elucidation of points which, but for it, would have remained for ever in obscurity. Indeed, it may be said to have created a new branch of psychical science, and to have brushed away many cobwebs that clouded the psychology of the schools. The volume before us represents the latest expression of the physiology and pathology of the nervous system, and is characterized by unusual closeness of observation and accuracy of expression, while evincing a proneness to theorize on points concerning which the author is least at home. Dr. Hammond has been a close student at the bedside and an indefatigable worker with those instruments of research which have almost built up his science, but for all an indifferent thinker, as we shall shortly endeavor to prove. It is true that no authority is more frequently invoked, and with good reason, to determine questions relative to mental aberration and unusual conditions of the nervous system; but when he abandons the ophthalmoscope, the cephalohœmometer, the œsthesiometer, and assumes the _abolla_ of the philosopher, he evidently misses his _rôle_. He is undoubtedly a physiologist of the first rank and a respectable authority on minute nervous histology, but as a theorist he is a failure. Accustomed to dogmatize on facts coming within the scope of the senses, he applies the same procrustean rule of reasoning to purely intellectual processes, and speedily flounders in a quagmire. His mind has tipped the balance in the direction of material things, and has not been able to regain its equilibrium.

As a repertory of interesting facts, gleaned in the course of a long and varied experience, his book is invaluable. It bristles with information and is replete with comments which prove Dr. Hammond to be an accurate, close, and painstaking observer, as well as an accomplished anatomist. His chapter on Aphasia is intensely interesting, and constitutes a valuable contribution to the theory of localized function. Aphasia is that inability to use language which proceeds, not from paralysis of the labial muscles, nor from hysteria, nor from injury of the vocal chords (_aphonia_), but from a lesion of that portion of the brain which presides over the memory of words and the co-ordination of speech. Many instances are adduced in proof that this inability results from the impairment of a given portion of the cerebral substance; and from the constant recurrence of the same effects from the same lesion the inference is drawn that a very restricted portion of the brain is concerned in connecting thoughts with words, co-ordinating these, and arranging them in articulate sounds. Authorities, indeed, are not agreed as to what special brain lobe this faculty is to be ascribed, but the fact is borne out by unquestionable evidence that some portion of the anterior convolutions controls and regulates the power of speech. The point of interest is that the function is localized and depends on the minute physical texture of the nerve substance through which it is carried on. Dr. Hammond justly claims the credit of having first observed that the form of aphasia called amnesic (forgetfulness of words) depends on some lesion of the vesicular or gray matter of the brain, since it is unaccompanied by paralysis, while the form called ataxic (inability to co-ordinate articulate sounds) is connected with the _corpus striatum_ which presides over motion, and so we find this latter form always associated with paralysis.

No summary of this chapter can do it justice, so pregnant is it with facts and abounding with varied suggestion. We would remark, however, that Dr. Hammond has failed to call attention to the remarkable confirmation which the condition of amnesic aphasia offers in support of the inseparable connection between thought and some symbol of expression—a circumstance which Trousseau, in his learned work on _Clinical Medicine_, has noted at length. Trousseau says: “A great thinker as well as a great mathematician cannot devote himself to transcendental speculations unless he uses formulæ and a thousand material accessories which aid his mind, relieve his memory, and impart greater strength to thought by giving it greater precision. Now, an aphasic individual suffers from verbal amnesia so that he has lost the formulæ of thought.” This fact of aphasia curiously coincides with Vicomte de Bonald’s theory of the divine origin of language, which is based on the supposed impossibility of having a purely intellectual conception without an accompanying formula or word to circumscribe and differentiate it, and that accordingly language, in such relation, must have been communicated.

It is likewise corroborative of the view taken by Max Müller, who says (_Science of Language_, 79): “Without speech, no reason; without reason, no speech.” And again: “I therefore declare my conviction, whether right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought, in one sense of the word—_i.e._, in the sense of reasoning—is impossible without language.”

The latest disclosure of science, therefore, so far from conflicting on this important point with the philosophy of the Scholastics, endorses and sustains it, and is opposed rather to the rationalist view of the question.

It is in the chapter on Insanity that Dr. Hammond first betrays the crudeness and shallowness of his philosophy. On page 310 he says: “By mind we understand a force developed by nervous action, and especially the action of the brain.” And again: “The brain is the chief organ from which the force called mind is evolved.”

In this definition the author is guilty of having used a term more obscure and ambiguous than the _definiendium_ itself; for no two scientific men agree in their view of force. Dr. Mayer, of Heilbronn, says: “The term force conveys the idea of something unknown and hypothetical.” “Forces are indestructible, convertible, and imponderable objects.” Dr. Bray, in his _Anthropology_, says: “Force is everything; it is a noumenal integer phenomenally differentiated into the glittering universe of things.” Faraday says: “What I mean by the term force is the cause of a physical action,” and elsewhere, “Matter is force.” Dr. Bastian, on _Force and Matter_, declares force to be “a mode of motion.” Herbert Spencer says of it: “Force, as we know it, can be regarded only as a conditioned effect of the unconditioned cause, as the relative reality, indicating to us an absolute reality by which it is immediately produced.” Another writer (Grove) calls forces the “affections of matter.” Now, the word mind conveys, even to the most illiterate, a precise and definite notion. Every one knows that it is the principle within him which thinks and underlies all intellectual processes; but when Dr. Hammond informs him that it is a “force,” and he finds that a bewildering confusion of opinions, expressed in the obscurest terms, prevails concerning the nature and essence of “force,” he finds that he has derived “_Fumum ex fulgore_.” Even the term “evolves” is unfortunate; for the word occurs in a great variety of connections. If force is an entity, it cannot be evolved; it is produced. Of thought, indeed, it might be said that it is evolved from the mind, since it represents the latter in a state of active operation, and has no separate entity of its own; but mind, being known to us as something in all respects distinct and diverse from matter, cannot, except by a lapse into the grossest materialism, be said to be evolved from the brain. Had Dr. Hammond present to his mind a definite idea when he penned the word, he might have easily found a clearer substitute. Carl Vogt knew well what meaning he intended to convey when he said: “Just as the liver secretes bile, so the brain secretes thought.” There is candor, at least, in this statement, and none of that shuffling timorousness which shame-facedly glozes materialism in the formula: “Mind is a force evolved from the brain.”

Having satisfied himself that there can be no question as to the accuracy of this definition, our author places mind in contrast with “forces in general” by designating it a compound force. What he means by “forces in general” it is hard to say; for if mind is a force, it possesses the generic properties which ally it with other forces, and must therefore be one of the “forces in general,” since that is a veritable condition of its being a force at all. But this is a minor error. The expression “compound force,” used as Dr. Hammond uses it, implies a far graver mistake, and all but stultifies its author. Either mind is a force (and be it remembered the author has not enlightened us as to the sense in which we ought to understand the term), having a special function to perform, from which, and from its mode of performance, its character is inferred, in which case it is a simple force, no matter how great may be the number and variety of the objects on which it is expended; or, it is a combination of forces, each proceeding from its proper source or _principium_, and each directed to its proper object-term or class of object-terms, in which case it is not one force merely, however much Dr. Hammond may insist upon calling it compound, but a series of forces, each possessed of a distinct entity and an individual identity. The doctor evidently did not study the scope and import of the word when he thus loosely employed it, else he would have perceived that whatever is compound is some one and the same thing made up of parts, and not a collection of individuals.

We will now see in what manner he distributes and assigns to duty the _sub-forces_ comprised under the general term “compound force.” For aught we know, Dr. Hammond may have once been familiar with the researches of Stewart, Reid, Brown, and Hamilton, not to mention Locke, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Malebranche; but he certainly labored under some form of amnesia when he devised the following scheme of psychology: He declares that the sub-forces into which the compound force called mind is divisible are fourfold, viz.: perception, intellect, emotion, and will. He defines perception to be “that _part_ of the mind whose office it is to place the individual in relation with external objects.” This definition supposes that the whole mind is not concerned in the act of perception, but that, while one part of it is quiescent, another may be engaged in perceiving. This view of perception has the questionable merit of originality, differing as it does from the definition given by every author from Aristotle to Mill, who all regard perception as an act of the mind, and the faculty of perceiving nothing else than the mind itself viewed with reference to its perceptive ability. Further on he says: “For the evolution of this force [viz., part of the mind] the brain is in intimate relation with certain special organs, which serve the purpose of receiving impressions of objects. Thus an image is formed upon the retina, and the optic nerve transmits the excitation to its ganglion or part of the brain. This at once functionates [_Anglice_, acts.—C. W.], the force called perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.”

We have quoted this passage at some length, not only for the purpose of exhibiting Dr. Hammond’s theory of perception, but to show how admirably the _argot_ of science serves to hide all meaning and to leave the reader dazed and disappointed. No one yet, till Dr. Hammond’s appearance on the psychological stage, ventured to call a mere impression on an organ of sense perception; indeed, the whole difficulty consists in explaining how the mind is placed in relation with this image. It was with a view to elucidate this much-vexed matter that the peripatetics invented their system concerning the origin of ideas. It is all plain sailing till the image or phantasm in the sensitive faculty is reached; so that at the point where the Scholastics commenced their subtle and elaborate system Dr. Hammond complacently dismisses the question by saying: “And the image is perceived.” What need we trouble ourselves about general concepts, reflex universal ideas, intelligible species, the acting and the possible intellect, when there is so easy a mode of emergence from the difficulty as Dr. Hammond suggests? No doubt he would, like hundreds of others who do not understand Suarez or St. Thomas, regard the writings of these doctors on this subject as a tissue of jargon, overloading and obscuring a question which is so plain that it needs but to be enunciated in order to be understood. Then the long and warm conflicts which have torn the camp of philosophy, and separated her votaries into opposite schools, would all be happily ended; it would suffice to say: “Gentlemen, your toilsome webwork of thought is no better than the product of Penelope’s distaff; the whole affair may be summed up in these words: A ganglion functionates, the force called perception is evolved, and the image is perceived.” _Mirabile dictu!_ It is not, therefore, necessary to discuss the question of ideal intuition to find out whether the idea is a representative and subjective form or objective and absolute; whether we are to agree with Reid and the school of experimental psychologists, or do battle under the colors of Gioberti and Rosmini, or the learned and lamented Brownson? All these things are no doubt beneath the consideration of the materialist’s psychology.

But we have still more to learn concerning perception at the feet of this new Gamaliel. He says (page 312): “Perception may be exercised without any superior intellectual act, without any ideation whatever. Thus if the cerebrum of a pigeon be removed, the animal is still capable of seeing and of hearing, but it obtains no idea from those senses. The mind, with the exception of perception, is lost!” Perception is not, therefore, connected with consciousness; for, according to Dr. Hammond, we may hear and see without knowing it. We do not deny that impressions may be made on the organs of sense without eliciting an act of consciousness, for which reason, indeed, ordinary language has reserved the use of words designating the function of organs for those cases where consciousness is elicited; for no one would dream of saying that he feels the prick of a pin or hears another speak without knowing it. A cadaver can perceive as well as a living subject, if we are to accept Dr. Hammond’s view; for we know that an image may be formed and retained by the retina after death, and this is all that is needed for perception. To explain all intercurrent difficulties, we have but to fall back on ganglia and evolution. At each step of the intellectual process a convenient ganglion exists which evolves just the sort of force requisite to produce the desired result, and thus we have a perfect system of psychology. Of the intellect he says: “In the normal condition of the brain the excitation of a sense, and the consequent perception, do not stop at the special ganglion of that sense, but are transmitted to a more complex part of the brain, where the perception is resolved into an idea.” Thus is the brain made the sole organ of thought. We have but to say, “A perception is resolved into an idea,” and in so many words we bound over difficulties which made Plato, after much deep pondering, invent a theory of thought, yet regarded as a matchless monument of subtlety and sublimity, which taxed the subtle intellects of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Leibnitz, and Kant, and which will, in all probability, continue to be an object of curious research to the end of time. If a child, beholding the changeful images of a kaleidoscope, should, prompted by the curiosity of youthful age, inquire the reason of this beautiful play of colors, surely no one would cynically answer him that one figure is resolved into another. Dr. Hammond slurs over the difficulty; for the vexing question is, How does the mind form an idea?—not, whether a ganglion is excited and evolves force, but how, on the occasion of such excitation, an idea, which is something altogether different from the excitation, is produced in the mind.

This question he not only fails to answer, but exhibits a woeful depreciation of its scope and gravity. He continues: “Thus the image impressed upon the retina, the perception of which has been formed by a sensory ganglion, ultimately causes the evolution of another force by which all its attributes capable of being represented upon the retina are more or less perfectly appreciated according to the structural qualities of the ideational centre.” This sentence furnishes the keynote to the whole theory of material psychics, and leads us to inquire into its growth and history. When Bichat in France and Sir Charles Bell in England simultaneously discovered that a separate function was assignable to the anterior and posterior nerve-fibres projected from each intervertebral foramen; that the anterior possess the power of causing muscular contraction, the posterior that of giving rise to sensation, they laid the foundation of the wonderful and beautiful though much-perverted doctrine of the localization of function. The experiments of Flourens, Claude Bernard, Beaumont, Virchow, and Kolliker multiplied similar discoveries and enlarged the significance of Bell’s and Bichat’s conclusions. To every ganglion its separate function is now sought to be assigned, and we have already alluded to the interesting facts which ataxic and amnesic aphasia have lately developed. The intimate relation thus manifested between particular portions of the brain-substance and the corresponding mental function, aroused and quickened curiosity to find out the nature and reason of this dependence. The materialist perceived in this doctrine of the localization of function a new weapon for attacking the spirituality of the soul, and was not slow to bring it into requisition. It was assumed that a reason for the difference of function in the different portions of the nervous structure would be found in the intimate texture of the nerve-tissues themselves; and the assumption, in so far as it is logical to suppose, that a difference in organization can alone account for a difference in the manifestation of power, was fair and plausible. All efforts were now directed towards such discoveries in the minute histology of the nervous system as would point to a connection between special ganglia and the functions performed by them. The microscope, indeed, brought to light many wonderful differences, but none sufficient to justify what is, therefore, but a mere assumption—the conclusion that the peculiar organization of certain portions of the nervous system is as much the efficient cause of the functions with which they are connected as the sun is the cause of heat and light, and the summer breeze of the ripple on the harvest field. It was deemed unnecessary to look for an explanation of intellection and volition beyond the known or knowable properties of those portions of the nervous substance with which the processes in question are connected. If, it was argued, certain varying states of the inner coat of minute blood-vessels fitted them to select, some arterial blood, and others venous blood, and no one thought to invoke any other agency in determining the cause of the difference or of the function, why should we admit the existence of a distinct substance in accounting for mental phenomena, when structural differences just as palpable and obvious are at hand to explain them? In a word, not only difference of function was attributed to difference of structure, but this latter difference was held to be the sole cause and chief origin of the function itself. Dazzled by the brilliancy of their discoveries, and misled by a false analogy, many physiologists confounded condition with cause, and, having perceived that the manifestations of the mind are profoundly modified by the character of the medium through which they are transmitted, inferred that the medium generated the function. This confusion of condition with cause was further aided by the current false notion of cause. Following Hume and Brown, most modern men of science behold nothing else in the relation of cause to effect than a mere invariable antecedence and subsequence of events, which, of course, nullifies the distinction proper between indispensable condition and cause. With them that is cause on the occurrence of which something else invariably follows; nor need we look for any other relation between the two. This doctrine, applied to the phenomena of the mind, could not but lead the discoverers of localized functions to downright materialism. They perceived that certain phenomena invariably proceeded in the same manner from certain portions of the nervous organism, and that any disturbance of the latter was attended by a marked change in the character of the phenomena with which it was connected. This invariability of antecedence and fluctuating difference of effect pointed unerringly, they thought, to structural differences in the nervous system as the efficient cause of all its functions. Applying this doctrine of causation to the process of intellection, we find how logically it sustains Dr. Hammond’s assertion that mind is an evolution of force from a special ganglion, since an excitation of the same ganglion is always followed by the same result—viz., a mental apprehension.

The invariability of sequence is all that is needed to establish ganglion in the category of causes, and ideation in that of effects.

We will now apply the same method of reasoning to a case in which the obvious distinction between cause and condition cannot fail to strike the most inattentive, and make manifest the sophistry of materialistic physiology. Should we stray into a minster filled with a grand religious light, and find chancel, nave, and pillar all radiant with purple and violet, soft amber and regal red, we would naturally look to the stained-glass window to discover the source of those warm tints and brilliant hues, and would seek to determine what in those party-colored panes gives rise to the effects we admire. We first discover in each colored glass a peculiarity of structure which especially adapts it to the emission of its proper ray, and then note that the difference in the color of the rays depends on this same peculiarity of structure. The problem is solved. Since a structural peculiarity in the violet pane, for instance, fits it for the emission of its own ray, and so on with respect to red, yellow, and purple, why need we look for any other source of those colors? As we discover in each party-colored pane the cause of the difference in the color of the ray, we mistake the cause of the difference for the cause of the ray, and assume not only the difference of the ray to depend on the color of the transmitting medium, but deem that medium to be itself the sole source of the light. In like manner the speculative and transcendental physiologist finds in the adaptation of certain portions of the nerve-tissue to the production of specific functions a reason for referring the highest order of mental phenomena to the nervous system as their cause, forgetting that the adaptation in question may be but a mere condition modifying the manifesting power of the substance which is the true source of the phenomena. The observer who regards colored glass as the source of light, because he has been able to trace a connection and establish a relation between the color of the ray and the minute structure of the glass, differs in naught from theorists of Dr. Hammond’s stripe, who make nervous ganglia centres or sources of ideation because of the invariable production of the latter on the occasion of some excitation in the former. In both instances is committed the error of confounding condition with cause, of mistaking the cause of a difference between two occurrences for the cause of the occurrences themselves.

We have dwelt at this length on Dr. Hammond’s theory of the Intellect, as it embodies an error so pernicious that the callow mind of the medical student, awed by the authority of a name, is likely, on reading this chapter, to imbibe principles which, slowly elaborated, will lead him in process of time to the chilling tenets of materialism.

The third sub-force enumerated by Dr. Hammond is Emotion, which, like perception and intellect, is a force evolved on the occasion of an excitation in some other portion of the brain. Thus the emotions of joy, sorrow, hope, and love can be excited by making an impression on this portion of the nervous substance, just as we elicit different sounds from a piano by striking different keys in succession. “‘Sblood! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?” Yet Dr. Hammond would of man make a _Hamlet’s_ pipe, with its ventages and stops, to be sounded from the lowest note to the top of the compass at the pleasure of a skilled performer. The physiological signs of emotion he has truthfully described, such as blushing, palpitation, increase of the salivary secretion, and other bodily changes, the connection of which with the emotions themselves will, we fear, so far as there is any hope of a satisfactory explanation from physiology, remain a dead secret for ever. The fourth and last of the sub-forces evolved by the brain is Will, with respect to which the doctor has not much to say, though it is easy to understand that it owes its origin, according to him, to the same ganglionic changes as the three preceding. He has not even defined this force, but merely says that by volition acts are performed. The ordinary idea of will exhibits it as a power which the soul exercises at discretion, even at times in the absence of any motive, except caprice, and often against a strong excitement of passion, so that it can be connected with no organic changes which are necessary and subject to law. This idea Dr. Hammond’s doctrine entirely overthrows; for if will be the result of ganglionic excitation, it must surely follow the latter, and can consequently be in no manner connected with its causation. Whatever cause, then, may have produced the excitation, it must have been necessary—_i.e._, have necessarily produced volition. Volition, therefore, being the result of changes necessarily produced, must itself be necessary, and we then have the anomaly of necessary will, which is a sheer contradiction. There is no such thing, therefore, as volition, in the true and accepted sense of the word, and what we deem to be the free acts of the soul are brought about as necessarily as pain or pleasure when the exciting agents of those emotions are in operation. It is not difficult to estimate the practical consequences of this doctrine. Man, thus made to act by organic changes and the necessary determination of his nature, not being answerable for these, cannot be made answerable for their consequences; so that the good and evil he performs resemble, the former the changes which the bodily system undergoes in a state of health, the latter the morbid changes of disease. The good he does is as much the necessary outcome of his nature as the golden fruit is of the tree, while his bad actions are as the tempest that wrecks or the breath of a pestilence.

This is the self-same doctrine of Broussais dressed in the garb which the latest researches in neurological science have prepared for it, and much more covertly and insidiously presented.

Broussais says: “L’ivrogne et le gourmand sont ceux dont le cerveau obéit aux irradiations des appareils digestifs; les hommes sobres doivent leur vertu à un encéphale dont les stimulations propres sont supérieures à celles de ces appareils” (_Irritation et Folie_, p. 823).—“The drunkard and the glutton are those whose brain obeys the summons issued by the digestive organs; sober men owe their virtue to the possession of a brain which rises superior to such orders.” Surely in this, as in countless other instances, history continues to repeat itself.

The definition of Insanity given by Dr. Hammond surpasses in clearness and comprehensiveness all those which he has collected from other sources, and is such, we consider, as will with difficulty be improved upon in the respects mentioned. He calls it “a manifestation of disease of the brain, characterized by a general or partial derangement of one or more faculties of the mind, and in which, while consciousness is not abolished, mental freedom is perverted, weakened, or destroyed.” This definition more closely applies to all occurring cases of insanity than any hitherto given, though it is a pity the doctor has robbed its latter portion of all meaning by having virtually denied mental freedom in his foregoing theory of volition. The remainder of the chapter on insanity is exceedingly instructive and interesting. The author has clearly exhibited the difference between illusion, hallucination, and delusion, nor has he permitted himself once, in his application of the terms to individual cases, to interchange or confound them. Indeed, it is a matter of regret that so acute an observer and so diligent a collector of facts was ever tempted to betake himself beyond their legitimate domain, and to launch himself on the troubled sea of speculation. But it has been ever thus:

“Laudet diversa sequentes.”

The great bulk of the work—and it is a volume of nearly nine hundred pages—is taken up with the discussion of those nervous diseases which, for the most part obscure in their origin and of infrequent occurrence, have been brought to light for the first time in this monograph, so that the medical profession owes a deep debt of gratitude to the laborious researches of Dr. Hammond in a very partially explored field. To the general reader the chapter on Hydrophobia cannot fail to prove interesting, presenting as it does a graphic description of the symptoms which usher in this terrible disease, and suggesting remedies which are within the reach of every one, and are calculated to avert the awful consequences of a bite by a rabid dog, provided they be employed without delay. The interval between the reception of the wound and the outbreak of the symptoms is very variable, but the majority of cases occur within seven months. This interval is called the period of incubation, and is usually not characterized by any other signs than a certain amount of mental depression, often the result of a nervous apprehension of consequences. The sleep especially is apt to be disturbed by such forebodings, so that the animal which inflicted the wound is frequently dreamt of. The prognosis of the disease is most discouraging, since our author says: “There is no authentic instance on record of a cure of hydrophobia.” The _post-mortem_ signs of disease are shrouded in obscurity; for, though Dr. Hammond details at great length certain altered conditions of the brain and spinal cord, as well as of the arteries supplying them, those changes are by no means pathognomonic—_i.e._, peculiar to the disease in question. The point of greatest practical interest to those who have so far escaped the death-dealing fang of Blanche, Tray, or Sweetheart is that, should so sad an occurrence befall them, they must hasten at once to a surgeon, and see that, after having tightly bound the limb above the injury, he use the knife with an un-sparing hand, till every part with which the teeth of the animal may have come in contact has been entirely removed. Cauterization, either by fire, or nitrate of silver, or some of the mineral acids, is preferred by some physicians, and has proved quite as successful as excision. A Mr. Youatt employed cauterization four hundred times on persons who had been bitten by rabid animals, and every time with success. Dr. Hammond employed cauterization seven times—four with nitrate of silver and three with the actual cautery—and always with success. This proceeding should be adopted, even though several weeks, or even months, may have elapsed since the infliction of the wound; in which case, however, excision is deemed preferable to cauterization. The importance of this knowledge to persons residing in a city overrun with mongrels is very great; and while we hope our readers may never have occasion to put it into practice, we would recommend them to treasure it up for an emergency which, however sad, is always possible.

Following the chapter on hydrophobia are some very interesting statements concerning Epilepsy—a disease which, in a light form, prevails more extensively than most people imagine. The most remarkable precursory symptom to an attack of epilepsy is what is called an _aura_, or breeze. This usually begins in some lower part of the body and shoots towards the head. It resembles at times an electric shock, and again a sharp stab or blow. The strangest _auræ_ are hallucinations of vision which lead the patient to believe he sees a rapid succession of colors. The experiments of Dr. Hughlings Jackson with regard to those colored _auræ_ are full of interest.

He finds that a vision of red ushers in the phenomenon, and that the whole prism is exhibited to the sight till the violet end of the spectrum is reached. The approach of the _aura_ is often felt, and gives admonition to the patient of the speedy approach of a seizure, so that he is thereby enabled to seek a place of security and retirement before the actual advent of an attack. Many interesting cases, exhibiting the freaks and peculiarities of this strange disease, are recorded by Dr. Hammond. Convulsion, tremor, chorea or St. Vitus’ dance, and hysteria are next treated of in succession, and much valuable information might be derived from a perusal of these chapters.

Catalepsy, one of the strangest of nervous disorders, receives a due share of attention, though much that is authoritative cannot be affirmed concerning it, since the data of the disease are neither numerous nor reliable. When the cataleptic seizure is at its height, there is complete suspension of consciousness, and a muscular rigidity supervenes, which causes the limbs to retain for a long time any position, no matter how awkward or irksome, in which they may be placed.

This condition so closely simulates death that in former times mistakes were frequently made which were not discovered till life had really become extinct in the grave. Another strange feature of this disease is the magnetic influence a female subject exercises over her unattainted sisters during a paroxysm. It has been observed that, if one female in a ward fall into a cataleptic fit, those immediately around her are seized in the same manner, the attack lasting for a period of variable duration. The description of these nervous maladies gradually leads to Dr. Hammond’s views on Ecstasy, which are all the more interesting as the chapter is chiefly taken up with the discussion of the wonderful and perplexing case of Louise Lateau. The chapter should have followed the one on hydrophobia, and been entitled Thaumatophobia rather than Ecstasy, since the doctor exhibits a most contemptuous estimate of the intelligence of those who hold that there can be anything not explicable by the known laws of physiology in the most wonderful cases of ecstasia. He ranks among ecstatics of a former period St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa, Joan of Arc, and Madame Guyon, all of whom, he says, “exhibited manifestations of this disorder.” With respect to those celebrated personages there is no sort of medical testimony giving evidence of the existence of disease, or in any way furnishing an adequate scientific explanation of the facts revealed by their historians. It is as illogical and presumptuous for Dr. Hammond to qualify their cases in the manner he does as it would be for a believer in the supernatural to assert the miraculous character of a mere feat of legerdemain. The only difference is that Dr. Hammond’s disregard for the rules of evidence is applauded by the world as indicating a vigorous and healthy intelligence, whilst the equally illogical assertor of the supernatural character of what is not proven to be such would be at once, and with justice indeed, put down as an imbecile and a slave to superstition. The burden of proof is ever thrust on other shoulders by our author, and never borne by his own. Let but Dr. Warlomont devise a pathophysiological explanation of Louise Lateau’s stigmata, not only gratuitous from beginning to end, but even at variance with the facts of science, and Dr. Hammond gives in a blind adhesion to his conclusions without a single inquiry into the weight of proof on the other side. Even Dr. Warlomont acknowledged the difficulties with which Dr. Lefebvre’s work bristles in the way of a physiological explanation, and it is evident, from the intensely-labored character of his report, that he entered into the controversy as an _ex parte_ disputant. We do not intend to reopen the discussion of this famous case, since enough concerning it has already appeared in these pages.[115] It is sufficient that we note the recusant spirit of some modern scientists whenever there is question of the supernatural. They will not believe, no matter how overwhelming the evidence, lest they be suspected of weakness, or of bartering their intellectual freedom for the formulæ of an effete authority. These gentlemen consult their prejudices rather than truth, and, provided they tickle the ears of radicals and non-believers, they consider themselves lifted into the proud position of supreme arbiters between reason and authority. Dr. Hammond says ecstasy was “formerly quite common among the inmates of convents.” We would inform him that its frequency was never greater than now, and the widespread attention which one or two cases have attracted is proof how rare is that frequency. Indeed, it has been the invariable policy of the church to discourage tendencies in this direction, and spiritual advisers often remind their penitents that an unbidden and unwelcome guest not rarely presents himself in the garb of an angel of light. It is related of St. Francis of Sales that a nun having declared to him that the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, he inquired how much _vin ordinaire_ she had taken that day; and, upon her answering, “One glass,” he told her to drink two the following day, and she might have two apparitions. In view of this disinclination of ecclesiastics to encourage ecstasia, especially among women, whose nervous system is so impressionable, it ill becomes Dr. Hammond, having the mass of testimony at his command in support of the genuineness of the two cases to which reference is made, to use the following language: “But the effort was in vain, just as is the attempt now to convince the credulous and ignorant of the real nature of the seizures of Louise Lateau, Bernadette Soubirous—who evoked Our Lady of Lourdes—and of the hundreds of mediums, ecstatics, and hysterics who pervade the world.” The frankness with which the church authorities demanded the closest and most searching scientific investigation of the case of Louise Lateau, and their expressed determination to accept its legitimate results, should be to all reasonable men a guarantee of their good faith and of their abhorrence of impostures. It is consoling to think that the intelligence of some scientific men is still unfettered, and that, though in the absence of a prominent member—Dr. Lefebvre—the friends and abettors of Dr. Warlomont endeavored to spring on the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine a resolution declaring the case of Louise Lateau fully explored and closed, the Academy refused to adopt it, thereby admitting that so far science has failed to account for the marvellous phenomena of which this girl is the subject. The inherent defect of Dr. Hammond’s reasoning is that it identifies cases which are merely analogous. It is true that the majority of pseudo-ecstasies resembling the inspired ecstasy of holy personages are dependent on a disordered condition of the nervous system, but this resemblance does not necessarily tend to classify the latter under the same head. Yet this is what Dr. Hammond and his school do. They seize general traits of resemblance, shut their eyes to essential differences, and, finding that the greater number of cases obey throughout certain known definite laws, they conclude that all cases do likewise. History abounds with instances of disordered imagination depending on a morbid condition of the nervous system, but in all the impartial observer can discern well-marked differences, separating them essentially from authentic cases of true ecstasy. Baron von Feuchtersleben[116] relates many extraordinary cases of this sort. Herodotus (ix. 33) speaks of the Argive women who, under a morbid inspiration, rushed into the woods and murdered their own children. Plutarch relates the story of a monomania among the Milesian girls to hang themselves. We have all read of the _convulsionnaires_ at the tomb of Mathieu of Paris. Dr. Maffei describes a similar epidemic, which received the name of “Pöschlianism” from a religious, fixed delusion which originated with one Pöschl. These cases were usually accompanied by convulsions and terminated in suicide. Besides the disorders alluded to, we read of sycanthropy among the natives of Arcadia, a somewhat similar aberration among the aborigines of Brazil, and the delusion of the Scythians that they were women. Dr. Hammond relates a case as wonderful as any of these—viz., that of the noted Ler, an inmate of the Salpêtrière, whose contortions and antics resemble the hysteria of the “Jerkers” in Methodist camp-meetings. The attempt to identify all occurring cases with these is a flagrant violation of the inductive method by which scientific men, above all others, claim that they are guided. If observation and experience are to be our guides in determining the truth, then let us admit nothing but what these criteria verify. This is precisely what these gentlemen do not do; and because they perceive a general resemblance between a group of facts, they identify all possessing this resemblance, and predicate thereon a general law. We cannot hope for a discontinuance of this baneful and short-sighted procedure until men who profess to be votaries of science shall become truly rational, instead of making an empty and futile boast of being rationalists.

[114] _A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System._ By William A. Hammond, M.D., Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York, etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

[115] _Vide_ THE CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1875 - March, 1876.

[116] _The Principles of Medical Psychology._ By Baron Ernst von Feuchtersleben, M.D., Sydenham Society, p. 252.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S GOVERNMENT—PROGRESSION.

If the preceding considerations have at all succeeded in imparting to our minds a right view of the importance of matter, not solely in its own nature, but in the spiritual world, and in the developments which the spiritual world only arrives at through the medium of matter, we shall find we hold the key to many mysteries, and are walking at liberty in a world of marvels.

So far as we are able to judge, and aided by all that science can discover, we have every reason to believe that the act of creation is complete, and that no more material is needed to work out the ultimate intentions of the divine Being. Certain races of animals have become extinct, and all races are modified more or less by external influences of climate and food. Probably many have all but changed their nature since they first sprang into being; as they will do once more when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. But whether or no this be so, it would be rash to imagine that new creations of hitherto unexisting fauna or flora are ever to be given to the great cosmos. There is nothing to prove that such is the case; and there is a vast amount of facts pointing to the opposite conclusion. Moreover, the completeness of creation is the grander idea of the two, and the most like the ways of God, especially when we consider that the existence of matter is only as a means to an end; and that end accomplished, why should there be any further increase of what makes up the material world? We will therefore put aside all idea of its being subject to either increase or decrease, while we dwell upon the fact that it is subject to mutations of the most diverse and subtle nature. It is true we are told there shall be new heavens and a new earth. But everything, even the preliminary fact that the “elements will melt with heat” and all things be dissolved, points to renewal, but not to extinction; for we know practically that dissolution, whether by heat or any other force, is not extinction in any case, but only change of form. The new earth is to be one in which “justice dwelleth.”[117] But even on this earth we have evidences of the sanctification of matter by its contact with spiritual things.

We have it first in the relics of the saints, to which not only a sacred memory is attached, but actual supernatural gifts emanate from them, because they have become holy to the Lord; because they had, while still in life, so frequently, or rather so effectively, come in direct contact with the Eucharistic Sacrifice, with the Body and Blood of Him who, in taking flesh and feeding us thereon, brought God to us and dwelt within us. But the saints are rare; and the example, therefore, derived from their relics is an exceptional one. There are other examples of the way in which the living influence of the faith has changed mankind, through the ages of history, by hereditary transmission.

It has been remarked that while Rome still remained pagan there nevertheless existed other sentiments, and as it were another atmosphere, caught from the presence of Christianity, even while Christianity was ignored or persecuted. The pagan spirit was essentially worldly. How could it be otherwise? Poverty made a man ridiculous; and ridicule is the beginning of contempt. Christian charity and compassion had no pagan counterpart until Christian example gave rise to the notion that it was a wise and good thing to feed the hungry and care for the orphan. Long before the reign of the first Christian emperor the pagan Roman heart, catching some warmth from the celestial fire which burnt unseen in the largely-extended Christian population, began to form institutions which faintly reproduced Christian charity; but this was the influence of mind over mind.

What is a far more remarkable fact is the gradually-developed influence of generations of Christian ancestors over the mere natural instincts of humanity. How much do we not owe to the fact that we descend from a mainly Christian stock! What sweet domestic ties, what calm, heaven-reflecting pools of life, do we not enjoy—not owing to our own personal graces, but because grace, in a greater or less degree, has, though may be with grave exceptions, presided over the rise and growth for centuries of those who have preceded us.

When St. Jerome wrote to the youthful daughter of his beloved penitent Paola, as the former was about to dedicate herself to God in a virgin and secluded life, a very large and most emphatic portion of his instructions is taken up with exposing to her the difficulties she will meet with in preserving an essential virtue, and the extreme measures she, a maiden of seventeen, must resort to as a guarantee against temptation. To what, save to the blessed effects of centuries of a more or less Christian ancestry, do we owe the blessed fact that, whereas to any young girl now entering religion her Christian parents and her priestly adviser would fill hours with counsels about holy poverty, obedience, and the conquest of her own will, hardly one word would be breathed about any imminent peril to a virtue which she only thinks of in its highest religious sense, because she has never even dreamt that it could practically be in danger? The very flesh has been purified and chastened by centuries of grace. The human instincts have been almost unconsciously raised to a higher level; and, evil as the world may yet be, we habitually entertain angels unawares. Thus does the longanimity of God wait with ever-slackening step through the long ages of time, while grace permeates slowly the few but ever-increasing willing hearts, sanctifying soul and body equally and together; for “the Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish.” He deals patiently with the world for the sake of the church, patiently with the wicked for the sake of the good, and because the good are not good for themselves alone; they yield a perfume of which they are not conscious, but which attracts others to them; and if but the ten righteous men can be found, the city will be spared!

* * * * *

We often hear allusions made to the destructive work of time, to the ruin of nations, and the obliteration of vast and crowded cities; and writers of the day indulge in sensational reflections upon the future fate of the peoples and homes of modern days. We are all acquainted with the New Zealander who is to sit amid the ruins of London. But those who speak and write in this sense have in their minds the fate of heathen nations and pagan cities in the first hour or epoch of the world’s existence, before the accomplishment of the mystery of the Incarnation—that is, before God dwelt upon earth to reconquer by his precious blood and sweat of agony his kingdom among men. But as Christians we cannot believe that Christian nations, however imperfect in their Christian practice, will ever be cast out, root and branch, and the ploughshare pass over their hearths and His altars as over Ninive and Troy, as over the Etruscan cities and the pleasure-loving Roman towns of southern Italy. The ten righteous are never wanting in any city where the altars of Jesus are erected, and where the Mother of fair love is named with tender and reverent confidence. The surging tide of evil may threaten us, as in guilty Paris and brutalized London; but though heavy chastisements may pour down on these examples of modern vice, yet never, never will the dear Conqueror who has deigned to plant his foot on the teeming city streets as his priests carry the Blessed Sacrament to the dying, and who has his tabernacles of love here and there through our crowded thoroughfares, relinquish his recovered inheritance. Never, never will the lands where he has dwelt be desolate like the godless lands of old.

Believe it, O ye loving hearts! who are burning in silent anguish over the erring and the ignorant, who are pouring sad tears on the cruel wickedness of high places, and on the degradation and depravity of the neglected and the forgotten.

Heavy and sharp and terrible may be the punishment of our iniquities; but even hell itself is less hell than it would be but for the shedding of the precious Blood; and no nation where his name is invoked, no people among whom he has his part—albeit not, alas! the larger part—can ever perish out of sight, out of mind, as the huge heathen nations have gone down in utter darkness in the lapse of ages, and hardly left a stone to proclaim, “I am Babylon.”

Sweet patience of Jesus! sweet pity of Mary! we wrong you both when we forget that where you have once entered, there you will abide; because the few are the salvation of the many; because, though not every door-post and lintel bears the red cross, yet those that do bear it plead for the rest, and the angel of destruction stays his steps at the first and drops his avenging sword; for his Lord and Master has passed that way!

* * * * *

We have spoken of the creation as being complete. We have concluded that, while we are incapable of measuring its extent, and can only vainly guess at unknown worlds beyond our own system, it will never receive one atom, one molecule, in addition to those of which it now consists. Our reason for this belief lies deep down in the very roots of theology, which we find a better reason than any with which mere human science can furnish us, because the end of the latter is contained within the end of the former, as the greater contains the less. We have already stated our reason—namely, that the ultimate object of the creation was the Incarnation, and, that object accomplished, there can apparently be no need of further creation. In saying this we are not presuming to limit the power of God or to interpret his unrevealed will. We are, with all diffidence, formulating a supposition which approves itself to our reason. The creation was the expression of the goodness of God, uttered outside himself by the Logos, God the Son. But the creation, merely as such, merely as existence, and man, the lord of creation, merely in his natural state, were incapable of union with God. Therefore, from the first, man was constituted in a state of grace. Thus the second mission, which is that of the Holy Ghost, and which is the second in the eternal decrees, the _nunc stans_ of eternity, is the first in the _nunc fluens_ of time. For the grace of God, which is the Holy Ghost, was given to man in measure and degree from the first moment of his being, four thousand years before the first mission, that of God the Son, took place in time. Both are continuous, and both are progressive. The mission of God the Son did not cease when he ascended into heaven; for it is continued at the Consecration in every Mass, and in every tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament dwells. At each Mass he comes and comes again! In the Blessed Sacrament he remains. Therefore his actual presence is progressive, in proportion to the increase of his altars where the bloodless sacrifice is offered, and where the Bread of Life is reserved. We are ourselves entirely persuaded (and this opinion is in harmony with that of many modern theologians) that the Incarnation would equally have taken place had man never fallen. It was the object of the creation. Man’s fall called for his redemption by the death and Passion of our Lord, and, as a loving consequence, also for the sacrifice of the Mass. But it does not follow that, had the Redemption not come after the Incarnation, because man had not fallen, there would have been no Blessed Sacramental Presence. The church having nowhere defined to the contrary, it is permitted to those whose devotion to the Blessed Sacrament makes the whole creation a blind mystery, and even the Incarnation appear incomplete without it, to believe that the Blessed Sacrament would always have been, and a sinless Adam, with his sinless offspring, have held communion with the incarnate God through and by this divine nourishment, even as his redeemed children do now, only in that case without the sacrifice of the Mass; for where there is no sin there is no sacrifice.[118]

This may be but a pious thought, and we have no wish to press it upon our readers. We leave it to their devotion to follow it out or not as they will. All we want to prove is that, though our Blessed Lord came once only, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Blessed Virgin; and once only was crucified, dead, and buried, and rose the third day, and ascended into heaven, nevertheless his sacramental presence is a perpetual carrying on and carrying out of this his first mission to us, and that thus his mission bears a progressive character. He is the conqueror “_proceeding_ to conquer.” He is still sending his messengers before his face to prepare his way. His priests are still going forth to all nations to preach the remission of sins, by planting his altar, which is his earthly throne, in divers parts, till the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the covering waters of the sea.[119] We are looking forward to the fulfilment of that prophecy in all its plenitude; for surely no one can allege either that this time has already come, or that because some, it may be several, missionary priests have had a certain success among the heathen, anything faintly resembling such a grand, lavish promise as that, has received even an approximate fulfilment. Still less will any one assert that such promises are vain; and if not so, then let us look forward, and ever more and more forward, to the progression of our dear Lord’s kingdom upon earth; himself present amongst us in the Blessed Sacrament, coming in that meek guise to take possession of his territories, and all but silently planting his standard first here, then there, as new altars are raised to him, and as other souls are brought beneath the sacraments—the oaths of allegiance to their new Master.

We cannot disguise from ourselves that we have fallen upon evil times, and that faith has grown dim. Nevertheless, we maintain it would be difficult for any thoughtful and unprejudiced mind to deny the ever-increasing evidence that the leaven is leavening the whole mass; still less can it be affirmed that anything has ever done this in highly-civilized countries except Christianity.

The wealth and learning of the Romans, their vast literature, their high art, had no effect in producing either morality or mercy. There were noble examples among them of men and women who, we may believe, responded to the light vouchsafed them, whose names have come down to us; and doubtless there were many, utterly unknown to history, who obeyed the dictates of their conscience, enlightened by the divine Spirit of whom they had never so much as heard. We do not believe that anywhere, in any age, in any city, however given up to iniquity, there was nothing but eternal death reigning over poor, fallen, suffering humanity, and leaving the beneficent Creator, the dear Redeemer, without a soul to love and serve him, albeit in a blind way. We believe such a condition of things to be simply impossible; but however that may be, whether more or less than we have dared to hope, Christianity was not there, and in its absence nothing availed to produce generally even the appreciation of purity or real charity.

As we have said, the Romans were a grand law-giving nation. Civil rights were understood, upheld, and protected better than by the modern Napoleonic code, and far more in harmony with Christianity, which ultimately profited by, and copied so largely, the Roman law. But the law did not touch the heart or enlighten the conscience; and while the public life of Rome had much moral grandeur, the private existence of man and woman alike was infamous; and it was so in proportion to their advance in wealth and luxury.

We have said that only Christianity can moralize civilized nations, and we did so advisedly; for a certain inoffensiveness, and the practice of many natural virtues, exist among nations that have not come within the range of so-called civilization. Where the intellectual and reasoning powers of men are undeveloped, they retain something like the innocence of children. But when man without Christianity is raised to intellectual height, cultivated in mind, refined in manner, surrounded by art, and with advanced knowledge of physical science—when he has thus developed all his powers, without having a corresponding force given him against the inclinations of natural concupiscence, he is then no longer in the infancy of humanity. It is mature, and the ripe fruit tends to rottenness. Civilization and knowledge must go forward _pari passu_ with divine grace to be a real benefit to mankind; for there is no good apart from a high moral standard, whether we consider the individual or the nation, and no moral standard will long support itself without the concomitance of grace. We are told that the great question of the day is the _modus vivendi_ between the church and modern progress. If this be so, the church alone can discover and develop it; because the church is the organ of the Holy Ghost, and when our Lord was about to leave this earth he promised the Paraclete, who would “teach us _all things_.” Therefore the church is the ultimate dispenser of all science, no matter of what nature; and as the reign of the Holy Ghost shall be more and more established in the now perfectly-defined status of her infallibility, so will she increasingly take up unto herself, within her own arena, all the gifts of knowledge and science which are her essential prerogatives. Once more she will become the queen of nations, the guide and pioneer of the world.

Hers has been a long history of struggle, and frequently of apparent defeat; but out of it she has ever risen victorious, though her victories are different in character from the triumphs of the world, because they are so silent and so peaceful that they are only known by their results. The first of these results is more liberty, a widening of the cords of her tent; for as the church defines her own nature with increased accuracy, so by this accuracy she leaves more freedom to her children. Definition is also limitation; and both exclude doubt. Doubt is slavery, while certainty is liberty. When our Lord began to teach of the coming kingdom of God, he did so by parables, and to his own immediate disciples alone was an explanation vouchsafed: “To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables.” He spoke of himself as “straitened” until his work should be accomplished.

The whole history of the church has been on the same principle. Until certain things have been accomplished her path is hemmed in, and the accomplishment is ever effected by the means of her enemies, even as our salvation was by the hands of those who crucified Jesus. The rise of each heresy has produced the definition of doctrine, and each definition has widened the horizon of our faith and flooded our life with light. The war with evil has had no other result than to impart spiritual strength to the spouse of Christ. And now everything points to a great crisis, a culminating term, a springtide of the waters of grace; for the long war with Protestantism has led up to the dogma of the Papal Infallibility. The coping-stone is laid, and a new era is beginning, which will be the fuller development of the individual life of the soul in the beauty of holiness and in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The external edifice is complete; the interior decoration will hasten towards completion. Already we see the signs of those better times approaching. We see them alike in the preternatural as in the supernatural world. The spirits of evil are guessing at the future, and, as is their wont, are anticipating the coming events by parodying the divine future action. The sleepless intelligence and never-wearying enmity of Satan pursues with relentless accuracy every development of God’s truth in the history of the church. With the fragments, in his fallen state, of his former untold science, combined with his thousands of years of cumulative experience, his one desire is to be beforehand with God. In advance of the great divine act of the Incarnation, he instituted the horrors of possession, and practised them in the pagan world on a scale he is but seldom allowed to repeat where the name of Jesus is uttered. With each phase of God’s divine action on the world, and of concomitant human necessities, he changes his tactics. There are but few among us who remember or realize the fact that every incident of our lives is lived in connection with three worlds—the tangible, visible, material world, the world of grace, and the world of the prince of the powers of the air. The masses live (consciously) in the first alone; the good and pious remember the second; but few even of these attempt to realize the last in anything like a just proportion with its immensity, its subtlety, and its ubiquity. Nor is it our object to press the subject on their attention. It is not every mind that can bear to meet the thought, beyond the limits of the universal prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

But those who can bear it and can follow it out should be doubly on watch and guard in the interests of the multitudes who, it is true, believe in their guardian angel, but forget their left-hand diabolic attendant. It was not so in earlier times when faith was young, among the primitive writers and the great ascetics. One of the holiest of the past generation said that the cleverest work the devil had ever accomplished was the getting men to disbelieve in his existence. Having, as a rule (except among Catholics), established his non-existence in their minds, the sphere of his occult action is necessarily vastly extended. We do not look out for what we firmly believe is not there. He is among us, and we see him not. He has studied the Scriptures, and he knows there will be a time when our maidens shall dream dreams and our young men see visions. He guesses at the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, in a more determinate and wider reign of grace, in the future of the church; and above all he has not forgotten, though many of us have, that there is the promise of yet another mission that will alter the whole face of the world, that will follow on the ever-growing and extending reign of the Holy Ghost, and that will culminate the glories of their Queen—the mission of the angels. They will come, the bright, swift-winged messengers, and “they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and those that work iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,”[120] and “the angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just.” We read these sacred words constantly, but how far do we realize their meaning? How far have we amplified the thought in our mind, and given it form and consistency? We read of the day of judgment; but do we suppose that it will be an affair of four-and-twenty hours—the angels in the morning, the judgment about noon, and all the past, present, and future of humanity in heaven or hell by twilight?

It is true we are told that the awful time will come as a thief in the night, and we are apt to explain that into being sudden; whereas it may more properly describe the fact that the time will steal upon us, silently and hiddenly. We shall find our bright brethren, the angels, around us, among us, before we have altogether realized their approach; just as, gradually and by degrees, we shall find the Spirit illuminating the minds and hearts of the innocent and the zealous, the “youths and the maidens,” with divine inspirations, first as the dawning of new light, then as the blaze of noontide. All God’s dealings with his poor creatures have been gradual. They are hidden, but they are never sudden. He always sends his angels before his face to prepare the way. Noe was more than a hundred years engaged in building the ark, and there it lay, a sign to all men, the black timber ribs against the gray dawn and the flaming evening sky, scanning the heavens like a musical score on which were written the notes of the awful anthem of God’s wrath, while the hammers of the artisans beat time through a century of vain appeal to a God-forgetting world. The suddenness must be laid to their own door, and in no way resulted from God’s dealings with them. The Deluge itself took forty days to exhaust the downpouring floods of rushing waters from the opened gates of heaven. The dawn is ever gradual; the light steals upon us, though at last the sun’s broad disc springs sudden and refulgent above the gray horizon. Many of us, though less guilty in our indifference, are like Gallio, who “cared for none of those things.” The round of our daily life suffices us, and we neither give the time nor the trouble to come to conclusions or to arrive at definite notions even respecting the signs of the times, which our Lord rebuked his disciples for not discerning. Catholics will often talk among themselves and with those outside the church in a casual way about the spiritist manifestations which are so rife in our day, as if it were quite an open question, and that it were unnecessary to have any fixed opinion on the subject. Not only have they never realized that the church has spoken again and again, but also they have never used their common reasoning powers to arrive at the conclusion that either spiritist manifestations, as they are now presented to us, form part of God’s mode of governing his creatures, and therefore are most precious to each of us, and not to be treated as a trifle; or, as they are in fact, the devil’s guess at some of God’s secrets, and his anticipation of something belonging to the future destiny of man. We have no intention of polluting our pages by allusion to the jejune trifling of spiritist appearances. We would only ask every one solemnly and reverently to think of God’s ways in our world, and then, as before him, to declare whether or no the half-ludicrous, partially ghastly, and altogether jerky, will-o’-the-wisp performances of spiritists have anything in consonance with the dignity, the uniformity, the plain good sense (if this term sound not irreverent) of God’s dealings with his children. They talk of undiscovered natural laws! When did any grand, God-implanted natural law begin to reveal itself by tricks and antics? What are natural laws but revelations of God’s action and divine being? Every one of them shows us God, and leads us to God by simple and lucid gradation. It is the travesty of his laws in which the devil delights; and as within ourselves there are undeveloped laws which have been overlaid by original sin, and lie within us as the butterfly lies in the chrysalis, therefore the enemy of mankind, who, with far-seeing cunning, predicates the glorious future of mankind before the final consummation of all things, is using his knowledge to practise upon these laws to the detriment of those who lend themselves ignorantly as his instruments.

The fallen angels know far more accurately the secrets of our nature than we know them ourselves, and through this knowledge they deceive the unwary. Still more easily they have their way with those whose reprehensible curiosity induces them to resort to dangerous experiments. It is distressing to hear good, practical Catholics talking loosely on these matters, as though they had little or no data on which to form a solid, reasonable opinion, and were unable to distinguish between natural though occult laws, as they are brought out by divine, supernatural influence on the saints, and the miserable and contemptible practices of the spiritists, the “lo here, lo there” of those who prophesy false Christs.

It is an old proverb that the devil can quote Scripture, and so, also, can he base his evil designs on his knowledge of Catholic truth. We believe in the possibility, by a special permission from God, of the reappearance of the departed amongst us, and of the holy souls coming to ask for prayers, as we read constantly in the lives of the saints; and probably many of us have ourselves known of such incidents on creditable evidence. The devil acts upon this faith as he acts upon his own knowledge of occult laws; and blending a theoretic truth with practical error, he weaves a mesh to catch souls, all the while foreboding the time when the more developed mission of the Holy Ghost, and the elaborating in countless hearts of that hidden holiness by which the church is “all glorious within,” shall bring about that greater familiarity with the supernatural which is foretold as a characteristic of the latter times.

The early teaching of the church laid more stress on the mission of the angels than it became her habit to do in later days. Not that the church, as the organ of the Holy Ghost, ever gives an uncertain sound or calls back any of her divine utterances; but, like a watchful mother, she holds in her own keeping such of the treasures, new or old, which are not adapted to the present wants of her children. There came a time, as Christianity grew more diffused, when the early Christians, not entirely weaned from the heathen practices of their forefathers, were in danger of attempting to define the occupation and attributes of the angels beyond the limits of the church’s authority. They affected to have learnt the names of many, and to decide on their position and purpose in the angelic hosts. Out of that arose a kind of worship and invocation of the angels which bordered on superstition and savored of the worship offered to the demons among the heathens. This fell under the reprobation of the church, and by a natural reaction left devotion to the angels at a lower ebb than what is warranted by sound doctrine.

Then came the German heretics and the dawn of modern Protestantism; and one of the first of their efforts was to banish all belief in the interposition and ministry of the angelic host. They took advantage of the errors and follies of individuals to write against the whole doctrine of angelic action; and though among Catholics the faith in their guardianship and aid is constant, yet it is not now practically (of course virtually it is the same) what it was in earlier times. But here also we have another instance of how the church brings forth from her divine armory the weapon most needed to defeat the machinations of the arch-enemy; for it has been reserved for our day to see devotion to the angels taking a fuller extension and a more definite form than it ever before held in the history of the church’s inner life. In all her definitions and in all her practices there resides the spirit of prophecy. They have not only reference to the present time; they are far-seeing and far-stretching. And as the definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in our own time has led to the extension of her reign in the hearts of men, and is preparing the way every hour for her sweet sovereignty to “take root in an honorable people,” so does the increasing devotion to the angels who form her court harmonize therewith, and prepare for that mission of the angels which, however remote, is as certain as the day of judgment. Oh! what enlarged hearts do we need to take in, however inadequately, all that lies before us in the history of God’s creation. Far distant though it be, still is it ours, just as the past is ours, and the present; for all are united in Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Nothing shall be lost to us. No treasure of the past but has tended to brighten our own brief day, no promise of the future but what we shall reap; for we have all things in Him who contains all in himself, and who gives his whole self to us.

Let us in thought go back to Paradise, to our great progenitor before his fall. For Adam knew Jesus. Not, indeed, as we know him—the rainless skies of the garden God had planted had formed no background to the beloved sign of our redemption; for as the Redeemer Adam knew him not. We have already given our reasons for believing that besides knowing Him, by the graces of infused science, as the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, he knew of the intended Incarnation through and by which Jesus was to unite Himself to us. We have also dared to imagine that he foresaw the Real Presence as the carrying out and completion of the Incarnation. But in those days Adam knew of no shedding of blood, of no sacrifice of suffering. The whole of that pathetic and terrible chapter, written in red characters, was a sealed one to our once sinless forefather. But in addition to the first beautiful and tender history of the future Incarnation there was a glorious page redolent with light and full of joy; for Adam looked out beyond Jesus as the Creator, and Jesus as the elder Brother of man in the Incarnation, to Jesus as the Glorificator. Adam knew that the green glades and fruit-laden forests of Paradise were not to constitute his ultimate home. He aspired after the time when the God-Man would reward his fidelity at the close of a longer or shorter probation, and admit him from the infancy of innocence into the resplendent manhood of accomplished and final grace. Then would he be like Jesus; for he would see him as he is!

Thus did Adam dwell in the contemplation of two futures—the one tender and familiar, the other glorious and triumphant—until his own act had made the rift between the two, and the blood-stained cross crowned the heights of Calvary. _O felix culpa!_ We dare to say it, because our mother the church has said it. And as Adam sees that past now, pardoned, ransomed, and glorified[121] with his glorified Lord, he beholds his children, with each stroke of eternity’s golden moments, thronging through the gates of heaven by the Sacrifice of the cross. What must not _his_ love in heaven be! Next to that of Our Lady surely his must be the greatest of all the multitude who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

But the glory of the saints now in heaven cannot be compared with that which will follow after the second mission of our Lord at the consummation of all things; for that mission is a mission of glory, even as his first was a mission of humiliation. He came to us in the womb of Mary, in the manger at Bethlehem, hidden and unknown, poor and despised; but when the time shall be ripe for that second mission, he will come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.[122] He will come as the glorificator of His own creation, of which Mary is the first in rank, a hierarchy in herself, a sealed fountain, a garden enclosed, a second paradise, but where no sin has entered; and in that second mission his saints, as also his angels, will take part.

Thus we look back upon the first mission accomplished—that of the Incarnation and Redemption; the second mission being accomplished—that of the Holy Ghost gradually developing into the reign of the Holy Ghost; and we look forward to two other missions—that of his angels, and, finally, that of His own second coming. “Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him.”[123] “For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead, who are in Christ, shall rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds, to meet Christ, and so shall we be always with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words.[124]

[117] 2 Peter ii. 10-13.

[118] The redemption was an ordinance of God consequent upon man’s fall. Had Adam never sinned, Jesus had never been crucified. But it would seem more consonant with the boundless love of God for his creation to believe that the Blessed Sacrament formed part of his antecedent will; and that a sinless race would have received spiritual and divine food, and would have been thereby sanctified, and ultimately glorified through participation in the Body and Blood of the God-Man. It would have been, as it is now, the Bread of Life; bloodless as it is now, but also unbroken as it is not now—that is, divested of its propitiatory character in so far as propitiation involves the idea of offence.

[119] Isaias xi. 9.

[120] Matt. xiii. 41, 42, 43, 49.

[121] It is generally believed that Adam was amongst the souls released from Limbo when our Lord descended thither, and who entered heaven with him.

[122] Mark viii. 38.

[123] Apocalypse i. 7.

[124] 1 Thess. iv. 15-17.

HOBBIES AND THEIR RIDERS.

Under the general head of hobbies we class a thousand peculiarities distinguishing men which, if strictly viewed according to that accurate balance of mind known as sanity, would almost justify us in calling nine out of every ten men insane on some point, however infinitesimal. Every enthusiasm, from the most exalted moral self-forgetfulness to the most ludicrous extravagance, has been in turn called folly and ridiculed as a hobby. There is in the world a tradition, or rather a prescription, against anything which is not decent and well-behaved moderation. Even Christianity is not to be too obtrusive; even moral reform is to wear a velvet glove. No one sin, be it ever so monstrous and preponderant over other offences in your particular time or neighborhood, is to be singled out and fought against more than any other; decorous generalities and pious conventionalities are by no means to be departed from; and if your heart burns within you, you must put a seal upon your lips and carefully prevent the zeal from infecting your weaker brethren who might thuswise be led astray.

A man’s character is better revealed in his hobby than in anything else belonging to him. Oftentimes the possession of one shows him in a more lovable, human light. He must have both heart and imagination to have one. The man who is wholly incapable of fostering one would be a very unpleasant, not to say dangerous, neighbor. It is said that to have no enemies argues also that you have no friends, and that to have no prejudices implies that you are too cold-blooded to feel enthusiasm. Without taking either of these sayings literally, it is yet evident that they are built upon truth. The only person who has no individual likings, no bias, no tastes to which he is passionately attached, is either the heartless, calculating, selfish man who moves through life rather as an automaton than as a being of flesh and blood, and generally ends by ruling his fellow-beings by fear and by wealth, as many statesmen we read of in history, and pettier rulers we hear of now and then in the world of business; or the poor, nerveless being whose mind remains all his life a blank, and who sinks unnoticed into an obscure grave.

Some of our friends, especially elderly people, are often the dearer to us for their little eccentricities, which give a touch of piquancy to their character, and most often reveal some amiable trait. Hobbies do not sit so well on the young; for one always has an involuntary suspicion of their genuineness, and, even if they are genuine, youth ought to repress any attempt at thrusting itself forward and claiming undue attention. Besides, young people have yet to earn the right to occupy the attention of others otherwise than in the usual way of guidance and education, and a peculiar turn of mind may be cherished without manifesting itself by any outward sign. Sterne has a delightful consciousness of the value of a hobby as an indication of character when he shows us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim in the back-garden at Planchy, following step by step the course of the army of the Allies by the help of a spade and some turf, placed so as to represent bastions and fortifications. This process the old soldiers went through over and over again, always with renewed zest. It was a hobby something like this—but too much mixed with vain-glory and the bad taste which nature has at last succeeded in hiding—that prompted the planting of Blenheim Park, near Oxford, in such a way as to represent the positions of the regiments at the battle of Blenheim. The trees have had time to grow out of this likeness, yet they stand in ranks and platoons which one can imagine to have looked hideous when the oaks and beeches were young saplings.

Hobbies and collections are somehow related; at least the mind is used to coupling them together. One can hardly be a collector of anything without becoming absorbed in the collection and in the knowledge required for adding to and classifying it. Even if the collection have been begun with some object of instruction or benevolence, or as a distraction from grief, it soon grows to be a great interest of life, and toil in its behalf becomes pleasure and relaxation. But oftener still the hobby precedes the collection, and many people who are taken for sober, humdrum individuals, the mere _padding_ of society, would in reality be fast and furious riders of hobby-horses if their means allowed them to give outward expression to their tastes.

A very familiar type is the collector of pictures; and the fewer he has, the more set he is on his hobby. He gets some fine specimen of an old master “for an old song” (for such miraculous bargains are half the charm, just as for many women the delight of contriving and piecing and otherwise skilfully eking out old material to look “as good as new” is much greater than to possess a new dress made of a roll of cloth just from the store); and if he is cheated, he probably never finds it out. He often is, and woe to him who, thinking to do him a good turn, undeceives him. But whether the picture be genuine or not, it is the source of unending delight to its owner. He will discuss its points by the hour—the lights and shades, the material of the colors, the style of the painter; he will “get up” the artist’s life and history, buy books on the subject, pin you to your chair while he recounts how he found it, who “restored” it, how it once got injured by a fire; and, lastly, he will put you into corners, or behind cupboards and curtains, that you may be sure to see it in the best light.

The hobby of the rich collector who can dignify his gathering of pictures with the name of gallery has a different way of showing itself; it crops out in a sort of innocent ostentation, or again an assumed indifference. There are men whose hobby it is to conceal their hobby, to ape humility and pretend to a nonchalance very far from their real feelings. Among collectors, none are more voracious, more steady-going, and generally more happy than bibliopolists. They are of all ranks and degrees, but perhaps clergymen and college professors predominate. In England the country squire is often an eager book-hunter. Books of genealogy and heraldry are favorite tidbits with him, while clergymen often have a special mania for county histories. The collectors of minor curiosities, miscellaneous objects from all parts of the world, are generally old maiden ladies, who have, as a class, the most amiable and touching weaknesses, such as that of the benevolent little fairy, Miss Farebrother, in George Eliot’s _Middlemarch_, who drops her lumps of sugar in a little basket on her lap, that she may have them to bestow upon her friends, the street-boys. Then there are collectors innumerable of stuffed beasts, of shells, of minerals, of old china, laces, and jewelry, of heathen idols, of all kinds of coins, of autographs, of postage-stamps, etc. The autograph-hunter is a very restless and persistent individual. The American who sent a cheese to Queen Victoria must have been of this species, and the queen did not fail to reward him with a letter written with her own hand.

A hobby that used to be rather prevalent, but has somewhat gone out of fashion now, was that of collecting walking-sticks, canes, snuff-boxes, and pipes. Apropos to this, a story is told of an old man whose special mania was snuff as well as snuff-boxes. He was a man of some standing in English society towards the latter end of the last century. His sitting-room was fitted up with shelves like a shop, and on these stood canisters of various kinds of snuff, their names on labels, and the locks and keys of fantastic and rather ingenious shape. This sanctum was his delight, and the shelves, which ran all round the room, were being constantly replenished with new specimens of the weed. He used snuff to an enormous extent, and willingly gave it away to his friends; but storing it was his chief pleasure, and he looked forward to the last variety in snuff—which his tobacconist had a standing order to send him as soon as it touched English soil—with the same glee with which a naturalist expects the newest kind of living ape just imported from Africa.

We have never heard but of one person who made a _spécialité_ of collecting pieces of wedding-cake; she was an old nurse who had been in the service of a lady employed about the court of William IV. She had pieces of the wedding-cakes of all the princesses of the royal family, including Queen Victoria and some of her daughters, besides remains of the cakes of her mistress’s family, a large and ramified one, and of those of any person of title or distinction of whom, through her connections, she could possibly beg these mementoes.

The horticultural mania, emphatically a hobby for the rich, is one of the most charming and desirable of hobbies; a healthy one, too, as it keeps one out in the open air to a great extent, and supplies the place of such feverish excitements as arise from an interest in politics or in the state of the funds. It even takes away the possibility of interest in petty gossip; for how is it possible to think of the success of Mrs. So-and-so’s coming tea-party when your mind is anxiously engaged on the chance of a late frost ruining your camellias, or the probable time when your _Victoria Regia_ will bloom?

A hobby rather prevalent among women is a constant attendance at auctions. They cannot resist buying little things they do not want, because they are cheap; and, besides, there is a fascination about the atmosphere of a salesroom which is not reducible to mere words. It is milk-and-water gambling, as are many other innocent-looking devices used by very worthy people to increase their stock of pretty possessions without paying full value for them. Very opposite to this is the hobby of petty economies, such as untying a knot instead of cutting it, secreting tiny bits of pencil, keeping a strict watch over matches and candle-ends, etc. It may be a mere habit of mind, but it often degenerates into a foolish hobby, such as is that of keeping every scrap of cloth, silk, or flannel, and carrying about this rubbish from place to place, for the chance of its “coming in usefully” at some future time. Of course we know how many a gorgeous quilt has been evolved from these savings of years, and how mats have been made of the coarser refuse, and the rest sometimes thriftily sold to the paper-mill; but these are often exceptions, for time and deftness are wanting to many who have the instinct of saving, and such small economies are apt to have in themselves a tendency to narrow the mind. Besides, what is thrift in one case is parsimony in another; and while one family may be praise-worthy in its attempts to “take care of the pence,” such care would be despicable in another of easier means.

Shall we call it a hobby to “have one’s finger in every pie”? Some people are not happy unless they are giving their neighbors gratuitous advice, and telling them at every turn how they would act “if I were you.” But of this kind of interference none is so dangerous and none so fascinating as the well-meant contrivances of the born match-maker. This individual is invariably a woman, and generally a most amiable and kind creature. Sometimes a young matron is bitten with the mania, and clumsily enough she sets to work extolling the delights of the honeymoon to her girl friends; sometimes a middle-aged woman who has had experience, and is more wary in her method, quietly sets her snares and unluckily succeeds once in five times—unluckily, we say; for her one success blinds her to her four failures, and she continues in the slippery path which, in the end, is almost sure to bring ruin on some special pet of hers. Even unmarried women are match-makers; they will plan, and speculate, and contrive; and it is lucky indeed if they are nothing more than indiscreet, for they are handling edged tools. You never find a man to be a match-maker; and yet women will have it that men are so much more benefited by matrimony than themselves!

Among special hobbies, one is said to have been the property of a rich old Englishman of the olden time, who altered a house on purpose to suit it. He could not bear the sight of a female servant, and so angry was he at meeting one on the stairs that he sent for a mason to contrive hiding-places here and there in which an unlucky maid, if she chanced to meet the master, might take refuge out of his sight. The whole house was full of such cunningly-placed holes, and in this odd, honey-combed state it passed to his next heir.

One or two members of a family often take upon themselves the guardianship of the family honor, and bore every relation they have, to the sixth and seventh degree, about the genealogy, intermarriages, quarterings, etc., of their collective fetich. They are learned in family “trees,” know every date, from the first mention of the name in the annals of the country to the number of goods and chattels they brought over with them in the _Mayflower_; how many shares they bought in the cow of the first settlement; when this and that portrait was painted, and so on. ‘Tis not the knowledge that is irksome, but the inappropriateness and universality of its mention in the conversation of these good people, and the unconsciousness of the narrators that they have ever spoken to you of the subject before.

Have you ever known any one whose “best parlor” was their hobby—a scrupulous, Dutch-like reverence for immaculate cleanliness and order? Scarcely any hobby is more terrible to the stranger or casual visitor. Akin to it is the excess of punctuality by which some people make their guests wretched. Both grow to be a punishment to the person himself; for he, or oftener she, suffers torture every time a guest comes in with snow on his boots, or any one puts a cup of coffee on a marble table, or leans his head on the back of an easychair. Half the day is employed in dusting and cleaning the sacred precincts, and the other half in resting from the exertions thereby incurred.

The hobbies of writers furnish some amusing stories. The historian of the queens of England—Miss Agnes Strickland, as worthy and affectionate a woman as ever breathed—had, it is well known, constituted herself the champion of Mary, Queen of Scots. So thoroughly had she succeeded in realizing the doings of the times of Elizabeth that she spoke on this subject as you would of an injustice that had been done your dearest friend, and that quite recently. It was as fresh in her mind as some wrong committed last week on a defenceless woman, and she grew excited and eloquent over it, forgetting who, with whom, and where she was. This was very unpractical and somewhat ludicrous, some may be inclined to say, but it was a peculiarity that certainly made her happy, and it was no annoyance to her listeners. How much more dignified, too, than the too common fuming over the impertinence of the servant that was discharged last week, or the chafing over the troublesome man who claims a “right of way” and threatens to bring a suit about it next month!

Political hobbies also abound. These are generally the property of old people, the traditions of whose youth have remained proof against the enlightenment of the present. There are people who boast they have never been on a railroad, and never will be—they are common in Europe, at least—and people who would scorn to be photographed; people who laugh at you if you tell them that the sun really does _not_ go round the earth, and rise and set morning and evening, and who obstinately believe that dogs only go mad during the dog-days. But there are those who, with a better education and more opportunities, are just as unprogressive. Such will buttonhole you and argue seriously that the Pope is going to involve Europe in another Thirty-Years’ War. They seriously believe it and live in dread of it. They would not hurt a fly; but they firmly believe that, if they got hold of a Jesuit, they would remorselessly run him through, and think they had rid the country of a tiger or an alligator. Dr. Newman’s _Apologia_ gives an amusing account of the awe and terror inspired by the dark house in a by-street where “it was said a Roman Catholic lady lived all alone with her servant.” In England the Jesuits and “Bony” long divided the honors of bugbear-in-chief to the British public. To this day some amiable old Welsh lady will assure you in a whisper that the whole country has underground (and it is to be supposed submarine) connection with Rome, and that _she_ never goes to bed without looking underneath to see that there is no Jesuit in disguise concealed there! Then there is the man who, under the Napoleonic _régime_, whether of the first or third emperor, would tell you in an awestruck manner of the impossibility of putting off the evil hour any longer, and the inevitable certainty of a French invasion and annexation of England to France; the landing always to take place exactly within a few miles of his own house, if he lived by the seaside. If his house were further inland, he would tell you he knew _his_ village would be the first and most convenient place to halt at and plunder.

At one time there was in London a great mania for Turkish baths. A person of some note as a writer and, we believe, an M.P. took up the subject vigorously, and had a Turkish bath built adjoining his own house. Here he passed the greater part of his time, combining his reading and writing with the delights of his new hobby. But he had an old hobby as well, which was the evil agency of Russia in the politics of Europe. Like the philosopher who asked but one question on the occasion of any disturbance—“Who is _she_?”—this man acknowledged but one possible element of discord at the bottom of any diplomatic _imbroglio_—_i.e._, Russia. A friend of his called on him one day about midday, and, being ushered into the hall, heard his voice shouting from behind the door leading to the bath: “Come in, S——, and we’ll sit here a while. Stay to luncheon, won’t you? It is only two hours to wait.” The friend was so amused that he took off his clothes and submitted to the novel invitation of spending the time of a morning call in a Turkish bath. Of course the conversation soon fell on Russia and its demoniacal secret agency in all the troubles of the world. The man was exceptionally clever, and these oddities of mind and behavior only made his society more charming to his friends and more _piquant_ to his acquaintances.

Among fixed ideas which may almost be called hobbies are certain preferences which blind us to the good done without the special adjuncts which we individually consider nearly indispensable. For instance, it is recorded—with how much truth we cannot tell—of the great architect, Pugin the elder, that one day, being in Rome, he went to Benediction in a church where it is customary to say prayers in the vernacular for the conversion of _England_. This was done after the service proper was over, and Pugin, not recognizing the extra prayers at the end of the familiar Benediction service, asked a neighbor what they meant. On being told he turned to a friend who was with him and said: “The idea of praying for the conversion of England in such a cope as that!” A clever and well-known writer for one of our leading Catholic magazines, who is confessedly somewhat eccentric, is said to have been discovered one morning by a friend in a state of violent agitation, walking up and down the breakfast-room with quick and nervous strides, and looking like a man in passionate, personal grief. On being gently asked the cause of this emotion, he answered vehemently: “I was thinking of how many souls are being eternally damned at this very moment. Is it not frightful to think of? Every minute souls are going there, to be tormented for all eternity!” Here was a fixed idea with which it was difficult to deal. It was true, and a thought which would do many good if they would realize it as he did—the innocent, large-hearted man, who did not need the idea for his own discipline—but it was decidedly an inconvenient disturbance of the domestic balance of things, and not a pleasant appetizer for the good breakfast that was before him.

Bores, pure and simple, are of a remote kindred with the riders of hobbies, and they are of as many kinds. There is the croaker, who cherishes some pet grievance and favors every one with it; the singer who is offended if he is not asked to perform, and is not applauded at the end like the leading tenor of the hour; the critic who thinks he would lose his reputation if he condescended to praise anything, or to admire and be pleased like a common mortal; the man (or woman) who sets himself up on a pedestal and assumes, subtly but unmistakably, that he is entirely above his neighbors or whatever people he may be with; the man who has quarrelled with somebody, and insists on reading you the whole correspondence; the man who is sure always to come to see you at inopportune times, and, worse still, never knows when to go away; the amateur—a terrible species—who imagines he can paint, or play the pianoforte or the flute, etc., or write poetry, or draw plans, or, in short, do anything which it requires a life-time to _learn_—for the greatest always think themselves still at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge; the man who tells stories to satiety, and expects them to be laughed at; the man who interrupts a _tête-à-tête_, or who is so full of some interest of his own that he insists on you sharing it when you show no inclination to listen to him; the man who cannot take a hint, though he is as good-natured as he is obtuse—these there are, and many more, who are the human mosquitoes of the world.

Akin to hobbies, as we said at the beginning, are tastes, harmless for the most part, often æsthetic, and almost always beneficial. Indeed, many a taste, well regulated, has become an antidote or a preservative against vice; and, to put it from a very low point of view, a taste is generally far more economical than dangerous company and degrading sin. The _Saturday Review_, in an article on this subject last year, said with truth: “Tastes are not, as a rule, exorbitantly expensive; they are certainly very much cheaper than vices. A very moderate percentage of an income, judiciously laid out, will soon secure an excellent library. It is surprising how small a sum will suffice for the purchase of every standard work worth having. The most famous private libraries cost their owners nothing in comparison with the price of a few race-horses.” Although we have somewhat disparaged amateurs as a kind of “bores,” this was not meant to dissuade young men and women from cultivating some taste which will serve as a resource for evening hours or any otherwise unoccupied time, and be a relaxation from necessary work, as well as a gradual safeguard against coarse pleasures. As long as such pursuits are undertaken with due modesty as to one’s proficiency in them, and not as a mere social “accomplishment” to be obtruded on others on all possible occasions, they are infinitely to be commended. They grow on one, too, and soon become the chief point of attraction in our intellectual life, especially if our business happens to be, as that of most persons is, of a prosaic nature. As we grow old they may develop into hobbies; never mind, they will still make us happy and never cause us shame. On the other hand, what will tendencies to convivial “pleasures,” or to frivolous and objectless conversation, or to gadding about to theatres, balls, and races, come to in the end? Dead-Sea fruit.

Among the minor arts which tend to occupy one’s leisure pleasantly and usefully are wood-carving, turning, ivory-carving, and leather-work. Even commoner things may be taken up. We have known young men who, during a long convalescence, took to mending cane chairs as a mode of making their fingers useful when their brains were still too weak to be taxed. Basket-making, decalcomania of the higher order—_i.e._, a sort of easy glass-painting akin to decalcomania, are all useful and possible methods of employing one’s self and cultivating a pleasant domestic taste. Mechanics, too, and household carpentry we have often seen fostered in young people and become their pride, while illumination—a really high style of art, though a rare gift—is not so uncommon as some may think. Of such tastes as gardening, reading, embroidering, and music we say nothing; they are too well known. Such a taste generally ends in a collection, and then the pleasure is enhanced a hundred-fold; and, as the _Saturday Review_ says, it really needs but a comparatively small outlay to secure a very fair collection of any kind. This in its turn helps to study by giving us the means of reference or comparison. And if in any family the members were seriously to look up the money really wasted—that is, the money spent in transitory, unhealthy pleasures, the value of which dies in the mere excitement of the moment, leaving no pleasant memory or useful impression behind, and often, on the contrary, leading to a remorseful, or at least an uncomfortable, remembrance—they would find that every year there goes forth imperceptibly from the collective treasury of the home enough to beautify their lives and increase their happiness if only they would lead it into the right channels. The money would not be missed, while their pleasures would be tenfold and lasting. Even the very poorest of the poor spends uselessly—and alas! often wickedly—what would make him a happy, self-respecting man; and, strictly speaking, no one can say that he cannot afford good and healthy pleasures, for, as a matter of fact, he _does_ afford bad and unhealthy, or, to say the least, unsatisfactory, ones. Let every one ask this question of his own experience: Which costs most in the long run, a healthy pleasure, say even an innocent hobby, or a vicious and lowering pursuit?

A PLEA FOR OUR GRANDMOTHERS.

That there are many flaws and deficiencies in the social structure of our bustling republic, from its foundation in the single family to the collection of families forming general society, cannot be denied. Among these none are more palpable than the failure to provide comfortable space, suitable appointments, and a well-defined position therein for our grandmothers.

Their claims to consideration as a class, existing—albeit by mere sufferance—in every city, village, and rural corner throughout the length and breadth of our wide domain, seem to have been crowded out and lost in the confusion and dust upwhirled by our great social vehicle in its onward sweep toward an imaginary and unattainable El Dorado. No one seems to comprehend the binding obligation of those claims. The force of a playful remark made by the great and good Father Burke to his mother—when she complained that she failed to hear his lecture because the hall was so crowded that she could not get in—“Ah! mother dear, wasn’t that too bad? Just think of it! _Why, if it hadn’t been for you, dear, I wouldn’t have been there myself!_” has not come home to Americans in connection with this subject. They do not pause to reflect that, but for our grandmothers, this great multitude now rushing so furiously toward every promising avenue to wealth and influence, elbowing and jostling each other in their mad career, would not have been in existence.

Nor are the annoyances to which this class is exposed in consequence of such neglect—itself the result rather of heedlessness than design—any the less burdensome that they are mainly of so negative a character as scarcely to form the basis of a positive complaint; nay, so far from this that when they find voice in such utterance as the disquieting consciousness of their reality, in spite of their unreal guise, may force from the victims, the moan is more apt to excite ill-concealed merriment in a listener, by its quaint whimsicality, than pity or sympathy.

Yet these evils are real and constantly increasing. The most serious of them are the outgrowth of modern civilization and the progressive doctrines of the last quarter of a century. In this enlightened age it is not to be supposed that people _must_ grow old, and it is highly improper for our grandmother to insist upon submitting to conditions proper enough to humanity before it flourished in the light of “advanced ideas,” but wholly out of place now. As recently as twenty-five years ago she was, perforce of that very submission, an important element in the domestic and social circle. She occupied a position quite independent of such prescribed rules and customs as govern other classes in society. She was not expected to conform to every caprice of fashion. She was permitted to dress in a manner consistent with her age, and no one respected her the less, or thought of indulging in sharp criticism of her style, if it was of an obsolete date. She could employ her time in suitable occupations, and render the useful and acceptable services to the family and neighborhood for which the skill acquired by her long acquaintance with the world and its exigencies eminently fitted her; or repose in the calm twilight of life’s evening hour, in such habiliments as best comported with her own comfort and the requirements of her gradual descent into the valley of years.

Not so now. The milliners provide her with no bonnets or caps befitting her age; nay, they utterly refuse to attempt, at any price, the construction for her of suitable head-gear. Such manufacture has taken its place among the “lost arts,” and they do not wish to revive it. The mantua-makers insist upon “the _demi-train_, at least,” and she _must_ submit in the matter of the overskirt, with its puffed abominations and puckered deformities. She is allowed no ease or comfort in her costume, but is required to assume all the grotesque discomforts invented by modern _modistes_ for the summer-day butterflies of fashion, at the risk, if she refuses, of being followed, every time she ventures to appear among them, with such remarks as, “A nice old lady? Oh! yes; but it _is_ a pity that she will persist in making such a guy of herself, with those old-fashioned sleeves and skirts, and her plain white muslin caps.”

It is curious to remark how different is the relative position of the grandfather, at home and abroad, from that of his female contemporary. How independent he is of conventional forms in his dress and intercourse with society; how free to go and come when he pleases, without giving occasion for wry faces or unkind criticisms if the fashion of his coat has not been changed for half a century! Is he not rather regarded with increased respect on that account?

But the prevailing modern rule in relation to the dress of women of all ages is that it shall change in style with every change of the moon, and, above all, that as much expense in material and labor shall be lavished upon its elaboration as the inventive genius of skilled artists can possibly devise. And American women—even grandmothers—are so foolish as to bow in slavish submission to this intolerable tyranny, which is working such widespread ruin and desolation in our country! “Let _Fashion_ rule, though the heavens fall,” say they.

So completely have all correct ideas pertaining to true taste in the discriminating consistency of different costumes adapted to the different periods of life been swallowed up in the all-prevailing fashion-worship, that there is now scarcely any distinction, save in length of skirt, between the dress of the little girl of five and that of her grandmother, mother, or the young lady, her elder sister. Pitiable indeed is this loss of all sense of the fitness of things for the two extremes of human life, which should be exempted from subjection to discomforts for fashion’s sake!

What spectacle can be more mournfully absurd than that of a pale, wrinkled old face set in a ghastly silvered frame of the hairdresser’s curls and crimps, and surmounted, to complete its repulsiveness, with a bedizened hat, the form of which can only be made barely tolerable by a beautiful young face beneath it; or that of a form bending under the weight of years, carrying with trembling steps a load of jewelry and such remarkable excrescences, frills, flounces, and fur-belows, as the dressmaker insists upon cumbering it withal? These pitiful sights are constantly displayed in our palace-cars, at our hotels, boarding-houses and watering-places, even by the aged invalids who frequent the latter for their healing influences.

This is all wrong! There is no good sense or propriety in it. The free-born American woman should claim immunity from such bondage, and the right to accept with cheerful grace that rest from the petty strifes and ambitions which agitate life’s noon-day to which she is entitled at its twilight-hour. If she has—either by inheritance or the successful, if not altogether honest, speculations of her male kin—come into possession of more money than she well knows how to use, she should set that inherent Yankee wit, which is her inalienable national dower, to devise some less ridiculous, at least, if not more useful, mode of disbursing it.

When we consider the multitudes of starving poor that throng our cities; the necessities of widows and orphans; the notable rarity of well-selected and amply-filled libraries among our wealthy classes, and their very meagre patronage of the fine arts, we discover that there is no lack of proper and elevating objects for expenditure. Above all, when we reflect that the possessors of wealth must inevitably be called to a rigid account of their stewardship at last, the thought is appalling, and the subject, in all its phases, for this world and the next, is a sad one to contemplate.

In pleasing contrast with the picture presented by the domestic and social attitude of the average American grandmothers of to-day is that which we have frequently been so favored as to witness among the most wealthy, as well as the poorest, classes of our faithful foreign populations; where the grandmother, in her comfortable though antiquated cap and costume, was the most honored and tenderly beloved member of the household, its arbiter in all disputes, its wise and chosen counsellor in all doubts, its nurse in sickness, comforter in affliction, and its guide to that blessed land on the confines of which her aged feet were tottering.

She indulged no worldly ambitions; gave no thought to dress, save to restrict it to the severest simplicity and neatness. She filled no brilliant _rôle_ at home or in society, nor cared for anything but to do good to all as she had opportunity. She was not learned in the philosophy of books and literature; her deficiency in such knowledge may have been so great as to excite a sneer in her American neighbor, who had enjoyed the great “advantages” of the public-school system; but even the youngest of her numerous grandchildren—who gathered around her chair in the most cosey corner, of an evening, to listen reverently to her explanations of “Christian Doctrine,” to join with her in recitations of the beads, and to give rapt attention to her tales and legends of the “dear old land”—knew that her venerable head was stored with treasures of learning more precious than all earthly lore in the sight of Him before whom the “wisdom of this world is foolishness,” and who has chosen the “weak things thereof to confound the wise.”

How will they miss her when she is gone! For how many long years will “grandmother’s” virtues and her pious instructions form the theme, and her advice and prayers the sustaining resource, of her children’s children, while they carefully transmit to theirs her unwritten memoirs as an invaluable legacy of precept and example!

FROM LAMARTINE.

Almond-bough with blossom rife, Pride of beauty picturing; Blooms like thee the flow’r of life, Blooms and withers in the spring.

Missed or gathered, prized or slighted, Still from wreath and fingered spray One by one its petals, blighted, Pass, like pleasures day by day.

Taste we then its brief delight, Ere the stealthy winds go by; Drain the laughing chalice quite, Drink the perfume that must die.

Oft is beauty like the flow’r Gathered for a guest at morn, And before the festal hour From his chilly temples torn.

One day ends: another breaks; Spring and all her sweets decay; Every leaf the light wind takes Whispers, “Gather while ye may.”

Since the rose is doomed to perish— Perish, pass, nor bloom again, Lovers’ lips her blossom cherish, Love her dying sweets detain.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN STATE. A Series of Essays on the Relation of the Church to the Civil Power. Translated, with the permission of the author, from the German of Dr. Joseph Hergenröther, Professor of Canon Law and Church History at the University of Würzburg. In two volumes. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

It is to be regretted that the price of this excellent work has been placed so high, although its paper covers and generally cheap style of execution give it the appearance of a German rather than an English publication. The price in England is one pound sterling, which makes it necessary to sell it for eight dollars in this country, and with a decent binding it must cost ten dollars. This great cost must impede the general circulation which such a work merits and ought to obtain. In respect to the value of its contents, it is well worth the price it costs, and ought to have a place in every public library and on the bookshelves of every Catholic of intelligence and culture—indeed, of every educated man who wishes to understand the questions mooted and discussed so generally at the present time in respect to the nature and mutual relations of the church and the state. It is a masterly scientific treatise, constructed with that solid learning and thoroughness of exposition which characterize the works of genuine German scholarship. The author is one of the most eminent of the Catholic professors of Germany, at home in canon law, history and jurisprudence, well versed in theology, and enjoying an established reputation for sound orthodoxy in doctrine. The division of his topics into separate essays, each with its distinct sections, makes it easier to follow his course of exposition and reasoning than it would be if they were arranged under a more strictly methodical form, and his abundant references, frequently accompanied by citations, give evidence of the sources he has referred to, as well as the means of referring, in case of need, to these authorities. He is succinct and brief in his treatment, yet clear and precise. The subjects about which Mr. Gladstone’s _Expostulation_ have awakened controversy are treated comprehensively and in their principles, furnishing a general defence of the Catholic Church, and a refutation of the accusations of her enemies in respect to her polity, administration, and relations to the natural and temporal order. In short, it is a text-book or manual for instruction, fitted to be used as a guide to those who have to teach, as an arsenal from which those who have to write or lecture may draw their weapons of argument, and as a standard of reference for the correct decision of the matters within its scope. The private student will find it all that is requisite for his complete and accurate information on the important topics of which it treats. We understand that the translation has been made by Miss Allies, assisted by two other ladies, and, we doubt not, under her father’s supervision. We have not seen the original, but the translation seems to have been thoroughly well executed. The work will undoubtedly take its place at once as a classic.

HISTOIRE DE MADAME BARAT, FONDATRICE DE LA SOCIETE DU SACRE-CŒUR DE JESUS. Par M. l’Abbé Baunard. Paris: Poussielque Frères, Rue Cassette 27. 1876.

We have had the honor of receiving one of the first copies of this long-expected biography of one of the great women of this century, and take the earliest opportunity of making the due acknowledgment. This is not a book to be dismissed by a brief notice, and we hope to make it the subject of an article in one of our future numbers, after having given it the careful perusal which it merits. It is published in two goodly volumes of fair, large type, averaging each six hundred octavo pages. The Abbé Baunard is already celebrated as the author of the _Life of St. John_. Those who read French easily and with pleasure will prefer, we suppose, to obtain the original work, which no doubt will soon be for sale in our foreign bookstores. Nevertheless, as a translation from the graceful pen of Lady Georgiana Fullerton is advertised as nearly or quite ready, we are confident that the charm of the Abbé Baunard’s style will be preserved, in so far as that is possible, in the _Life of Madame Barat_ which is soon to appear in English. It is already evident that this biography, which is at the same time a history of the institute founded by the venerable lady who is its subject, will have a worldwide circulation. In our own country there are great numbers who are eagerly desiring the opportunity of perusing it. We have as yet only commenced the pleasing task, but we have gone far enough to warrant the assurance that those who are looking forward to the reading of it as a source of great benefit and pure enjoyment will not be disappointed.

ARE YOU MY WIFE? By the author of _A Salon in Paris before the War_, _Number Thirteen_, _Pius VI._, etc. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 292.

The startling question that gives a title to this story has been before the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for many months. Those who have followed out the puzzle presented to them through its monthly instalments will have found for themselves the solution of the problem, and formed their own opinion regarding its merits or demerits. The story is now published in book-form, and adds one more to the number of admirable original works of fiction given to the Catholic public through the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

_Are You My Wife?_ is remarkable, and welcome, at least in this: that it shakes itself loose from the mouldy traditions which seem to form the stock-in-trade of most of our Catholic writers of English fiction. It is a bold effort and well sustained. The story is full of interest from beginning to end; the characters clean-cut and distinct; the incidents varying and rapid; and the secret carefully concealed to the very last. It is not, perhaps, of the first, but certainly of a very good, order of art, and possesses this exceptional merit over its fellows, that while the facts on which it hangs are as interesting as those in the best works of non-Catholic novelists, the purity and moral elevation of the whole are far beyond what even the best of such writers can furnish.

It is needless here to sketch the plot, which, though woven out of natural materials, is ingeniously intricate. Many of the characters are such as may be met with any day in England. The nominal heroine is a wild, weird creation; the real heroine is Franceline, as charming a girl as ever met us in the pages of a novel or stole our hearts away in real life. No wonder all the young men go wild over her; no wonder that the old men do the same. She grows up and develops under our sight the dreamy, happy child, until she, and we with her, suddenly start to find she is a woman.

The graceful yet powerful pen that gave us such sketches as _A Salon in Paris before the War_, _Number Thirteen_, and others equally good, has not mistaken its powers—indeed, has not, we are convinced, yet tried them to the full of their bent—in the present more finished and more ambitious work. There is little or nothing in _Are You My Wife?_ to betray the hand of an unpractised novelist. Only here and there occurs a fulsomeness of detail on minor matters that were better condensed. In one or two places, though very rarely, the conversation flags. Conversation is, as a rule, slow enough in society itself; in a book, when slow at all, it becomes intolerable. These are the only blemishes we find in an unusually interesting book. Sir Simon Harness, Ponce Anwyll, Miss Merrywig, Miss Bulpit, Angélique, and Raymond are characters with whom we regret to part, as also Franceline and Clide, were they not so well provided for. Humor, wit, and imagination are plentiful throughout the book, while the pictures of natural scenery are often unsurpassed. Here, for instance, is a picture of still life that the best of pencils or pens might be proud to own:

“On emerging from the damp darkness after an hour with Miss Merrywig, Franceline found that the sun had climbed up to the zenith, and was pouring down a sultry glow that made the earth smoke again. There was a stile at the end of the wood, and she sat down to rest herself under the thick shade of a sycamore. The stillness of the noon was on everything. A few lively linnets tried to sing; but, the effort being prompted solely by duty, after a while they gave it up, and withdrew to the coolest nooks, and enjoyed their siesta like the lazy ones. Nobody stirred, except the insects that were chirping in the grass, and some bees that sailed from flower to flower, buzzing and doing field-labor when everybody else was asleep or idle. To the right the fields were brimful of ripening grain of every shade of gold; the deep-orange corn was overflowing into the pale amber of the rye, and the bearded barley was washing the hedge that walled it off from the lemon-colored wheat. To the left the rich grass lands were dotted with flocks and herds. In the nearest meadow some cattle were herding. It was too hot to eat, so they stood surveying the fulness of the earth with mild, bovine gaze. They might have been sphinxes, they were so still; not a muscle in their sleek bodies moved, except that a tail lashed out against the flies now and then. Some were in the open field, holding up their white horns to the sunlight; others were grouped in twos and threes under a shady tree; but the noontide hush was on them all. Presently a number of horses came trooping leisurely up to the pond near the stile; the mild-eyed kine moved their slow heads after the procession, and then, one by one, trooped on with it. The noise of the hoofs plashing into the water, and the loud lapping of the thirsty tongues, were like a drink to the hot silence. Franceline watched them lifting their wet mouths, all dripping, from the pool, and felt as if she had been drinking too. There was a long, solemn pause, and then a sound like the blast of an organ rose up from the pond, swelling and sweeping over the fields; before it died away a calf in a distant paddock answered it.”

THE LIFE OF REV. MOTHER ST. JOSEPH, FOUNDRESS OF THE CONGREGATION OF SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH OF BORDEAUX. By l’Abbé P. F. Lebeurier. Translated from the French. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

When, in the early part of the seventeenth century, St. Francis de Sales founded the Order of the Visitation, he placed the corporal works of mercy, such as visiting the sick and relieving the poor, among the duties of its members, but he was afterwards induced to modify the original plan by making enclosure a part of the constitution of the order. There was a demand, however, for communities of women devoted to the relief of human misery; and among the many congregations of this kind which were founded during the life or shortly after the death of St. Francis that of the Sisters of St. Joseph holds an important rank. This order came into existence under the fostering care of Father Medaille, a priest of the Company of Jesus, in the year 1650, in the diocese of Puy, and was soon established in many other parts of France. After an existence of a hundred and forty years, it was broken up and the sisters dispersed by the French Revolution; but upon the conclusion of the Concordat between Napoleon and Pius VII. the religious who still survived reassembled and opened a house in Lyons, in 1807, under the protection of Cardinal Fesch.

One of the most exemplary and useful members of the order since its restoration, Mother St. Joseph—in the world, Jane Chanay—is made known to us in the biography whose title we have given. There are few lives of which a judicious and faithful account would not be useful, and no kind of writing is more attractive to most readers than biography. It is seldom, however, that we meet with a religious biography with which we are altogether pleased, and this now before us is not at all to our taste. There is certainly no reason why the life of a nun should not be as full of interest as that of a woman engaged in the frivolities and vanities of the world, and we cannot but think it is the fault of the author that Mother St. Joseph’s has not been made both instructive and entertaining. The narrative is slow and interrupted, the style heavy, and the facts often trivial without being either amusing or edifying. We have the authority of Cardinal Donnet for the assertion that the book is commendable for the beauty of its diction; but this is certainly not true of the English translation, which is often neither correct nor elegant. Take, for instance, the following examples: “Other saints … are restored to their Creator with not _a maze_ to dim their lustrous brightness” (p. 22). “When once the fire of jealousy is kindled in the soul, nothing can _satiate its ravages_” (p. 26).

We close with the following sentence, which we commend to the attention of grammar-schools: “This good father having, in the course of his missions, met with several widows and pious young women who were desirous to retire from the world and devote themselves to the service of the salvation of their neighbor, but were deterred for want of means to enter convents, he formed the intention to propose to some bishop the establishment of a congregation into which those devoted women could enter and devote themselves to labor for their salvation, and fulfil all the good works of which they were capable in the service of their neighbor” (p. 66).

PRINCIPIA OR BASIS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. By R. J. Wright. Second Edition. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co. 1876.

The eight or ten pages of letters from various persons with which this volume is prefaced, and in which the author receives thanks for copies of his book, forcibly remind us of Sheridan’s formula for acknowledging the publications that were constantly sent him: “DEAR SIR: I have received your exquisite work, and I have no doubt I shall be highly delighted _after_ I have read it.” The persons, known and unknown, whose names are paraded here all anticipate a time when they shall be able to congratulate themselves upon having put the _Basis of Social Science_ beneath their feet.

Mr. Wright is doubtless a well-meaning man; and if good intentions could pacify a critic’s irritable soul, between him and ourselves there would be no quarrel. His aim has been, he informs us in his preface, to write a work which, without offending the religious, political, or scientific susceptibilities of any one, would commend itself especially to “pious young men” and “students for the ministry, who really desire to be useful and to be abreast of their age on this subject”; and we are therefore prepared to find him ready to embrace with equal tenderness a Mormon prophet, an Oneida free lover, a French communist, and a Catholic monk. Mr. Wright’s sweetness and piety are as offensive to us as the caress of a Yahoo was to Dean Swift. These attempts to reconcile the antagonisms, incompatibilities, and contradictions of the age, by besmearing them all with honey, are worse than absurd; they add to the confusion and weaken the power to apprehend truth. The self-imposed task of the author of this volume is one which the greatest mind now living could not perform in a satisfactory manner. Of all sciences, the social is, if it may as yet be called a science, the most difficult, the most involved and uncertain; in its idea it is a synthesis of all knowledges, and no one who has not gathered into his own mind the intellectual achievements of the whole race should attempt to construct a philosophy of social science. The importance of the study of sociology we fully admit, and gladly welcome even the humblest efforts to increase our knowledge of this subject; but when those who ought to remain in the ranks seek to take command, they become disorganizers. Had Mr. Wright been modest, he might have been useful; having attempted too much, he has failed to accomplish anything. In fact, he has not the first requisite of an author—a knowledge of the language in which he writes. His style is barbarous and tumultuary, often ungrammatical. It must, however, be striking and emphatic, if we are to judge from the number of words printed in italics and majuscules. And his thought is like his style—incoherent, crude, and embryotic. He has read Comte, Fourier, Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Appleton’s _Cyclopædia_, and with their aid and the help of a certain “Theory of the Six Units” he has sought to develop an ideal of human society not more impossible than Plato’s _Republic_ or more visionary than More’s _Utopia_.

The keynote to his system is the “Theory of the Six Units.” The six units are the Individual, the Family, the Social Circle, the Precinct, the Nation, and Mankind. It seems to have been his acquaintance with certain other “singular sixes” that led him to a belief in six, and but six, social units. In the first place, “the figure which gives the maximum amount of internal content with the minimum amount of external surface of similar bodies joined together is a HEXAGON.” Again: “In developed civilization there are six great classes of society”; but it is only in some future work that the author will tell us about these six great classes. And just here we wish to find fault with Mr. Wright for a habit he has of adroitly arousing our curiosity, and then, as we are beginning to imagine we are about to learn something, coolly dropping us with the remark that the matter “will be portrayed in another book.” He sometimes, too, seems to take a wicked delight in puzzling his readers, as in the following sentence: “All affairs, when they become ordinary, are apt to become matters of business; and business matters are—well, we need not say what.” But to return to the “sixes.” There are six fundamental motors of human passions. There are six infinities—namely, deific spirit, soul spirit, matter, space, duration, diversity. There are six organs of sense (the old notion that there were but five is exploded)—sensation, temperature, taste, smell, hearing, sight. There are six crystallizations—monometric, dimetric, trimetric, monoclinic, triclinic, and hexagonal. There are six religious societies—Adam, Adam and Eve, Patriarchy, Israel in Egypt, Israel in Palestine, the Christian Church. It follows as a matter of course that there must be six social units; and in fact, if it were worth while, we could prove that there must be ten or twenty.

There is no unit in which Mr. Wright so much delights as the Precinct. The real cause of the American civil war he has discovered to have been a neglect of Precinct by both the North and the South; and it is quite probable, we think, there is no social or political problem which may not ultimately be solved in the same felicitous and satisfactory manner.

Genius is manifested—at least this is, we believe, the opinion of Mr. Emerson—quite as strikingly in quotation as in original composition, and we respectfully call the attention of the philosopher of Concord to Mr. Wright as a confirmatory example of this law of mind. Many a household will find food for thought in the following citation: “Family miffs are a grand institution for giving needful repose and after-exhilaration to overtasked affection.” And this other will be interesting to politicians: “It is to the criminal propensities of man that we owe civilization.” “Alas!” sighs our pious philosopher, “that the Radicals cannot make a better basis for civilization than the foregoing crime-begetting one.”

From Wells, the phrenologist, Mr. Wright gets the following quotation, which almost makes us repent of what we have written: “As a class the theologians have the best heads in the world.”

CANTATA CATHOLICA. B. H. F. Hellebusch. Benziger Bros.

This is a collection of music for the “Asperges,” “Vidi Aquam,” several Gregorian Masses, the Gregorian Requiem, the Preface, the Pater Noster, Responses, Vespers, the Antiphons of the Blessed Virgin, “O Salutaris,” and “Tantum Ergo,” besides a large number of pieces intended to be used at Benediction and at various other times. The Gregorian chants for the “Asperges,” “Vidi Aquam,” and the Masses are harmonized by Dr. F. Witt. We cannot say that we admire the peculiar “drone bass” which Dr. Witt uses so extensively, and the harmonies are, to our ears, crude, and sometimes even barbarous, and as a general rule are not in accordance with the _mode_. We also noticed some ear-splitting _fifths_, used without any excuse whatever. The Requiem is very incomplete; five verses only of the “Dies Iræ” are given, and the Gradual and Tract are entirely omitted. Mr. Hellebusch remarks in his preface that “the Preface and Pater Noster should only be accompanied when required by the officiating clergyman and after rehearsal.” In looking in the book for the reason for this remark, we find that to accompany the simple melody of the “Preface of Trinity” one hundred and ninety sharps, flats, and naturals are required; and in the accompaniment of the words “socia exultatione concelebrant,” in the “Common Preface,” we find twenty. The melody of the “Preface” has also been altered by sharpening “do” all through. Over eight pages are devoted to Responses, exclusive of the Responses for the Preface and Pater Noster. In that portion of the book devoted to Vespers are some grave errors. On page 103 is a note which informs us that “the Psalms _can_ be chanted to any of the following _authentic_ or _simplified_ Vesper tones.” We have yet to learn which are the eight _authentic_ tones, and we were not aware that authentic and _simplified_ meant one and the same thing. The eight Psalm-tunes are given with their various endings, and with the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and _Sixth_, or “Final by words of one syllable.” We suppose “mediation” is meant; but then the Sixth tone has no different mediation for words of one syllable, and the rule for Hebrew proper names is not given at all. In the Fifth tone the “si” is improperly marked flat. The pointing of the Psalms is very bad; we have “spirítui, spiritúi, vidít, sicút, motá,” etc. In the latter part of the book, however, the pieces are selected with good taste, and musically, although not practically, well arranged. The book has been made up in too great a hurry.

ASPERGES ME. MASS IN F. MISSA DE ANGELIS. C. P. Morrison, Worcester, Mass.

The “Asperges” is chiefly remarkable for some very clumsy and incorrect modulations and the utter absence of any kind of melody and design. The “Mass in F” is an easy setting of the Ordinary of the Mass combined with a nauseating adaptation of English words for the use, we suppose, of the “separated brethren” who like this kind of music. We looked for and found the close on the words “Filius Patris,” with a new movement for the “Qui tollis,” and the inevitable RESURRECTIONEM mor … tu … o … rum. The C clef is placed at the beginning of the tenor part, and the notes are incorrectly written, as if in the G clef, an octave higher. The composer ought to know that the C clef is of as much importance as either the G or F clef, and not a purely fanciful character to be used or not at the option of the writer. The harmony of the “Missa de Angelis” is entirely modern, full of chromatic passages, dissonances, etc., which Mr. Morrison again ought to know are not allowed in harmonies for Gregorian chant.

ALL AROUND THE MOON. From the French of Jules Verne. Freely translated by Edw. Roth. With a Map of the Moon constructed and engraved for this edition, and also with an Appendix containing the famous Moon Hoax, by R. Adams Locke. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, No. 9 Warren Street. 1876.

It is not often the case that translations are, like the present one, an improvement on the original, especially when the original work is such an admirable one as that from which this translation is made. We noticed the first part, published under the title of _The Baltimore Gun Club_, some time ago, favorably, and have been even more pleased with this sequel.

Mr. Roth calls the book a free translation, but this term hardly conveys the idea of the adaptation which he has really made of the text. Verne certainly intended, when he laid the scene in America, to make the characters, incidents, and conversation thoroughly American, and he succeeded as well as could have been expected; but the task was one simply impossible for a foreigner, and any translation at all approaching to literal exactness, no matter by whom made, would have been sure to have shared the defects of the text. Mr. Roth, therefore, to carry out the author’s idea, had practically to rewrite the book in such a way as to preserve the genius of the conception while altering the details in a way which required an ability like that of the author himself.

Besides having made the book really an American one, he has added to its scientific merit by a fuller explanation of the problem which is the nucleus of the story.

The “Moon Hoax,” which is appended, was probably the most successful and the best contrived of all the scientific canards which have ever appeared. It was written more than forty years ago, but its memory has not yet died out, and it was so cleverly done as to be well worthy of this reprint.

The book is illustrated by twenty-four cuts, besides the map of the moon mentioned in the title. It would really have been better without the rather clap-trap additional about the Centennial at its close, but this makes it all the more American, and may be excusable under the circumstances.

THE WYNDHAM FAMILY: A Story of Modern Life. By the author of _Mount St. Lawrence_. London: Burns & Oates. 1876. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society.)

The best of motives and any quantity of the most pious reflections have combined to make of these two volumes a remarkably dull story. This is to be regretted; for those who can overcome the repugnance of wading through page after page of what, with the best will in the world we can only call dreary writing, will find much sound sense on the conduct of the family and what are called “the exigencies” of modern society. The author has attempted a bold feat—to paint the “heroics” of the kitchen, or, as they are called in the story, “the glory of service.” That there may be, that there is often, glory in service there can be no doubt. This is the power of Christianity. That a cook may be, and indeed often is, a model of self-sacrifice, or at least a source of great self-sacrifice in others, he would be a rash man who should undertake to deny. The author of _The Wyndham Family_ would reverse the old saying that “God sends the food, but the devil sends the cook.” To be sure, the particular cook here held up to view turns out to be quite a superior character, and this makes one of the surprises of the story. The experiment, however, can scarcely be considered a happy one. Were the two volumes condensed into one; were the atmosphere of the kitchen a little less obtrusive; were the girls in the story made to talk like girls, and not like what on this side would be called by some “school marms”; were there only a little more of the relief afforded by such a character as “Uncle Sanders,” _The Wyndham Family_ might have been not only what it now is, a vehicle for highly moral reflections, but a popular and interesting story.

It is strange that England, which has done so much in reviving Catholic English letters within the last century, and which is so high in the higher walks of literature, should, with a very few exceptions, continue to furnish about the poorest specimens of Catholic stories that the world has ever seen. Indeed, a kind of “goody-goody” school has grown up there which holds its own with exasperating persistency. The sooner that school is broken up the better. There surely might be found a happy medium between the “penny dreadful,” or the fleshly school of fiction, and that which reads like a very weak dilution of the penny catechism.

THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK FOR THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 1875.

Apart from the mass of interesting statistics contained in this report, the comprehensive style adopted by the compiler of presenting facts and figures deserves special mention.

We have been interested in the development of the law compelling children to attend school, but fail to find satisfactory information regarding its workings in the report of the Superintendent of Truancy. An increase of 7,614 in the daily average attendance is claimed by him. These figures do not agree with the facts stated on pp. 12 and 213, and in addition the attendance of 1874 shows an increase of 15,094 over 1873.

After a year’s trial the superintendent comes to the conclusion that the law, as it now stands, is a failure, and recommends the enactment of other laws, and the erection of new institutions to enforce the present law, of which he says: “Instances of opposition on the part of the parents to the law, or the efforts of the agents, are extremely rare; but rather do they regard them as welcome visitors and valuable auxiliaries, their authority and suasion being earnestly solicited for the reformation of the child” (p. 424).

FLAMINIA, and other stories; LUCAS GARCIA, and other stories; PERICO THE SAD, and other stories; ROBERT, OR THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER; THE CRUCIFIX OF BADEN, and other stories; THE STORY OF MARCEL, and other tales. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

These are all excellent stories, choice flowers of fiction culled from French, Spanish, Italian, German, and English gardens, while those of native growth are not forgotten. They are reprints from THE CATHOLIC WORLD; and how admirably fitted they are to meet a general want the reader may judge for himself by glancing at this month’s Bulletin, which presents the verdict of the Catholic press on them. Nothing is more needed nowadays than good popular Catholic literature, stories, perhaps, more than anything else. We accordingly welcome the republication in book form of stories which were universally well received as they appeared in the columns of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and only hope that the series may be continued.

EPISODES OF THE PARIS COMMUNE IN 1871. Translated from the French by the Lady Blanche Murphy. Benziger Brothers, New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. 1876.

This is a little volume of very readable sketches, relating the persecutions and sufferings of the various brotherhoods of Paris during the brief reign of the Commune in 1871. Their schools were closed, their houses invaded, and the brothers who had not succeeded in escaping to some safe hiding-place were arrested and thrown into prison. The services of the Christian Brothers as ambulance nurses during the war were known to the whole country; but the Commune ruthlessly drove them from the bedsides of the wounded and dying soldiers. “Down with the Black-gowns!” was the cry. “Death to the Brothers! Let them go join Darboy.”

“The watchword of the Revolution,” said Raoul Rigault to M. Cotte, the writer of one of these sketches, and late director of the press ambulances of Longchamps—“the watchword of the Revolution is death to religion, to ritual, to priests!” And he added: “As long as there is left in the land one man who dares pronounce the name of God all our labor will have been in vain, and we shall not be able to lay down the sword and the rifle.”

The style of the translation is easy and simple, and these _Episodes_ will very fittingly occupy a place in “The Catholic Premium-Book Library.”

THE STORY OF A VOCATION: HOW IT CAME ABOUT, AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876.

This is really the story of two vocations—of one in the world, and of another in, but not of, the world. It is one of those pure, graceful, yet interesting tales which are only too few. The translation, from the French, is well done. Parents and those who have charge of children will find this book not only highly entertaining but of real utility.

THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND, A.D. 1400 TO 1875. With appointments to monasteries and extracts from consistorial acts taken from MSS. in public and private libraries in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna, and Paris. By W. Mazière Brady. Vol. I. Rome: Tipografia della Pace. 1876.

This collection of curious documents relates to the Catholic succession. It is of great utility to the searcher into ecclesiastical antiquities. The author has consulted archives and searched out old records with much diligence, and gathered together a number of curious items of information of great value and interest to the antiquarian student. The most interesting of these is the account of Dr. Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, the last of the old line of Catholic succession in England, a prelate whose learning and sanctity make him worthy to close the series which St. Augustine began.

BOSTON TO WASHINGTON. A Pocket Guide to the Great Eastern Cities and the Centennial Exhibition, with Maps. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1876.

The title of this work will give the reader but a poor idea of its value compared with other guides, which are mere advertising sheets. This book is neat in every way—in its paper, in its printing, in its illustrations, and in its binding—and contains a great amount of interesting and correct information about the cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and will prove a valuable guide to the traveller, whether native or foreign.

VOYAGES DANS L’AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE. Par L. R. Père P. J. De Smet, S. J. Bruxelles: Benziger Bros.; New York.

This is a French edition of Father De Smet’s travels as an Indian missionary in the Rocky Mountains and in Oregon. This celebrated Jesuit, besides being a zealous apostle, was also a keen observer of men and customs, and his descriptions of Indian life, with which no man was more familiar, are both entertaining and instructive. A biography of Father De Smet has been recently published in Belgium, an English translation of which would, we think, be welcomed by American Catholics.

NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON “THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.”

Those who read carefully the philosophical articles which appear from time to time in our pages will notice that different, and even contradictory, opinions on some points are to be met with occasionally. It seems proper to explain, therefore, that the editor, and those who assist him in supervising the conduct of the magazine, while professing a general adhesion to the doctrine of St. Thomas, allow a considerable latitude in the expression of individual opinion by the different writers who contribute articles; and do not necessarily imply, in their approbation of pieces for publication, that they concur in every respect with the statements and arguments contained in them.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 136.—JULY, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.

SONNET.

THE CENTENARY OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

A century of sunrises hath bowed Its fulgent forehead ‘neath the ocean-floor Since first upon the West’s astonished shore, Like some huge Alp forth-struggling through the cloud A new-born nation stood, to Freedom vowed: Within that time how many an Empire hoar And young Republic, flushed with wealth and war, Alike have changed the ermine for the shroud! O “sprung from earth’s first blood,” O tempest-nursed! For thee what Fates? I know not. This I know The Soul’s great freedom-gift, of gifts the first— Thou first on man in fulness didst bestow: Hunted elsewhere, God’s Church with thee found rest:— Thy future’s Hope is she—that queenly Guest.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES,

1776-1876.

The social conditions of life which have been developed in the European colonies of North America, though to a certain extent the result of the physical surroundings of the early settlers, are chiefly the freer growth of principles which had been active, for centuries, in the Christian nations of the Old World. The elements of society here, unhindered by custom, law, or privilege, grouped themselves quickly and spontaneously into the forms to which they were tending in Europe also, but slowly and through conflict and struggle. The great and most significant fact, that it was found impossible in the New World to create privileged classes, clearly pointed in the direction in which European civilization was moving. Another fact not less noteworthy is the failure of every attempt to establish religion in this country.

Though there is but little to please the fancy or fire the imagination in American character or institutions, it is nevertheless to this country that the eyes of the thoughtful and observant from every part of the world are turned. The Catholicity of Christian civilization has generalized political problems and social movements. Civilization, like religion, has ceased to be national; and the bearing of a people’s life upon the welfare of the human race has come to be of greater moment than its effect upon the national character. It is to this that the universal interest which centres in the United States must be attributed.

We are a commonplace and mediocre people; practical, without high ideals, lofty aspirations, or excellent standards of worth and character. In philosophy, in science, in literature, in art, in culture, we are inferior to the nations of Europe. No mind transcendentally great has appeared among us; not one who is heir to all the ages and citizen of the world. Our ablest thinkers are merely the disciples of some foreign master. Our most gifted poets belong to the careful kind, who with effort and the file give polish and smoothness, but not the _mens divinior_, to their verse; and who, when they attempt a loftier flight, grow dull and monotonous as a Western prairie or Rocky Mountain table-land. Our most popular heroes—Washington and Lincoln—are but common men, and the higher is he who is least the product of our democratic institutions.

Our commercial enterprise and mechanical achievements are worthy of admiration, but not so far above those of other nations as to attract special attention.

If to-day, then, the American people draw the eyes of the whole world upon themselves, it is not because they have performed marvellous deeds, opened up new realms of thought, or created higher types of character, but because their social and political condition is that to which Europe, whether for good or evil, seems to be irresistibly tending. Beyond doubt, the tendency of modern civilization is to give to the people greater power and a larger sphere of action. Every attempt to arrest this movement but serves to make its force the more manifest. This spirit of the age is seen in the general spread of education, in the widening of the popular suffrage, in the separation of church and state, and in the dying out of aristocracies. We simply note facts, without stopping to examine principles or to weigh consequences. Those who resist a revolution are persuaded that it will work nothing but evil, while those who help it on hope from it every good; and the event most generally shows both to have been in error. Our present purpose does not lead us to speculate as to the manner in which the general welfare is to be affected by the great social transformations by which the character of civilized nations is being so profoundly modified; but we will suppose that the reign of aristocracies and of privilege is past, and that in the future the people are to govern; and we ask, What will be the influence of the new society upon the old faith?

The essential life of the Catholic Church is independent of her worldly condition; and though we are bound to believe that she is to remain amongst men until the end, we are yet not forbidden to hold that at times she may to human eyes seem almost to have ceased to be; that as in the past Christ was entombed, the _deletum nomen Christianum_ was proclaimed, in the future also the heavens may grow dark, God’s countenance seemingly be withdrawn, and the voice of despair cry out that all have bent the knee to Baal.

“But yet the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” We may hope, we may despond; let us, then, dispassionately consider the facts.

First, we will put aside the assumption that it is possible to organize this modern society so as to crush the church by persecution or violence. In a social state, which can be strong only by being just, attempts of this kind, if successful, would inevitably lead to anarchy and chaos, out of which the church would again come forth with or before the civil order. We cannot, then, look forward to a prolonged and open conflict between the church and the civilized governments of the world without giving up all hope in the permanency and effectiveness of the social phase upon which we have entered. In the end the European states, like the American, must be convinced that, if they would live, they must also let live; since a _modus vivendi_ between church and state is absolutely essential to the permanence of society as now constituted.

The question, then, is narrowed to the free and peaceable life of the church in contact with the popular governments which are already constituted or are struggling for existence; and it is in their bearing upon this all-important subject that the world-wide significance of the lessons to be learned from a careful study of the history of the Catholic Church in the United States becomes apparent. For a hundred years this church has lived in the new society, and all the circumstances of her position have been admirably suited to test her power to meet the difficulties offered by a democratic social organization. The problem to be solved was whether or not a vigorous but yet orderly and obedient Catholic faith and life could flourish in this country, where what are called the principles of modern civilization have found their most complete expression.

If we would understand the history of our country, we must not lose sight of the religious character of the men by whom it was explored and colonized. Religious zeal led the Puritans to New England, the Catholics to Maryland, and the Quakers to Pennsylvania; and among the Spaniards and the French there were many who, like Columbus and Champlain, deemed the salvation of a soul of greater moment than the conquest of an empire. We might, indeed, without going beyond our present subject, speak of the heroic and gentle lives of the apostolic men who, from Maine to California, from Florida to the Northern Lakes, toiled among the Indians, and not in vain, that they might win them from savage ways and lift them up to higher modes of life. The Catholics of the United States can never forget that the labors of these men belong to the history of the church on this continent; that the lives they offered up, the blood they shed, plead for us before God; and that if their work is disappearing, it sinks into the grave only with the dying race which they more than all others have loved and served. But in this age men are little inclined to dwell upon memories, however glorious. We live in the present and in the future, and, in spite of much cheap sentiment and wordy philanthropy, we have but weak sympathy with decaying races. We are interested in what is or is to be, not in what has been; and perhaps it is well that this is so. We have but feeble power to think or act or love, and it should not be wasted. If Americans to-day are busy with thoughts of a hundred years ago, it is not that they love those old times and their simple ways, but that by contrast they may, in boastful self-complacency, glory in the present. They look back, not to regret the fast-receding shore, but to congratulate themselves that they have left it already so far behind. It is enough, then, to have alluded to the labors of the Catholic missionaries among the North American Indians, since those labors have had and can have but small influence upon the history of the church in the United States. To understand this history we need only study that of the Europeans and their descendants on this continent.

The early colonists of the present territory of the United States were as unlike in their religious as in their national characters. English Puritans founded the colonies of New England; New York was settled by the Dutch; Delaware and New Jersey by the Dutch and the Swedes; Pennsylvania by Quakers from England, who were followed by a German colony. Virginia was the home of the English who adhered to the Established Church of the mother country, and North Carolina became the refuge of the Nonconformists from Virginia; in South Carolina a considerable number of Huguenots found an asylum; and in Maryland the first settlers were chiefly English Catholics. Nearly all these colonies owed their foundation to the religious troubles of Europe. The Puritans, the Catholics, and the Quakers were more eager to find a home in which they could freely worship God than to amass wealth.

The religious spirit of New England, whose influence in this country, before and since the Revolution, has been preponderant, was as narrow and proscriptive as it was intense, and a gloomy fanaticism lay at the basis of its entire political and social system. The Puritan colonies were not so much bodies politic as churches in the wilderness. To the commission appointed to draw up a body of laws to serve as a declaration of rights, Cotton Mather declared that God’s people should be governed by no other laws than those which He himself had given to Moses; and one of the first acts of the Massachusetts colony was the expulsion of John and Samuel Browne with their followers, because they refused to conform to the religious practices of the Pilgrims. If dissenting Protestants were not tolerated in New England, Catholics certainly could not hope for mercy; and, in fact, they were denied religious liberty even in Rhode Island, which had been founded by the victims of Puritan persecution as a refuge for the oppressed and a protest against fanaticism. Though Mr. Bancroft, whose partisan zeal, whenever there is question of New England, is unmistakable, denies that this unjust discrimination was the act of the people of Rhode Island, it served, at any rate, so effectually to exclude Catholics that when the war of independence broke out not one was to be found within the limits of the colony.

Puritanism, more than any other form of Protestantism, drew its very life from a hatred of all that is Catholic. The office and authority of bishops, the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, the sign of the cross, the chant of the psalms, the observance of saints’ days, the use of musical instruments in church, and the vestments worn by the ministers of religion were all odious to the Puritans because they were associated with Catholic worship; and in their eyes the chief crime of the Church of England was that she still retained some of the doctrines and usages of that of Rome. Religion and freedom, though their conception of both was partial and false, were the predominant passions of the Puritans; and since they looked upon the Catholic Church as the fatal enemy alike of religion and of freedom, their fanaticism, not less than their enthusiastic love of independence, filled them with the deepest hatred for Catholics. They had the virtues and the vices of the lower and more ignorant classes of Englishmen, from which for the most part they had sprung. If they were frugal, content with little, ready to bear hardship and to suffer want, not easily cast down, they were also narrow, superstitious, angular, and unlovely; and these characteristics were hardened by a cold, gloomy, and unsympathetic religious faith. The credulity which led them to hang witches made them ready to believe in the diabolism of priests; while the narrowness of their intellectual range rendered them incapable of perceiving the grandeur and excellence of an organization which alone, in the history of the world, has become universal without becoming weak, and which, if it be considered as only human, is still man’s most wonderful work. With the æsthetic beauty of the Catholic religion they could have no sympathy, since they were deprived of the sense by which alone it can be appreciated. Though they fasted, appointed days of thanksgiving, and, through a false asceticism, changed the Lord’s day into the Jewish Sabbath, the fasts and saints’ days of Catholics were in their eyes the superstitions of idolaters; and while they assumed the right to declare what is true Christian doctrine and to enforce its acceptance, they indignantly rejected the spiritual authority of the church, though historically traceable to Christ’s commission to the apostles.

The measures, therefore, which the colonies of New England took to prevent the establishment of the Catholic Church on their soil, were merely the expression of the horror and dread of what they conceived its influence and tendency to be. In 1631, just eleven years after the landing of the _Mayflower_, Sir Christopher Gardiner, on mere suspicion of being a papist, was seized and sent out of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and in the same year the General Court wrote a letter denouncing the minister at Watertown for giving expression to the opinion that the Church of Rome is a true church. Three years later Roger Williams, whose tolerant temper has been an exhaustless theme of praise, joined with the Puritans in declaring the cross a “relic of Antichrist, a popish symbol savoring of superstition and not to be countenanced by Christian men”; and, in proof of the sincerity of their zeal, these godly men cut the cross from out the English flag. Priests were forbidden, under pain of imprisonment and even death, to enter the colonies; and the neighboring Catholic settlements of Canada were regarded with sentiments of such bigoted hatred as to blind the Puritans to their own most evident political and commercial interests. So unrelenting was their fanaticism that one of the grievances which they most strongly urged against George III. was that he tolerated popery in Canada. In the New England colonies, down to 1776, the Catholic Church had no existence, and the same may be said of the other colonies, with the exception of Maryland and of a few families scattered through parts of Pennsylvania. In Maryland itself, where the principles of religious liberty, which now form a part of the organic law of the land, had been first proclaimed by the Catholic colonists, the persecution of the church early became an important feature in the colonial legislation. In successive enactments the Catholics were forbidden to teach school, to hold civil office, and to have public worship; and were, moreover, taxed for the support of the Established Church. The religious character of Virginia, though less intense and earnest than that of New England, can hardly be said to have been less anti-Catholic; and it is therefore not surprising that we should find the cruel penal code of the mother country in full vigor in this colony.

It would have been difficult to find anywhere communities more thoroughly Protestant than the thirteen British colonies one hundred years ago. The little body of Catholics in Maryland, in all about 25,000, who, in spite of persecution, had retained their faith, had sunk into a kind of religious apathy; and as their public worship had long been forbidden and they were not permitted to have schools, to indifference was added ignorance of the doctrines of the church. A few priests, once members of the suppressed Society of Jesus, lingered amongst them, though they generally found it necessary to live upon their own lands or with their kindred, and with difficulty kept alive the flickering flame of faith. Without religious energy, zeal, or organization, the Maryland Catholics were gradually being absorbed into mere worldliness or into the more vigorous Protestant sects; and, in fact, many of the descendants of the original settlers had already lost the faith. In this way the character of the old Catholic colony had been wholly changed; so that Maryland surpassed all the other colonies in the odious proscriptiveness of her legislation, levying the same tax for the introduction into her territory of a Catholic Irishman as for the importation of a Negro slave. The existence of the Catholic families there, and of the small and scattered settlements in Pennsylvania, if recognized at all by the general public, was looked upon as an anomaly, an anachronism, which, from the nature of things, must soon disappear. There is no exaggeration, then, in saying that the Revolution found the British provinces of North America thoroughly Protestant, with a hatred of the church which nothing but the general contempt for Catholics tended to mitigate; while the seeming failure of the Catholic settlement in Maryland, one hundred and fifty years after the landing of Lord Baltimore, gave no promise of a brighter future for the faith.

In the presence of the impending conflict with England political questions became supreme, and the Convention of 1774, in its appeal to the country, entreated all classes of citizens to put away religious disputes and animosities, which could only withhold them from uniting in the defence of their common rights and liberties. Though this appeal was probably meant to smooth the way for a more cordial union between New England and the Southern colonies, which were even then as unlike as Puritan and Cavalier, it was also an evidence of the public feeling, showing that with the American people religious questions were fast coming to be merely of secondary importance. At any rate it was responded to cheerfully and generously by the Catholics, who, without stopping to think of the wrongs they had suffered, threw themselves heartily into the contest for national independence. The signer of the Declaration who risked most was a Catholic, and a Catholic priest was a member of the delegation sent to Canada to bring about an alliance, or at least to secure the neutrality of that province.

The conduct of the Catholics in the war made, no doubt, a favorable impression, and the very important aid given to the American cause by Catholic France had still further influence in softening the asperities of Protestant prejudice; but, unless we are mistaken, we must seek elsewhere for the explanation of the clause of the federal Constitution which provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States”; as well as of the First Amendment, to the effect that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These provisions were merely a part of a general policy, which restricted as far as possible the functions of the federal government, and left to the several States as much of their separate sovereignty as was consistent with the existence of the national Union.

This is evident from the fact that the federal Constitution placed no restriction upon the legislation of the different States in matters of religion, leaving them free to pursue the intolerant and persecuting policy of the colonial era; and, indeed, laws for the support of public worship lingered in Connecticut till 1816 and in Massachusetts till 1833, and anti-Catholic religious tests were introduced into several of the State constitutions. In New York, as late as 1806, a test-oath excluded Catholics from office; and in North Carolina, down to 1836, only those who were willing to swear to belief in the truth of Protestantism were permitted to hope for political preferment. New Jersey erased the anti-Catholic clause from her constitution only in 1844; and even to-day, unless we err, the written law of New Hampshire retains the test-oath.

The provision which denied to the general government all right of interference in religious matters was a political necessity. Any attempt to introduce into Congress religious discussions would have necessarily rent asunder the still feeble bands by which New England and the Southern States were held together. The reasons of policy which forbade the federal government to meddle with slavery applied with ten-fold force to questions of religion.

The First Amendment to the Constitution, of which we Americans are so fond of boasting, cannot, then, be interpreted as the proclamation of the principle of toleration or of the separation of church and state; it is merely the expression of the will of the confederating States to retain their pre-existing rights of control over religion, which, indeed, they could not have delegated to the general government without imperilling the very existence of the Union. Nearly all the leading statesmen of that day recognized the necessity of some kind of union of church and state, and their views were embodied in the different State constitutions.

The year before the first battle of the Revolution no less than eighteen Baptists were confined in one jail in Massachusetts for refusing to pay ministerial rates; and yet John Adams declared “that a change in the solar system might be expected as soon as a change in the ecclesiastical system of Massachusetts”; and at a much later period Judge Story was able to affirm that “it yet remained a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be permanent where the public worship of God and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state.”

There is no foundation, we think, for the opinion which we have sometimes heard expressed, that the First Amendment to the Constitution was intended as an act of tardy justice to the Catholics of the United States, in gratitude for their conduct during the war and for the aid of Catholic France. It in fact made no change in the position of the Catholics, whom it left to the mercy of the different States, precisely as they had been in the colonial era. Various causes were, however, at work which, by modifying the attitude of the States towards religion, tended also to give greater freedom to the Catholic Church. The first of these was the rise of what may be called the secular theory of government, whose great exponent, Thomas Jefferson, had received his political opinions from the French philosophers of the eighteenth century. The state, according to this theory, is a purely political organism, and is not in any way concerned with religion; and this soon came to be the prevailing sentiment in the Democratic party, whose acknowledged leader Jefferson was, which may explain why the great mass of the Catholics in this country have always voted with this party. Another cause that tended to bring about a separation of church and state was the rapidly-increasing number of sects, which rendered religious legislation more and more difficult, especially as several of these were opposed to any recognition of religion by the civil power. And to this we may add the growing religious indifference which caused large numbers of Americans to fall away from, or to be brought up outside of, all ecclesiastical organization. The desire, too, to encourage immigration—which sprang from interested motives, and also from a feeling, very powerful in the United States half a century ago, that this country is the refuge of all who are oppressed by the European tyrannies—predisposed Americans to look favorably upon the largest toleration of religious belief and practice. There is no question, then, but the Catholics of this country owe the freedom which they now enjoy to the operation of general laws, the necessary results of given social conditions, and not at all to the good-will or tolerant temper of American Protestants. Let us, however, be grateful for the boon, whencesoever derived. At the close of the war which secured our national independence and created the republic the Catholic Church found herself, for all practical purposes, unfettered and free to enter upon a field which to her, we may say, was new. At that time there were in the whole country not more than forty thousand Catholics and twenty-five priests. In all the land there was not a convent or a religious community. There was not a Catholic school; there was no bishop; the sacraments of confirmation and of Holy Orders had never been administered. The church was without organization, having for several years had no intercourse with its immediate head, the vicar-apostolic of London; it was without property, with the exception of some land in Maryland, which, through a variety of contrivances, had been saved from the rapacity of the colonial persecutors; and, surrounded by a bigoted Protestant population, ignorant of all the Catholic glories of the past, it was also without honor. But faith and hope, which with liberty ought to make all things possible, had not fled, and soon the budding promise of the future harvest lifted its timid head beneath the genial sun of a brighter heaven. The priests of Maryland and Pennsylvania addressed a letter to Pius VI., praying him to appoint a prefect-apostolic to preside over the church in the United States; and as the Holy See was already deliberating upon a step of this kind, Father Carroll was made superior of the American clergy, with power to administer the sacrament of confirmation. This was in 1784.

The priests, who at this time, for fear of wounding Protestant susceptibilities, thought it inexpedient to ask for a bishop, were now, after longer deliberation, persuaded that in this they had erred, and they therefore named a committee to present a petition to Rome, praying for the erection of an episcopal see in the United States. The Holy Father having signified his willingness to accede to this proposition, and it having been ascertained, too, that the government of this country would make no objection, they at once fixed upon Baltimore as the most suitable location for the new see, and presented the name of Father Carroll as the most worthy to be its first occupant. The papal bulls were dated November 6, 1789, and upon their reception Father Carroll sailed for England, where he was consecrated on the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption, 1790.

Events were just then taking place in France which were of great moment to the young church on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The French Revolution was getting ready to guillotine priests and to turn churches into barracks; and M. Emery, the Superior-General of the Order of Saint Sulpice, who was as far-seeing as he was fearless, entered into correspondence with Bishop Carroll, in England, with a view to open an ecclesiastical seminary in the United States. The offer was gladly accepted, and the year following (1791) M. Nagot organized the Theological Seminary of Baltimore, and in the same year the first Catholic college in the United States was opened at Georgetown, in the District of Columbia. In 1790 Father Charles Neale brought from Antwerp a community of Carmelite nuns, who established themselves near Port Tobacco, in Southern Maryland. This was the first convent of religious women founded in the United States, the house of Ursuline nuns in New Orleans having come into existence while Louisiana was still a French colony. A few years later a number of religious ladies adopted the rule of the Order of the Visitation and organized a convent in Georgetown; and in 1809 Mother Seton founded near Emmittsburg, in Maryland, the first community of Sisters of Charity in this country, just one year after Father Dubois, the future Bishop of New York, had opened Mt. St. Mary’s College. In 1805 Bishop Carroll reorganized the Society of Jesus, and in 1806 the Dominicans founded their first convent in the United States, at St. Rose, in Kentucky. Two years later episcopal sees were established at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Bardstown, with an archiepiscopal centre at Baltimore.

In this way the church was preparing, as far as the slender means at her command would permit, to receive and care for the vast multitudes of Catholics who began to seek refuge in the United States from the persecutions and oppressions of the British and other European governments. But her resources were not equal to the urgency and magnitude of the occasion, and her history, during the half-century immediately following the close of the Revolutionary war, though full of examples of courage, zeal, and energy, shows her in the throes of a struggle which, whether it were for life or death, seemed doubtful.

Like an invading army, her children poured in a ceaseless stream into the enemy’s country, and, arrived upon the scene of action, they found themselves without leaders, without provisions, without means of defence or weapons of heavenly warfare. Far from their spiritual guides, in a strange land, without churches or schools, the very air of this new world seemed fatal to the faith of the early Catholic immigrants; and when, yielding to the rigors of the climate or the hardships of frontier life, they died in great numbers, their orphan children fell into the hands of Protestants and were lost to the church. Their descendants to-day are scattered from Maine to Florida, from New York to California.

Bishop England, though inclined to exaggerate the losses of the church in this country, was certainly not mistaken in holding that during the period of which we speak, though there was an increase of congregations, there was yet a great falling away of Catholics from the faith in the United States.

Unfortunately, the want of priests and churches cannot with truth be said to have been the greatest evil, especially in the early years of the organization of the hierarchy. A spirit of insubordination existed both in the clergy and the laity. “Every day,” wrote Bishop Carroll, “furnishes me with new reflections, and almost every day produces new events to alarm my conscience and excite fresh solicitude at the prospect before me. You cannot conceive the trouble which I suffer already, and the still greater which I foresee from the medley of clerical characters, coming from different quarters and of various educations, and seeking employment here. I cannot avoid employing some of them, and soon they begin to create disturbances.” There were troubles and scandals in nearly all the larger cities, which in some instances were fomented by the priests themselves. The trustee system was a fruitful cause of disturbance, threatening at times to bring the greatest evils upon the church; especially as there seemed to be reason to fear lest the dissensions between the clergy and the laity might serve as a pretext for the intermeddling of the civil authority in ecclesiastical affairs. Except in the two or three colleges of which we have spoken, there was no Catholic education to be had; and for a long time the few elementary schools which were opened were of a very wretched kind. Indeed, we may say that it is only within the last quarter of a century that many of the bishops and priests of this country have come to realize the all-importance of Catholic education.

Another unavoidable evil was the mingling of various nationalities in the same church, giving rise to jealousies, and frequently to dissensions; and to this we may add that the very people to whom above all others the church in this country is indebted for its progress met with peculiar difficulties in the fulfilment of their God-given mission. This fact did not escape the keen eye of the first bishop of Charleston.

“England,” he says, “has unfortunately too well succeeded in linking contumely to their name [the Irish] in all her colonies; and though the United States have cast away the yoke under which she held them, many other causes have combined to continue against the Irish Catholic more or less to the present day the sneer of the supercilious, the contempt of the conceited, and the dull prosing of those who imagine themselves wise. That which more than a century of fashion has made habitual is not to be overcome in a year; and to any Irish Catholic who has dwelt in this country during one-fourth of the period of my sojourn it will be painfully evident that, although the evil is slowly diminishing, its influence is not confined to the American nor to the anti-Catholic. When a race is once degraded, however unjustly, it is a weakness of our nature that, however we may be identified with them upon some points, we are desirous of showing that the similitude is not complete. You may be an Irishman, but not a Catholic: you may be Catholics, but not Irish. It is clear you are not an Irish Catholic in either case! But when the great majority of Catholics in the United States were either Irish or of Irish descent, the force of the prejudice against the Irish Catholic bore against the Catholic religion, and the influence of this prejudice has been far more mischievous than is generally believed.”[125]

We must not omit to add that many of the early missionaries spoke English very imperfectly and were but little acquainted with the habits and customs of the people among whom they were called to labor; while the five or six bishops of the country, separated by great distances from their priests, rarely saw them, and consequently were in a great measure unable to control or direct them in the exercise of the sacred ministry. The French missionaries, who in their own country had seen the most frightful crimes committed in the name of liberty and of republicanism, found it difficult to sympathize heartily with our democratic institutions; and from Ireland very few priests came, because the French Revolution had broken up the Continental Irish seminaries from which she drew her own supplies.

The purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 added little or nothing to the strength of the church in the United States, since, owing to the wretched French ecclesiastical colonial policy, which did not permit the appointment of bishops, the Catholic population of that province, a large portion of whom were negro slaves, had been almost wholly neglected. What the state of the church was in Florida at the time of its cession to the United States may be inferred from the fact that in the whole province there was but one efficient priest, who at once withdrew to Cuba, and afterwards to Ireland, his native country. In the early years of the present century Protestant feeling in this country was much more earnest and self-confident than at present—in the simple days of camp-meetings and jerking revivals and childlike faith in the pope as Antichrist, and in priests and nuns as Satan’s chosen agents; when the preachers had the whole world of anti-popery commonplace wherein to disport themselves without fear of contradiction. The universal feeling of pity for those who doubted the supreme wisdom of our political institutions was bestowed with not less boundless liberality upon all who failed to perceive that American Protestantism was the fine essence and final outcome of all that is best and purest in religion. Catholic opinion, on the other hand, was feeble, unorganized, and thrown back upon itself by the overwhelming force of a public sentiment strong, fresh, and defiant. We were, moreover, still under the ban of English literature that for three hundred years had been busy travestying the history and doctrines of the church, to defend which was made a crime. There were but few Catholic books, and those to be had generally failed to catch the phases of religious thought through which American Protestants were passing. It was more than thirty years after the erection of the see of Baltimore that the Charleston _Miscellany_, which Archbishop Hughes called the first really Catholic newspaper ever published in this country, was founded; and fifty years after the consecration of Bishop Carroll there were but six Catholic journals in the United States.

Much else might be said in illustration of the difficulties with which the church has had to contend, and of the obstacles which she has had to overcome, in order to win the position which she now occupies in the great American republic. Enough, however, has been said to show that it would be difficult to imagine surroundings which, while allowing her freedom of action, would be better suited to test her strength and vitality.

The 15th of next August eighty-six years will have passed since the consecration of Bishop Carroll, and to this period the organized efforts of the church to secure a position in this country are confined. The work then begun has not for a moment been intermitted. In the midst of losses, defeats, persecutions, anxieties, doubts, revilings, calumnies, the struggle has been still carried on. Each year with its sorrows brought also its joys. The progress, if at times imperceptible, was yet real. When in the early synods and councils of Baltimore were gathered the strong and true-hearted bishops and priests who have now gone to their rest, there was doubtless more of sadness than of exultation in their words as they spoke of their scattered and poorly-provided flocks, of the want of priests, of churches, of schools, of asylums, of the hardships of missionary life, and of labors that seemed in vain. Still, they sowed in faith, knowing that God it is who gives the increase. Like weary travellers who seem to make no headway, by looking back they saw how much they had advanced. New churches were built, new congregations were formed, new dioceses were organized. On some mountain-side or in deep wooded vale a cloister, a convent, a college, a seminary arose, one hardly knew how, and yet another and another, until these retreats of learning and virtue dotted the land. The elements of discord and disturbance within the church grew less and less active, the relations between priest and people became more intimate and cordial, the tone of Catholic feeling improved, ecclesiastical discipline was strengthened, and the self-respect of the Catholic body increased.

The danger, which at one time may have seemed imminent, of the estrangement of the laity from the clergy, disappeared little by little, and to-day in no country in the world are priest and people more strongly united than here. With the more thorough organization of dioceses and congregations parochial schools became practicable, and the great progress made in Catholic elementary education is one of the most significant and reassuring facts connected with the history of the church in the United States. The number of pupils in our parochial schools was, in 1873, 380,000, and to-day it is probably not much short of half a million, which, however, is even less than half of the Catholic school population of the entire country. But the work of building schools is still progressing, and the conviction of the indispensable necessity of religious education is growing with both priests and people; so that we may confidently hope that the time is not very remote when in this country Catholic children will be brought up only in Catholic schools. By establishing protectories, industrial schools, and asylums we are growing year after year better able to provide for our orphan children.

The want of priests, which has hitherto been one of the chief obstacles to the progress of the church, is now felt only in exceptional cases or in new or thinly-settled dioceses. A hundred years ago there were not more than twenty-five priests in the United States; in 1800 there were supposed to be forty; in 1830 the number had risen to two hundred and thirty-two, and in 1848 to eight hundred and ninety. In ten years, from 1862 to 1872, the number of priests was more than doubled, having grown from two thousand three hundred and seventeen to four thousand eight hundred and nine. The lack of vocations to the priesthood among native Americans was formerly a subject of anxiety and also of frequent discussion among Catholics in this country; but now it is generally admitted, we think, that if proper care is taken in the education and training of our youths, a sufficient number of them will be found willing to devote themselves to the holy ministry.

In 1875 there were, according to the official statistics of the various dioceses, five thousand and seventy-four priests, twelve hundred and seventy-three ecclesiastical students, and six thousand five hundred and twenty-eight churches and chapels in the United States. There were also, at the same time, thirty-three theological seminaries, sixty-three colleges, five hundred and fifty-seven academies and select schools, sixteen hundred and forty-five parochial schools, two hundred and fourteen asylums, and ninety-six hospitals under the authority and control of the Catholic hierarchy of this country.

One hundred years ago there was not a Catholic ecclesiastical student, or theological seminary, or college, or academy, or parochial school, or asylum, or hospital from Maine to Georgia.

Father Badin, the first person who ever received Holy Orders in the United States, was ordained in the old cathedral of Baltimore on the 25th of May, 1793, just eighty-three years ago. It is now eighty-six years since Bishop Carroll was consecrated, and down to 1808 he remained the only Catholic bishop in the American Church, whose hierarchy is composed at present of one cardinal, ten archbishops, forty-six bishops, and eight vicars-apostolic.

In 1790 there was not a convent in the United States; in 1800 there were but two; to-day there are more than three hundred and fifty for women, and there are probably one hundred and thirty for men.

We may be permitted to refer also to the increase of the wealth of the church in this country, especially since this seems to be the cause of great uneasiness to the faithful and unselfish representatives of the sovereign people. The value of the property owned by the church in this country, as given in the census reports, was, in 1850, $9,256,758; in 1860, $26,774,119; and in 1870, $60,985,565. The ratio of increase from 1850 to 1860 was 189 per cent., and from 1860 to 1870 128 per cent.; while the aggregate wealth of the whole country during these same periods increased in the former decade only 125 per cent. and in the latter only 86 per cent. In 1850 the value of the church property of the Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians was greater than that of the Catholics, but in 1870 we had taken the second rank in point of wealth, and to-day we think there is no doubt but that we hold the first.

“Whatever causes,” says Mr. Abbott, in his recent article on _The Catholic Peril in America_, “may have contributed to this significant result, it is certain that among the chief of them must be reckoned exemption from just taxation, extraordinary shrewdness of financial management, and fraudulent collusion with dishonest politicians.”

Those who know more of the history of the church in this country than can be learned from statistical reports, or articles in reviews, or cyclopædias are aware that there are no possessions in the United States more honestly acquired, or bought with money more hardly earned, than those of the Catholic Church; and that her present wealth, instead of being due to special financial shrewdness, has in many instances been got in spite of great and frequent financial blundering; while the bishops and priests of America, with here and there an exception, have neither had nor sought to have any political influence, nor would they, if disposed to meddle with partisan politics, meet with any encouragement from the Catholic people. Their position with regard to the question of education is the result of purely conscientious and religious motives; and while claiming for Catholics the right to give to their children the benefit of religious training, they have everywhere and repeatedly given the most convincing proofs of their sincere desire to concede to all others the fullest liberty in this as in other matters; and though they cannot approve of that feature in the common-school system which excludes all teaching of doctrinal religion, they have never thought of pretending that those to whom it does commend itself should not be permitted to try the experiment of a purely secular education, provided they respect in others the freedom of conscience which is now a part of the organic law of the land.

With very few exceptions, Catholics have, throughout the whole country, been rigidly excluded from all the higher political offices; though now, unfortunately, this can hardly be considered a grievance, since the general corruption and unworthiness of public life have caused the more respectable class of American citizens to shrink from the coarseness and vulgarity of our partisan contests. On the other hand, those nominal Catholics who acquire influence in what are called “ward politics” are generally very much like other politicians, eager to serve God and the country whenever it puts money in their purse. What political reasons may have determined the great body of Catholic voters in this country to prefer the Democratic to the Whig, and later to the Republican, party, we know not; but we are very sure that nothing could be more unfounded than to imagine that the welfare or progress of the church can in any way be connected with the success of Democratic partisanism. As a religious body we have nothing to hope from either or any party. We ask nothing but the liberty which with us is considered the inalienable heritage of all Christian believers; and for the rest, we know that a politician doing a good deed is more to be shunned than an enemy plotting evil.

The property of the Catholic Church in the United States has not been exempted from taxation, except under general laws which applied equally to that of all other religious denominations; and though we can imagine nothing more barbarous, more hurtful to the progress of the national architecture and to the general æsthetic culture of the people, than a change in the policy which has hitherto prevailed, not in this country alone, but in all the civilized states of the world; nevertheless, if those who hold that religion has no social value succeed in revolutionizing legislation on this subject, the Catholics will not be less prepared than their neighbors to abide the issue.

A more interesting study than the wealth of the church is the growth of the Catholic population in the United States, though, in the absence of reliable or complete statistics on this subject, we are not able to give an entirely satisfactory or exact statement of the facts. The “number of sittings,” to use the phrase of the official reports, given in the United States Census, is of scarcely any assistance in determining the religious statistics of the country. The number of Protestant church sittings, for instance, was in 1870 19,674,548, whereas the membership of all the Protestant sects of the country was only about 7,000,000; and it is well known that, while in most Protestant churches many seats are usually unoccupied during religious service, in the Catholic churches the same seat is frequently filled by three, or four, or even five different persons, who take it in succession at the various Masses.

Ninety-one years ago Father Carroll set down the Catholic population of the United States at twenty-five thousand, and he may have fallen short of the real number by about ten thousand. In 1808, when episcopal sees were placed at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Bardstown, the Catholic population had increased to about one hundred and fifty thousand. In 1832 Bishop England estimated the Catholics of the United States at half a million; but in 1836, after having given the subject greater attention, he thought there could not be less than a million and a quarter. Both these estimates, however, were mere surmises; for Bishop England, who always exaggerated the losses of the church in this country, not finding it possible to get the data for a well-founded opinion as to the Catholic population, was left to conjecture or to arguments based upon premises which, to say the least, were themselves unproven. The editors of the _Metropolitan Catholic Almanac_ for 1848, basing their calculations upon the very satisfactory returns which they had received from the thirty dioceses then existing in the United States, set down our Catholic population at 1,190,700, and this is probably the nearest approach which we can make to the number of Catholics in this country at the time the great Irish famine gave a new impulse to emigration to America. From 1848 down to the present day the increase of the Catholic population has been very rapid, it having risen in a period of twenty-eight years from a little over a million to nearly seven millions. The third revised edition of Schem’s _Statistics of the World for 1875_ gives 6,000,000 as the Catholic population of the United States, and the _American Annual Cyclopædia_ for 1875 reckons it as more than 6,000,000; and from a careful consideration of the data, which, however, are still imperfect, we think it is at present probably not less than 7,000,000. This remarkable growth of the church here during the last thirty years must be attributed to various causes, by far the most important of which is beyond all doubt the vast immigration from Ireland; to which, indeed, we must also chiefly ascribe the progress of the church during this century in all other countries throughout the world in which the English language is spoken. No other people could have done for the Catholic faith in the United States what the Irish people have done. Their unalterable attachment to their priests, their deep Catholic instincts, which no combination of circumstances has ever been able to bring into conflict with their love of country; the unworldly and spiritual temper of the national character; their indifference to ridicule and contempt; and their unfailing generosity—all fitted them for the work which was to be done here, and enabled them, in spite of the strong prejudices against their race which Americans had inherited from England, to accomplish what would not have been accomplished by Italian, French, or German Catholics. Another cause of the more rapid growth of the church during the last quarter of a century may be found in the more thorough organization of dioceses, congregations, and schools, by which we are better able to shield our people from unhealthy influences, and thus year after year to diminish our losses; while the increasing number of converts to the faith helps to swell the Catholic ranks. Of 22,209 persons who were confirmed in the diocese of Baltimore from 1864 to 1868, 2,752, or more than 12 per cent., were converts; and our converts are generally from the more intelligent classes of Americans. The efforts to arrest the progress of the church, which now for nearly half a century have assumed a kind of periodicity, may be placed among the causes which have added to her strength. These attempts are made in open violation of the religious and political principles which are the special boast of all Americans, and the only arguments which can be adduced to justify them are drawn from fear or hatred. Whenever we have been made the victims of lawlessness or fraud, as in the burning of the Charlestown convent and the churches of Philadelphia, or in the spreading “Awful Disclosures” throughout the land, the sympathies of generous and honest men have been attracted to us. And when Protestant bigotry has made an alliance with a political party in order to compass our ruin, it has merely succeeded in forcing the opposing party to take up throughout the whole country the defence of the Catholics. Thus during the brief day of the “Know-nothing” conspiracy large numbers of Protestants, for the first time since the Reformation, were led to examine into the history of the church, with a view to defend her against the traditional objections of Protestantism itself. In fact, in a country which looks with equally tolerant complacency upon every form of belief or unbelief from Atheism to Voudooism, from the Joss-House of the Chinaman to the Mormon Tabernacle and breeding caravansary of free-love, to imagine that there can be either decent or reasonable motives for exciting to persecution of the Catholic Church is sheer madness; nor can we think it less absurd to suppose that the good sense and justice of the American people will allow them to commit themselves to a policy as inconsistent as it would be outrageous.

However this may be, there can be no doubt but the repeated and unprovoked attacks made upon the Catholics of the United States by fanatics and demagogues have helped to increase their union and earnestness; and this leads us away from the growth of the church in her external organization to the consideration of the development of her spiritual and intellectual life. And here we are at once struck by the similarity between her progress and that of the country itself, which has been diffusive at the expense of concentration and thoroughness. Nevertheless, no attentive observer can fail to be struck by the intense and earnest religious spirit by which the great body of the Catholics of the United States are animated, as well as the readiness with which they co-operate with their priests in promoting the interests of religion. Nowhere do we find greater eagerness for instruction in the truths of the faith, or greater willingness to make sacrifices in order to give to the young a religious education, than among the Catholics of this country. Our priests are, as a body, laborious, self-sacrificing, and disinterested, and are honestly struggling to make themselves worthy of the great mission which God has given them in America.

Our position in this country hitherto has turned the thoughts of our best minds to polemical and controversial writing, which, though useful and even necessary, has only a temporary value, since it is addressed primarily to objections and phases of belief which owe their special significance to transitory conditions of society and opinion. Controversies between Catholics and Protestants which forty years ago attracted general attention and produced considerable impression, would now pass unnoticed; for the simple reason that Americans, in the confusion of sects and religious opinions, have come to realize that Protestantism has no doctrinal basis, and is left to trust exclusively to religious sentiment. Dogmatic Protestantism is of the past, and the most popular preachers are those who appeal most skilfully to the religious instincts without requiring the acceptance of any religious beliefs. Most of our best writers have been men whose arduous labors left them but little time for study or literary composition, and their works frequently bear the marks of hasty performance; but they will nevertheless not suffer from comparison with the religious writings of American Protestants. The ablest man who has devoted himself to the discussion of religion and philosophy, or probably any other subject, in the United States during the last hundred years is Dr. Brownson, all of whose best thoughts have been given to the elucidation of Catholic truth; and though there was something wanting to make him either a great philosopher or a great theologian, or even a perfect master of style, we know of no other American of whom this may not also be justly said; unless, perhaps, we may consider Prescott, Hawthorne, or Irving worthy of the last of these titles. And though we Catholics have no man who is able to take up the pen which has just fallen from the hand of Dr. Brownson, none who have the power which once belonged to England and Hughes, we are in this not more unfortunate than our country, which no longer finds men like Adams or Jefferson to represent not unworthily its supreme dignity; nor any like Webster, Clay, or Calhoun, whose minds were as lofty as their honor was pure, to lend the authority of wisdom and eloquence to the deliberations of a great people.

During the hundred years of our independent life the external development of the church, like that of the nation, has been so rapid that all individual energies have to a greater or less degree been drawn to help on this growth. Another century, bringing other circumstances, with them will bring the opportunity and the duty of other work. A more thorough organization must be given to our educational system; Catholic universities mast be created which in time will grow to be intellectual centres in which the best minds of the church in this country may receive the culture and training that will enable them to work in harmony for the furtherance of Catholic ends; a more vigorous and independent press, one not weakened by want or depraved by human respect or regard for persons, must be brought into existence. We must prepare ourselves to enter more fully into the public life of the country; to throw the light of Catholic thought upon each new phase of opinion or belief as it rises; to grapple more effectively with the great moral evils which threaten at once the life of the nation and of the church. All this and much else we have to do, if our God-given mission is to be fulfilled.

And now we will crave the indulgence of our readers while we conclude with a brief reference to what we conceive to be the office which the Catholic Church is destined to fulfil in behalf of the American state and civilization.

De Tocqueville, in his thoughtful and singularly judicious treatise on American institutions, makes the following very just remarks:

“I think the Catholic religion has been falsely looked upon as the enemy of democracy. On the contrary, Catholicism, among the various sects of Christians, seems to me to be one of the most favorable to the equality of social conditions. The religious community in the Catholic Church is composed of but two elements—the priest and the people. The priest alone is lifted above his flock, and all below him are equals. In matters of doctrine the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and the ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and the poor; it inflicts the same austerities upon the powerful and the weak; it enters into no compromise with mortal man, but reducing the whole human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may be said of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent more than to render them equal.… But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the government, as is the case in the United States, than it is found that no class of men are naturally more disposed than the Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions into political institutions”[126]

The generous sentiments which two centuries and a half ago led the Catholics of Maryland to become the pioneers of religious liberty in the New World, are still warm in the hearts of the Catholic people of the United States. We have even here been the victims of persecution, and it is not impossible that similar trials may await us in the future; but we have the most profound conviction that, even though we should grow to be nine-tenths of the population of this country, we shall never prove false to the principle of religious liberty, which, to the Catholics of the United States, at least, is sacred and inviolable. For our own part, we should turn with unutterable loathing from the man who could think that any other course could ever be either just or honorable.

The Catholics of this republic are deeply impressed with the inviolability of the rights of the individual. We believe that the man is more than the citizen; that when the state tramples upon the God-given liberty of the most wretched beggar, the consciences of all are violated; that it is its duty to govern as little as possible, and rather to suffer a greater good to go undone than to do even a slight wrong in order to accomplish it. For this reason we believe that when the state assumed the right to control education, it took the first step away from the true American and Christian theory of government back towards the old pagan doctrine of state-absolutism. Though we uphold the rights of the individual, we are not the less strong in our advocacy of the claims of authority. In fact, the almost unbounded individual liberty which our American social and political order allows would fatally lead to anarchy, if not checked by some great and sacred authority; and this safeguard can be found only in the Catholic Church, which is the greatest school of respect the world has ever seen. The church, by her power to inspire faith, reverence, and obedience, will introduce into our national life and character elements of refinement and culture which will temper the harshness and recklessness of our republican manners. By her conservative and unitive force she will weld into stronger union the heterogeneous populations and widely-separated parts of our vast country. The Catholics were the only religious body in the United States not torn asunder by sectional strife during our civil war, and we are persuaded that, as our numbers grow and our influence increases, we are destined to become more and more the strong bond to hold in indissoluble union the great American family of States. The divisions and dissensions of Protestantism have a tendency to prepare the public mind to contemplate without alarm or indignation like divisions and dissensions in the state; and all who love the country and desire that it remain one and united for ages must look with pleasure upon the growth of a religion which, while maintaining the unity of its own world-wide kingdom, inspires those who are guided by its teachings with a horror of political dissensions and divisions.

[125] Bishop England’s works, vol. iii. p. 233.

[126] _Democracy in America_, vol. i. p. 305.

A FRENCHMAN’S VIEW OF IT.[127]

M. Claudio Jannet has recently sent forth from the little town of Aix, in Provence, a work on the United States of the present day which may be both interesting and profitable to American readers. It does not appear that M. Jannet has visited the country whose moral, social, and political condition he sets himself to describe. His information has been gathered from books, pamphlets, and periodicals; his conclusions are the result of deliberation rather than the hasty observations of a tourist, and they are all the more valuable because they are not distorted by the usual blunders and prejudices which obstruct the vision of the average Frenchman in America. The European traveller, particularly the French traveller, finds many things in our country to shock his prejudices and offend his tastes. The discomforts of the journey, the harshness of the climate, the extravagance of living, the imperfections of our domestic economy, the general crudeness of our new and incomplete civilization, the press and hurry of business, the lack of æsthetic culture, the vulgarity of popular amusements—all these things put him out of the humor to be just. He dislikes the surface aspects of American life, and, with the best disposition in the world, he commonly fails to see what lies underneath. He fills his note-book with dyspeptic comments, and when he goes home he writes a volume of blunders, and all the Americans who read it laugh at it. Take, however, a conscientious Frenchman of sober and reflective turn of mind, shut him up in his own study, supply him with an abundance of the right kind of American books and newspapers, let him ponder over his subject at leisure in the midst of his accustomed comforts, and the chances are that he will write a very good essay on the condition of this country, and tell a great many wholesome truths which we ourselves hardly suspect.

M. Jannet’s book has been evolved in this way. His industry in the collection of materials seems to have been remarkable; and if his judgment has not always kept pace with it, the instances in which he has been misled are fewer than we should have expected. For most of his mistakes he can show the excuse of an American authority. It does not become us, therefore, to find too much fault with him. We are rather disposed to overlook errors in the statement of particular facts, and consider the really valuable and novel points in his essay, with the moral which he wishes us to draw from it. We shall find in what he says abundant food for reflection, even when we believe him to be wrong.

He sets out with an attempt to show that the spirit of revolution has been waging incessant war for nearly a hundred years upon “the work of Washington,” and that the Constitution, as it was devised by the wise and conservative party represented by our first President, has been almost torn to shreds, and is destined to destruction by the aggressions of radicalism. M. Jannet’s references to “the school of Washington” seem rather odd to an American reader. We doubt whether there ever was a distinct political school to which that name could be properly applied; and it is not at all clear that there have been two well-defined and antagonistic political principles in conflict since the very foundation of the government, as Ormuzd and Ahriman, the spirit of good and the spirit of evil, waged perpetual warfare, in the Zoroastrian system, for the dominion of the world. The philosophical historian is fond of tracing in the revolutions of states and the development of political theories the steady growth of some fixed principle of action. But it is a specious philosophy which takes no account of accidents. M. Jannet has made the mistake of going too deep, and overlooking what lies right on the surface. He sees the spirit of radicalism, fostered by the influx of communistic and infidel immigrants from Europe, attacking the conservative safeguards originally established in our federal and State constitutions, assailing the rights of the States, extending the suffrage, sweeping the country into the vortex of uncontrolled democracy. “Popular sovereignty” is the watchword of this radical movement. “The doctrine of popular sovereignty,” says M. Jannet, “is based upon the idea that man is independent, and that consequently there can be no authority over him except with his own consent. This principle established, there can no longer be any question of limiting the suffrage by conditions of capacity, of fitness, or of the representation of interests, since sovereignty is an attribute of the voter in his quality as a man. The exclusion of women and minors from the polls is only an abuse, a relic of old prejudices. Thus the most advanced party already places female suffrage at the head of its programme, and perhaps it will some day be established in the United States. The people, being sovereign by nature, cannot be checked in its will by any custom, any tradition, any respect for acquired rights. Whatever it wills is just and reasonable by the mere fact that it so wills. There can be no permanent constitution for the country; the constitution can be only what the people wills, or is thought to will, _for the time being_.” About the year 1850, according to our author, the heresy of “popular sovereignty,” otherwise the religion of revolution, obtained full headway, and the radical party, making skilful use of the anti-slavery sentiment which had hitherto been cultivated only by a small band of eccentric philanthropists, captured the masses of well-meaning, unreflecting voters. Liberty and emancipation were their watchwords; but their real purpose was only the supremacy of the mob. Slavery was the abuse which they pretended to attack, but they only feigned a horror for it in order to win over the small but zealous party of sincere abolitionists; their actual object was to abolish the federal Union with its limited powers, and set up a unitary democracy based upon the despotism of universal suffrage. “From the day when this party came into power by the election of Lincoln,” says M. Jannet, “nothing remained for the South but to take up arms to protect its rights against the projects already disclosed.” And he adds that the radical movement towards pure democracy “alone can explain the unheard-of ferocity with which the Northern armies fought, and the odious persecution which followed their triumph, and which still lasts, ten years afterwards.”

Thus the anti-slavery agitation was only an incident—and, indeed, M. Jannet seems not to regard it as a very important one—in the long, uninterrupted, deplorable decline of America from a moderately conservative federal republic to the despotism of an ignorant, centralized democracy. It can hardly be necessary to point out to American readers the serious mistake in M. Jannet’s theory. It is useless to look beyond slavery for an explanation of the changes wrought within the past fifteen years in the character of the American government. Mr. Seward was right when he declared that there was an irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom. It had been gathering force for years when it broke into war in 1861; it had been the original cause of nearly all the encroachments upon the rights of the States which preceded the Rebellion, and it had made the very words “State rights” odious to a vast majority of the Northern people. The plain truth is that the only State right which the conservative and aristocratic party cared about maintaining was the right to hold human beings in bondage, and buy and sell them like cattle. They chose to identify a political theory with a hateful social institution, and it was only natural that, when the end came, theory and institution should go down together. The evil influence of slavery, however, has survived the extinction of slavery itself. We must not forget that the active men of 1876 were boys in the exciting period just before the war, and their political creed took shape at a time when the doctrine of State rights was the defence of the slave-driver and the secessionist, and the federal power was the safeguard of freedom and union. The ideas impressed upon them during the years of conflict have remained during the years of peace, and have affected in a most serious manner the fortunes of the country during the period of reconstruction. For four years, so crowded with great historical changes that they may be counted as equivalent to nearly a whole generation of uneventful peace, the nation was taught by the necessity of war to believe that the reserved rights of the States must yield to the paramount necessity of preserving the Union, and ultimately of destroying slavery for the sake of union. It would be unfair to say that the letter of the Constitution fell into contempt, but there was a general agreement that constitutions, to be worth anything, must be elastic instruments, stretched to cover unforeseen emergencies. Naturally, when the war was over we did not return at once to the old ideas. In the provisions for saving the fruits of the contest, guarding against fresh attempts at disunion, and protecting the emancipated race in its newly-acquired liberties, the despotic and absolute spirit of the war still prevailed. The federal government which had put down the rebellion was called upon to secure its victory. So for the next ten years we saw a constant assumption at Washington of powers which no Congress or President would have dreamed of asserting a generation ago. The “reconstructed States” became little more than vassal provinces, practically ruled at the seat of the federal government. In some cases, even after the military governors had disappeared and the States had been restored to representation in Congress, and nominally to their full powers of self-administration, we have seen soldiers sent from Washington to decide local election contests, legislatures dispersed at the point of the federal bayonet, and the verdict of the ballot rudely set aside by the President’s despotic order. The general course of legislation for the Southern States at Washington was inspired by the belief that the whole Confederacy was a hot-bed of insurrection and crime. Special laws were enacted to prevent the “rebel element” from acquiring that predominance in the Southern communities which naturally belonged to it, and to lift up the negroes to a political power to which they were not entitled by their numbers, and for which they were not qualified by character or education. The control of elections was taken away from the States by the Enforcement laws, and the ordinary police duties of preserving the peace were usurped by federal appointees under a strained interpretation of the statutes. An incident reported in Alabama during the political campaign of 1874 illustrates the extreme length to which federal interference was carried, and the ingenuity with which it was employed for merely partisan purposes. A Republican politician had been murdered in August of that year, and the perpetrators of the deed had not been discovered. The guilt was charged, however, upon several active Democrats, and just before the election they were arrested by a federal marshal and committed for trial. Of course there was no law which gave the federal authorities cognizance of murder, and no indictment for that offence could be found in a federal court; but it was desirable that the arrests should be made for political effect, and the accused were consequently indicted under a clause of the Enforcement law for “conspiracy to prevent a citizen from voting “—a conspiracy to prevent his voting in November by killing him in August! The arrest served its purpose, and it is hardly necessary to say that the case never was tried.

But of late the progress of the country towards centralization has been sensibly checked. The abuses of the past few years have been followed by a popular reaction. The temper of the South is better understood. The North begins to see the dangers of the course it has been following, and at the same time to feel ashamed of its injustice. And more than all else, the Supreme Court of the United States, in two able decisions, sweeps away a great mass of the most mischievous Enforcement legislation, and redefines the almost obliterated boundaries of State and federal authority. The judgment of the court in the Grant Parish and Kentucky cases marks an era in our constitutional history. It neutralizes a great deal of the evil consequences of the war period, and can hardly fail of a most salutary effect upon future legislation. When he has read it, even M. Jannet, perhaps, will take a more cheerful view of our condition.

But let us leave the historical part of M. Jannet’s book, and look at the picture which he draws of our actual condition. We do not purpose to criticise it. We shall let our readers correct errors for themselves, as they can easily do, while we content ourselves with showing them how the political and social aspects of our country impress an intelligent foreign student. M. Jannet is deceived sometimes; he takes too seriously the satire of “the American humorist Edgar Poë,” and the mixture of sarcasm and burlesque which he cites from “The gilded age by Mark Twain and Dudley”; but upon the whole he tells the sober truth. He gives a pretty exact account of our electoral system, and especially of our system of nominations, which practically prevents the people from voting for anybody except the favorites of a little knot of professional politicians assembled in a committee or ward meeting. As political struggles in the United States, he says, are not for the triumph of principles, but only for the possession of power, politics has naturally become debased, high-minded citizens have insensibly become disgusted with it, and at the same time the rising flood of universal suffrage has driven the wealthy classes out of political life. Between 1824 and 1840 the party organizations were definitively settled, and since then politics has been the exclusive appanage of politicians by profession. M. Jannet gives a very unpleasant sketch of this class of persons, and describes the machinery of manipulating conventions and setting up candidates with considerable minuteness and accuracy. Nor is it possible for us to read without mortification his account of the manner in which the professional politicians carry on the government:

“Such institutions leave the nation completely disarmed against corruption. No one, either in the executive or the legislative branch, has any interest in stopping it. We shall even see that, under the political customs of the country, the representatives of power in every grade have a manifest interest in tolerating it.… Before the presidential election the politicians who manage the conventions of the party make careful bargains with their candidate for the distribution of the offices. The President, when he desires a re-election, has here in the same manner a powerful motive of action; all the federal employees fight for him with ardor and by every possible means, for the retention of their places depends upon his triumph. It is easy to see how party spirit is inflamed by the prospect of so much booty in case of success. The evils of this system have become more striking as the number of federal employees has increased. Given the prevalence of dishonesty and love of money, it is evident that office-holders who can retain their places only a few years must make use of the time to enrich themselves.… But corruption is not confined to the employees, properly speaking; it extends in a large measure even to the representatives of the nation. The President nominates his cabinet, subject to the confirmation of the Senate. But in the party conventions the President’s choice is fixed in advance. Arrangements of the same kind are made with the senators; for their approval is necessary for a thousand federal appointments, and naturally for the most important. The result of this state of things is that the Senate which, by the Constitution is a directing political body without whose co-operation it is impossible for the President to carry on the government, becomes a theatre of incessant intrigue and corruption.”

We prefer not to follow M. Jannet in his brief recital of the Crédit Mobilier scandal, the Fremont affair, the Pacific Mail bribery, the operations of the Tweed and Erie Rings, the boldness of the lobby, the power of the railway corporations in politics, the pressure of enormous debts and taxes as the inevitable consequence of legislative venality, and the degradation of the judicial office. It is a horrible account, but it is not exaggerated. For all his statements—save, of course, some mistakes of secondary importance—M. Jannet can show good American authority.

In the face of all this disorder and corruption the best citizens, disgusted with political life, hold themselves every year more and more strictly aloof from it.

“Men of property, merchants, and manufacturers are injured by the mismanagement of affairs, and deplore it; but each one finds it for his individual advantage not to lose his time in trying to correct public evils. The country is still rich enough to bear the waste and rascality of a government which calls itself popular.… Even in these days there are certain influences of religion, race, or locality which sometimes bring honest and capable men into the local political assemblies; but the ruling trait of American democracy is nevertheless the ostracism of the upper classes and of eminent men. The consequence is that these classes become more and more dissatisfied with democratic institutions, and cast wistful eyes towards the constitutional government, in reality more free than theirs, which Great Britain and her colonies enjoy. From De Tocqueville and Ampère to Duvergier de Hauranne and Hepworth Dixon, all observers have been struck by this sentiment, not in general openly expressed, but sufficiently shown by the considerable number of distinguished Americans who pass the greater part of their lives out of the country.”

In this there is just a modicum of truth—less now, perhaps, than there was when it was written; for there is to-day an unmistakable tendency among our best citizens to resume that share in the management of public affairs from which they have too long suffered themselves to be excluded. But M. Jannet follows Hepworth Dixon in his stupendously absurd remarks on the “moral emigration” of the best men of America, and finds it a proof of distaste for democratic institutions that Washington Irving should have rambled about the Alhambra, Bancroft accepted the mission to England, and Hawthorne the consulate at Liverpool; that Motley should have read the archives of the Dutch Republic at the Hague, Power and Story studied among the monuments of Italy, and Longfellow amused himself with the “Golden Legend” when he might have found so many heroic subjects at home! We are astonished that M. Jannet, who has certainly read a great many American books, should not have perceived the dense ignorance which distinguishes this particular portion of Dixon’s _New America_ perhaps above the rest of the book. M. Jannet has only to pause and reflect for a moment, and he will not accuse Diedrich Knickerbocker and the author of the _Life of Washington_ and _Rip van Winkle_ of neglecting his own country to lounge in Granada, nor blame the poet of Cambridge because he rhymed the “Golden Legend” as well as the story of Evangeline and Miles Standish. Hawthorne too, the most thoroughly national of American romancers, and Bancroft, who has spent a lifetime in the study of American history! Is it also to Mr. Hepworth Dixon that M. Jannet is indebted for the discovery stated in the following passage?

“Americans, even those who at heart are most disgusted with democracy, have a passionate love of their country, and look upon themselves as the first nation of the world. This patriotism, despite its exaggerations, is a great power for the country. Without precisely desiring the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, many enlightened Americans aspire to a stronger and more stable government under a republican form. I have been struck, in the intercourse that I have had with many of them, by the secret admiration with which the rule of Napoleon III. in its day inspired them. This rule, democratic in its origin, revolutionary in its principle, but favorable to the preservation of material order and the acquisition of wealth, agreed very well with their desire for additional security, and at the same time with their lack of principles. Sentiments of this kind—and they are wide-spread—are one of the greatest dangers that threaten American society.”

Of course the corruption which disgraces politics appears likewise in the private life of the people. The constant aim of the Yankee, says M. Jannet, is to make money.

“The love of money seizes the young man from the time of his adolescence, and does not let the old man allow repose to the evening of his life. Except in the old slave States, there is no class of people of leisure in America. From top to bottom of the ladder, all society is a prey to devouring activity. Its economical results are considerable; the rapid growth of the nation and its prodigious development in all the arts of material well-being are the fruits of this ardent labor which knows no rest. If the Americans love money, it is not for the sake of mere acquisition, but in order that they may give themselves up to the enjoyment of luxuries and launch into new speculations. Harpagon is a type which does not exist among them. Indeed, they generally lack those habits of patient economy which constitute the strength and the virtue of our old races of peasants and _bourgeois_. Their readiness to spend and their generosity in case of need equal their appetite for gain. One who fails to take account of this characteristic restlessness of American life will get but an imperfect idea of the private habits and public institutions of the people. In no country are ‘honors’ more eagerly sought after or is democratic vanity more freely indulged; but it must be confessed that ‘honor’ is interpreted among Americans, or at least among Yankees, in quite a different sense from that which is accepted in Europe. No man plumes himself upon disinterestedness. Magistrates, generals, statesmen, accept subscriptions of jingling dollars as testimonials of public esteem. It is alike in dollars that they pay, among the Yankees, for injuries and insults. This universal thirst for gold has perhaps the good effect of softening political asperities, at least so long as a boundless field remains open for work and speculation. The unbridled love of money, in fact, lowers all men to the same level, and stifles alike fierce fanaticisms and generous passions. The same ardor in the pursuit of wealth soon scatters the family. Aged parents, home, or the paternal acres, nothing can restrain those who are ruled by this passion alone. There is no attempt, as there is with us, to conceal the love of money. ‘The almighty dollar!’ cry the Americans with admiration. A new-comer is presented to them. ‘How much is this man worth?’ they ask, instead of inquiring, as we should do, about his antecedents and his merit. Everything is overlooked for a rich man, and, except in a few chosen circles, a bankruptcy counts for nothing when fortune smiles again. Nowhere is merit valued without money. Hence the inferiority of American literature and art; hence the commercial customs that prevail in professions which we style liberal. Physicians, counsellors at-law, even ministers of the Gospel (we speak, be it understood, only of the Protestant sects), advertise as freely as the commonest working-man. Poverty is held in contempt to a degree of which our older society, formed in the school of Catholicity and chivalry, can have no idea. In spite of universal suffrage and absolute political equality, there is no country in which so great a gulf has been placed between the rich and the poor. This superficially democratic society would not live in peace two days, if it were not that the poor man can raise himself with a little trouble to comfort, if not to fortune. But when the natural riches of the country become less abundant and the demand for labor abates, will not these hard social customs become a cause of formidable antagonism? Distant as this future may still appear, the question is one which no serious observer can well avoid asking.

“The pursuit of wealth is the main-spring of material progress, but when it is carried to an extreme it misses the very object of its pursuit. The excessive love of money has developed in the United States a financial dishonesty which stains the national character and causes a great loss of the public property. Who has not heard of the great fires which so often destroy entire quarters of the large cities? They are often kindled by individuals who wish to conceal their bankruptcy or to get the amount of their insurance. These crimes affect a multitude of innocent persons and cause an increase in the rates of insurance; in short, it is the nation at large which pays for such frauds by an increase in the cost of all its products. It is the same thing with failures. They entail no dishonor, as they do in France; that is why they are so many.…

“The causes of this perversion of the moral sense are complex. Amid the almost infinite subdivision of Protestant sects there is no longer any religious teaching which addresses itself with authority to the mass of the nation. We do not take sufficient account of what Catholicism is doing in our country to maintain the fundamental ideas of morality even among men who during their lives remain strangers to its practices. The corruption of the public authorities and the inefficient administration of justice have also a great influence.… Moreover, we must take into consideration the very mixed character of the population. Even the native Americans are incessantly in motion. They transfer themselves from one end of the country to the other for the slightest of reasons, and thus they escape the salutary control of local opinion which, among stable populations, is one of the most powerful moral influences. The establishment of joint-stock companies for financial and commercial enterprises—an innovation which dates from about fifty years ago—has done a great deal to weaken the sentiment of responsibility.… If certain companies are honestly administered, a great number are made the occasion of shameless frauds. We see audacious speculators buying up a majority of the stock in order to make secret issues of new shares. This operation is called ‘stock-watering.’ It is estimated that between July 1, 1867, and May 1, 1869, twenty-eight railway companies increased their capital from $287,000,000 to $400,000,000. These shares only serve for stock-gambling, and woe to those who have them left on their hands! ‘It would appear,’ says an American writer, ‘that the railroad speculators have three objects in view: First, to get as much as possible of the public lands; experience has proved that the more they ask the more they will obtain, and that the ease with which Congress is induced to favor their projects is proportioned to the liberality with which they distribute funds for corruption. Secondly, to raise in Europe as large a loan as possible, no matter at what rates. Thirdly, when they have got all the land and all the money they can, and have attracted all the immigration from Germany they can hope for, they sell the railroad, at whatever loss to the bondholders, and make a little ring of members of the company its sole proprietors!’ The great number of these immoral speculations, the adventurous character of commerce, and the senseless luxury in which all business men indulge bring on periodically grave financial crises of which Europe feels only the after effects. Malversation is common even in institutions which have the best reasons to be free from it. Enormous defalcations are daily committed in the administration of charitable works, neutralizing in a great measure the generosity with which the Americans have endowed them.”

Alas! it is impossible to deny that these statements are substantially true. The discoveries of corruption in public life which have recently produced so much political excitement surprise nobody who has studied American society. This is a “representative” democracy; and though certain well-understood causes, which it would be out of place to discuss here, have long been at work driving the highest class of our citizens out of public employment, it is undeniable that as a general rule the morality of men in office is about on a level with that of the voters who put them there. When peculation and swindling become common in commerce, and a man who makes money is always treated with respect until he goes to the penitentiary, it is almost inevitable that there should be bribery in the cabinet and conspiracy in the antechambers of the White House. The stream cannot rise higher than its source.

But if we wish to understand the real condition of the American people, we must study it in the nurseries of all public virtue—the home, the school, and the church. With the first of these the woman question has a most intimate connection. De Tocqueville said that Americans did not praise women much, but daily showed their respect for them. Now, says M. Jannet, things have sadly changed. We have ceased to respect women, and we are always talking about their rights. There is a considerable party among us which not only insists upon the right of women to vote and hold office, but would make of them lawyers, physicians, and ministers of the Gospel, and give them the direction of industrial and commercial enterprises precisely as if they were men. M. Jannet confesses that American women, on the whole, show very little eagerness to play the new _rôle_ which the modern social reformers have created for them; but the agitation, if it produces no practical results, has a very unhappy influence upon the female mind, and a bad effect upon female education. How fearfully the family relation has been impaired in America all intelligent observers know. The laxity and confusion of the marriage laws; the shocking frequency of divorce; the publicity given to scandalous and indecent investigations; the prevalence of the crime of infanticide, against which the press, the pulpit, and the medical profession have long exclaimed in horror; the growing inability or unwillingness of American women to bear the burden of maternity; the rapid decay of the American element in the population through the excessive proportion of deaths to births; the breaking up of homes; the license allowed to the young of both sexes—all these things are the appalling symptoms of a deep-seated social disorder. We have been in the habit of making it a reproach to the French that there is no word in their language which expresses the American and English idea of home; but it may be questioned whether, retaining the word, we are not in danger of losing the reality. In the cities, at all events, there has been within the last quarter of a century a lamentable change in domestic life. Fashionable society has broken up the family gatherings around the evening lamp. The mother no longer lives in the midst of her children; she spends her days in shopping, visiting, and receiving, and her nights in the ball-room. Children are educated by hired nurses, and before they are full grown emancipate themselves from the control of parents whom they have never been taught to respect and obey. “At home,” in the jargon of the day, has become a travesty of its original meaning; it designates the exhibition of a domestic interior from which all the characteristics of home life are rigorously excluded. Architects are forgetting the meaning of home, and in the fashionable house of the period the domestic virtues could hardly find a lodgment. The hotel and the boarding-house are driving out of existence those model homes which were once the glory of America. What else could we expect? It is the woman who gives character to the household, and the tendency of our time is to remove woman from the fireside and set her upon the platform.

That there is nothing in the American school system to supply the defects of American home education no Catholic will need to be assured. The whole system rests upon the principle that the school-teacher has nothing to do with the cultivation of the moral nature of his pupil. His duty is limited to the atlas, the copy-book, and the multiplication-table. The pretext upon which this rule has been adopted, says M. Jannet, is respect for all religious beliefs, but its real end is to create a generation without any positive religious belief whatever. Zealous Christians even among Protestants are not deceived by it. A report upon the state of schools in Pennsylvania in 1864 says: “The importance, not to say the absolute necessity, of religious education becomes day by day more apparent. If we wish to maintain our institutions, it is essential to raise the standard of character and to revive among our people the spirit of Christianity. The generation which will soon succeed us should not only be skilful of hand, stout of heart, and enlightened in mind, but it must learn also to love God and man and practise duty.” But unfortunately, continues M. Jannet, such remonstrances have proved unavailing, and the “unsectarian” system is now permanently established—a sad result for which the Protestant clergy is in great part to blame. Nearly all of them approve the system, in the belief that Sunday-schools will be sufficient for religious instruction; but “true Christians point out that this separation of the two branches of education tends to make religion regarded as something foreign to the practical affairs of life.” Our author shows how steadily the godless theory of education has gained acceptance; he perceives the growing disposition to enforce it by the authority of the federal government, and make it obligatory upon the States to provide irreligious schools, and upon the people to use them. In the progress of this destructive tendency he traces the influence of German ideas, political, pseudo-philosophical, socialistic, and atheistic, in which lies one of the greatest dangers of the republic. “Two things strike us in these new currents of opinion: on the one hand, their opposition to the old bases of Anglo-Saxon ideas and liberties under which the United States lived until about 1850; on the other, their identity with the principles disseminated in Europe by the revolutionists. It is impossible for an impartial observer not to recognize here the effect of one and the same cause acting in accordance with a well defined aim. This cause, this agent, let us say at once, is Freemasonry. It is easy to judge of the real purpose which it has in view by studying it in the United States. There the conflicts and passions of the Old World have no place; what Freemasonry seeks to accomplish is the destruction of all positive religion and of every principle of authority in man’s political and social relations.”

Protestantism, far from checking these disastrous tendencies, has allowed itself to increase them; and even if it had the will to constitute itself the defender of the state and the family, it is torn by intestine divisions and driving rapidly towards disintegration. Yet M. Jannet does not quite give us up for lost. “The crisis which is now passing over the country and checking its material prosperity may be the signal for a reform, in forcing honest men to recognize the vices of their institutions and the corruption of their manners.” There are four influences which he hopes may combine to save us. These are, 1, the wisdom and energy of the people of the South, who, after ten years of persevering efforts, have at last begun to recover the direction of their local affairs, and to clear away “the ruins caused by the war and the domination of the Radicals.” 2. The success obtained by the Democrats, or rather the Conservatives, in the elections of November, 1874, and April, 1875—a success that will put an end to the despotism with which the Radicals have cursed the country for fifteen years. We give these two points for what they are worth; of course we do not believe that there is any such fundamental difference between the people of the North and the people of the South, the people who call themselves Republicans and the people who call themselves Democrats, as M. Jannet imagines. 3. The great number of American families who, in the midst of corruption and disorder, have faithfully preserved the virtues and domestic habits which lie at the foundation of all prosperous society. 4. Lastly and chiefly, the marvellous progress of the Catholic Church.

We make no comment upon this portion of his essay, but we end our review with a few lines from his closing paragraph which it will do us Americans, at the beginning of our new century, no harm to take to heart: “In all countries, in all times, under the most diverse historical and economical conditions, the moral laws which govern human society are unchanging and inevitable. Founded upon the decalogue, nay, upon the very nature of God, the distinction between good and evil knows no mutation. Everywhere men are prosperous or unfortunate, according as they keep the divine law or break it.”

[127] _Les Etats-Unis Contemporains, ou les Mœurs, les Institutions et les Idées depuis la Guerre de la Sécession._ Par Claudio Jannet. Paris: E. Plon et Cie. 1876.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

ORLEANS, January, 1867.

I hasten to tell you, my darling sister, of our happy arrival in the city of Joan of Arc. It was cold during this long journey, but I was so _silkenly_ enveloped inside the elegant _coupé_ which was René’s New Year’s gift to me that I did not feel it.

_Ah! qu’un autre vous-même est une douce chose!_—“How sweet it is to have a second self!” You know how often I used to say this at the Sacred Heart, and with what questioning eyes our Parisian companions were wont to regard the daughters of Erin. Our impassioned fondness for one another surprised them, and we said that doubtless in France people did not know how to love. Dearest, we have now learnt that the country of our adoption is as _warm_ as our native land. What kind hearts have we not found here! I am glad, therefore, to remain here for the winter; besides, with René I cannot grow weary anywhere. Why, darling Kate, are you not with us? Prepare yourself for frequent letters, as I have the mania of a scribbling friendship, to the astonishment of my mother-in-law. True, my writing-desk accompanies me everywhere, and before all other pleasures I prefer that of conversing with you.

Our home is delightful for comfort and elegance. We—that is, René and I—occupy the second story. Our house is in the _Rue Jeanne d’Arc_, and I have only to go to the window to see the beautiful cathedral, which I do not fail to visit often, there to pray in union with my Kate. _A tout seigneur tout honneur._[128] Let us, then, speak first of this marvel of stone; of this Gothic pile whose lofty towers excite the admiration of the artist. Dearest, shall I tell you? I felt myself more _at home_ there than in any other church. I am not going to describe either the rich chapels or the splendid windows. In these first visits to _Sainte-Croix_ my heart melted with joy at the thought that I am a Catholic. “Well, my little _Irlandaise_, and so you are enthusiastic about Orleans,” said René softly to me, on observing the flush upon my cheeks.

I have been shown also the statue of Joan of Arc in the _Place du Martroi_. This, however, I do not admire; it is not the young shepherdess of my dreams, but a robust maiden of vigorous mould on horseback. But the bas-reliefs!… These are magnificent, sublime! What memories! What a history!—put to death upon the soil of this same France which she had saved. My blood boils when I think of the cruelty of England.

We are quite a large colony here. I must introduce you, Miss Kate, into this family circle. You scarcely know my mother-in-law, having only had an occasional glimpse of her amid the solemnities of my marriage, and when you were thinking only of your Georgina. We orphans were all in all to each other—we who were then on the point of being separated. Dear, dear Kate! my _alter ego_, my idol, who, wholly possessed by the highest love, have willed to consecrate your youth and future to the service of our Lord in the persons of his poor; and now there are you in your coarse habit, while Georgina the worldly is adorning herself with the jewels which became you so well!

My mother-in-law, who is kindness itself to me, is a person of exceeding dignity; quite a mediæval _châtelaine_, with the noble bearing of the heroines of Walter Scott. Her piety is fervent, and, her sons tell me, just a little austere. Ah! dearest, what a blessing is such a mother as this. The breath of the present age has not passed over her dwelling; her children believe and worship; and I seem to behold in her a Christian of the early centuries or a Blanche of Castile. My four sisters-in-law are very kind to the last comer, your Georgina. You saw my brothers in Paris.[129] Mme. Adrien is a Belgian, lively and graceful, and as proud of her “jewels” as the Cornelia of antiquity. She has three sons, who are pupils of the Jesuit Fathers in the _Rue des Postes_, and whom we shall only see during the vacations. Her daughter Hélène, a superb _blonde_, worthy of inspiring a Raphael, has just completed her education at the Benedictines of ——. Mme. Raoul was born of a French family on the other side of the Rhine. Her two daughters, Thérèse and Madeleine, are my delight. I sometimes go and look at them sleeping, and then go to sleep myself to dream of angels. Picture to yourself these twins, the one small and fair, the other tall, slender, with a pale complexion and brown curls; gayly bearing the light burden of their ten years, and alike in one thing only—the voice; and thus they often amuse themselves in taking us by surprise and making us guess which of the two is speaking. Mme. Paul has four treasures: the _dauphin_, Arthur, and demoiselles Marguérite, Alix, and Jeanne, the pretty one who arrived last—all this little population, young, fresh, smiling, chattering, and roguish. Mme. Édouard, the most sympathetic of all, the most French, and the most attractive, who has been married three years, is rich in the sweetest little cherub that could flatter maternal pride.

Adieu, dearest; this is only a sign of life. I am tired with the expeditions of the day, and René reminds me that it is late. Be happy, my Kate, and help me to bless God for my happiness; I am so afraid of being ungrateful.

YOUR GEORGINA.

JANUARY, 1867.

Booksellers are abundant here, my dear; and René, who knows my weakness, daily brings me something new. I have just read _Mme. Rosély_, by Mlle. Monniot, a name dear to our youth. How much I should like to know this authoress! The mind capable of such conceptions must be a personification of virtue and devotedness. The thought occurred to me of writing to her. Dear busy one, you will not even open this book; and yet how much it would please you, it is so beautiful! What pleasure it gave me there to find Margaret again, become a sister of _Bon-Secours_![130] I visited yesterday two churches, St. Paul and _Recouvrance_, both newly restored. There are fine windows at St. Paul’s, but the colors are too vivid for my taste. To the right is a chapel nearly dark, and a black Virgin held in great veneration—_Notre-Dame des Miracles_. I shall often return thither. I prayed there with all my heart for you, for our friends, for our own Ireland. _Recouvrance_ is a charming church, close upon the Loire. (Did I tell you of my transport on seeing the beautiful river about which I had written volumes in the upper classes?) The altar is surmounted by sculptures—Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the midst of the doctors. This sanctuary is a casket. Around the side aisles are delicious little chapels, with frescoes by Hippolyte Lazerges. I will mention those of the baptistery—Moses striking the rock, and the Samaritan at Jacob’s well. The Samaritan is admirably fine in form and expression. I stayed long before it—this fair page of Scripture made to live, as it were; the Saviour teaching the truth to this sinful woman! Here are the most beautiful confessionals that can be seen, with exquisite little paintings—the father of the prodigal welcoming his son, and the good Shepherd recovering his sheep from among the thorns.

Your letter has just reached me. Thanks, Kate! How sweet and good a thing it is to be so loved! Fain would I shed around me some little of the happiness with which I am flooded. My mother-in-law is so kind as to let me share in her works of charity, and my good René accompanies me into the abodes of the poor. Oh! in these low streets what miseries there are, what repulsive infirmities! These poor quarters remind me of London. In the evening we pay visits. Orleanese society appears to me much less frivolous than that of Paris. I felt very shy at the prospect of all these introductions, but they came about in the most natural way in the world. Our family party is so united, so animated, that we have no need to seek amusement from without. At ten o’clock _Grandmother_ gives the signal for us to separate. René and I prolong the evening by reading together. With regard to René, I am full of remorse for having—quite inadvertently, however—neglected to enclose in my last letter the one which he had written to you, and which you must since have received. Oh! how excellent he is, this brother of yours; and how proud of him I am—so intellectual, so distinguished, so handsome, and, what is far better and worth all the rest, so pious! Every morning we go together to Mass at _Sainte-Croix_. The Masses of communion are said in an expiatory chapel before the image of the Mother of Sorrows. From an artistic point of view this chapel is an anachronism—a Greek marble in a Gothic church. But what peace reigns there, what recollection; and one can pray there so well! Orleans seems to me empty in the absence of its great bishop, now in Rome. Do you remember our enthusiastic exclamations while reading his excellent work on education? I am impatient to be presented to him, to speak to him of Ireland—of this people which he has justly called “a people of martyrs and apostles.”[131]

Have read the _Souvenirs d’une Institutrice_, by Mme. Bourdon. That isolation, those struggles against penury, that life so troubled and stormy, made a hymn of thanksgiving gush out of my heart to Him whose providence has ordained for me so different a destiny. “O fortune!” said the Solitary of Cayla, “what suffering dost thou not cause when thou art adverse!” Dear Kate, with all my heart I pity the poor, especially the mothers. René made a discovery yesterday—a young married couple in utter distress, owing to the illness of the husband. The young mother is wholly occupied in the attendance necessary to the sick man and to her new-born son, who might be well named Benoni, the poor darling! It does not possess even a cradle. How I wept while listening to the story of their last three months! We sent the doctor to them, and I felt the pleasure of a child in myself choosing whatever I thought needful for this family. Mary and Joseph must have been thus at Bethlehem. The poor woman had sold her furniture bit by bit, not venturing to beg or speak to any one of her troubles; and yer the charities here are admirably organized.

Lucy (Mme. Édouard) is coming with us to-morrow on a pilgrimage to Cléry; I shall pray there for my Kate, and for all whom we love. I go the round of the churches with Lucy; René carves, paints, or writes, and we have music together. My mother-in-law has given me a beautiful piano, one of Pleyel’s. Our brothers have excellent voices. Lucy and I play splendid pieces of Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Beethoven. What concerts, what harmonies, what an enchanted life! From eight o’clock in the evening until ten we work for churches or the poor. Don’t be uneasy, dear Kate, with regard to what you call the unsettled, aimless life of the world; my hours and minutes are regulated with a mathematical precision. René loves order above everything, and my mother-in-law’s hobby is punctuality. Your Georgina, who is not over-exact and a bit of a loiterer, is making rapid strides to attain to the perfection of her lord and master, who is good and lovable a thousand times over, and never scolds.

Do you remember our old mistress Annah, who invariably used to say upon quitting us, “My husband will scold,” at which we always laughed, little giddy ones that we were? I bow before your gravity, and kiss you a hundred and a hundred times.

FEBRUARY, 1867.

I am just come from _St. Pierre du Martroi_, where the Père Minjard has been preaching a sermon in behalf of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul—an institution shown by the eloquent orator to be a source of comfort to sorrows otherwise inconsolable, and also a preservative against a social danger. What a picture he drew of atheistic poverty—poverty without God! What eloquence! What a soul of fire! At last, under this austere Dominican habit, I have beheld a man of genius. Thought makes this manly countenance its abode, and here dwells intellect in its plenitude. His eyes sparkle at times with a lightning flash almost dazzling. Ah! dear Kate, what an absorbing discourse.

How exactly like yourself it is to be so interested in Benoni and his family! I scarcely venture to go there, the poor woman so overwhelms me with her thanks. In vain I tell her again and again that she is my _sister_, and that in giving her a little from my abundance I have done nothing more than my strict, rigorous, obligatory duty. She receives me as if I were an angel from Paradise. The young man is recovering his health, and the child his roses. Thanks to my good René, who is really the most generous of men, I have installed them in a commodious and airy apartment where everything is bright with sunshine. This morning the God of the Eucharist entered this truly sanctified dwelling. This little household is so religious, resigned, and thankful to a kind Providence that God must take pleasure in it as in a temple.

Our pilgrimage was charming. Lucy consecrated her baby to Our Blessed Lady; and how happy the little love appeared to be about it! The church of Cléry is of Gothic architecture, sufficiently remarkable, but how dilapidated, poor, and bare! I noticed a clock and a Christ which must be as old as the time of Louis XI.; a magnificent Way of the Cross; beautiful antique carving in a small chapel which is quite in a ruinous state. The black Virgin is _Notre-Dame de Cléry_, who shared with _Notre-Dame d’Embrun_ the affection and the eccentric devotion of the son of Marie d’Anjou, in whose mind they represented two distinct persons; and were invoked (O blasphemy!) almost as witnesses of the atrocities and revengeful deeds of the sombre lord of Plessis-lez-Tours. The black Virgin is over the high altar. I had a couple of tapers placed before this miraculous image, one for my Kate’s intentions and one for my own. The tomb of Louis XI. and of Charlotte of Savoy is in the nave. By the side of the pulpit is a monument of black marble; four colonnades of white marble support the upper portion, also of the same material, upon which the King of France is kneeling, his hand joined and his face turned towards the altar of the Blessed Virgin. His countenance has not by any means the wily and cruel expression given to him in the portraits of the time. At the four corners are four angels facing the spectators. On the way home we visited the Church of St. Fiacre. The road is animated in spite of the season; there, too, is the river, the beautiful river, the river so eminently French. Besides, must not even the dullest landscape appear radiant when one is twenty years old, with a husband whom one adores, a golden future in prospect, and heaven itself in the heart? Kate dearest, I am faithful to my daily _Te Deum_; it is the only hymn that can express what I feel.

My mother-in-law gave a large dinner-party in the evening. I made myself resplendent … in simplicity! This, at least, is the encomium bestowed on me by René, who pretends that I was very much admired. I would not say this to any one but my sister. Great names were represented there; some of the greatest in France—names of chivalrous associations. How happily inspired was Mother St. Athanasius in making us read the chronicles of the middle ages! It is to my having done so that I am indebted for the most gracious smiles of two honorable dowagers to whom I spoke of the glorious and historical deeds of their ancestors. Edward sang with me _Le fil de la Vierge_;[132] and altogether _la petite Irlandaise_ found the evening too short and the company too amiable. These kind brothers and sisters never weary of bringing me forward, placing me in the light, and making everybody love me; my mother-in-law calls me her lily, her heath-flower, her violet; and the children are wild about Aunt Georgina. Dear Kate, how ravishingly fair is the dawn of my existence as a young wife!

A fortunate meeting, dearie—namely, with Margaret W——, the beautiful Englishwoman, who is, she says, _en passage_ here. I was at Ste. Croix, lost in my thanksgiving after communion, when a rustling of silk and lace reminded me that I was still on earth, and a musical voice with a slight English accent said in my ear: “_C’est bien vous?_—Is it really you, Georgina?” I raised my head and recognized our friend. We came out together. Margaret has since paid me a visit, and my mother-in-law asked her to spare a whole day to Georgina. All the family is won by the grace and lively wit of _la belle Anglaise_. She is on her wedding tour; her husband is very agreeable—an accomplished gentleman, with the manners and bearing (if you please) of a peer of England. Lady Margaret told us about her presentation at court. Queen Victoria is very fond of her. In the evening twilight[133] we found ourselves alone together; then, looking straight into my eyes, Margaret asked me: “Are you truly and perfectly happy, Georgina?” You may guess what was my answer. “So much the better; so much the better,” sighed the lofty lady; and then, blushing and with a full and beating heart, she confided to me her grief—her husband does not love her! And yet he had seemed to me full of thoughtful attention to her. “Ah! dear Georgina, if you only knew what I suffer. I love Lord William passionately. I believed in his love, and now I know that my large fortune tempted his mother, who, by dint of entreaties, persuaded him to marry me, when he really loved his cousin, a poor and pretty orphan, who was, moreover, well deserving of his affection.” I did not know what to say to her. Was she seeking consolation? I cannot tell. She was lofty and proud until this intimate confidence. I took her hand, and with the utmost tenderness expressed my sympathy, assuring her that no one could see her without loving her, and that there could be no doubt that Lord William returned her affection. She burst into tears and kissed me twenty times. Had I convinced her? In the evening I watched the English peer attentively; his amiability was perfect. I managed skilfully to bring out the talents of Margaret, who sang and played the loveliest things, and with such an expression!… Pray for this heart, dear Kate. Ah! how true it is that a serpent hides among the flowers. Who would not envy the happiness of this young bride, endowed with all the good things of this world, and of an aristocratic beauty really incomparable? On returning from Italy Margaret will visit Switzerland. We have agreed that she is to write to me, and that we will do impossibilities to meet again.

René complained of my being melancholy after the departure of “the English.” I could not confide to him the secret of my friend. “Dear Georgina, has this fine bird of passage inspired you with her wandering propensities?” “You know very well, René, that with you I desire nothing.” “Smile, then, my lady, or I shall think you are ill; come, sing me ‘The Lake,’ to shake off your gloom.”[134]

My eyes will no longer stay open, dear sister; my tender affection to you.

FEBRUARY 17, 1867.

A heavenly day, dear Kate; all fragrant with holy friendship, and, still better, with divine love. Père Minjard preached a charity sermon at Ste. Croix on behalf of the schools in the East. We went _en chœur_,[135] as the twins say. What incomparable eloquence! Nothing so captivates me as the art of language. I was fascinated, and as if hanging on the lips of this son of Lacordaire. He took for his text, “We must rescue Christ. Christ is in danger.” In a sustained and always admirable style he showed us Christ, in peril in the Gospel, by false criticism; in peril in tradition, by false science; in peril in the church teaching, by false politics; in peril in the church taught, by false literature—all this is a social danger. Oh! what beautiful things, what sublime thoughts; I could have wished the sermon never to end, and felt myself living a life of intelligence in a higher region than I had ever dreamed of before. Here is one among other beauties: “In our hours of poetry and youth have we not all dreamed of the East, with its clearer sun, its balmier breezes, its holier memories?… Such is, in fact, the incomparable favor that Christ has granted us in leaving in our hands the destiny of his name and his works.” Would that I could transcribe to you this living harmony, this austere teaching, ardent and true! How splendidly he brought before us the ancient memories of that East from which everything we have has come to us; the grand and Christian souvenirs also of the Crusades, and of those ages of faith when men were capable of a passionate ardor for the beautiful and the good! Never had I imagined such rapidity of thought, such facility of elocution, such magnificence of language. The few words of allusion to Mgr. Dupanloup were of exquisite delicacy: “And I say this with so much the more freedom because he to whom my eulogies would be addressed is not present.” What a picture, too, he drew of the debasement of our souls if we no more had Jesus Christ!

A walk yesterday in the _Jardin des Plantes_. Our English parks are naturalized in France, except in the official gardens—flat and monotonous squares. A fine view from the top of the rising ground and the sky of France with René—all this I found superb. The twins were with us, amusing themselves with a violet, and at every step uttering exclamations of joy. Thérèse takes the airs of a duchess, and thus gets called by no other name—a custom which does not seem to displease her. As for Mad, so small and fragile, I have named her Picciola. My nieces are already pious, and delight to take me into the churches; we have seen five—the Visitation, the Sacrè-Cœur, the Presentation, the Bon-Pasteur, and the Sainte-Enfance.

Great sensation at home: my mother expects her elder sister, _la tante solennelle_—the solemn aunt—as the _dauphin_, Arthur, has whispered to me. Everybody makes up a countenance and a toilet suitable to the occasion; even the babies put on serious faces. These preparations make me afraid. I whisper to you that the least cloud frightens me; our sky is always so clear. My mother-in-law, kind and maternal as she is to me, nevertheless intimidates me greatly. René is going away to-morrow on business, and this first separation causes me more pain than I am willing to confess. I long so much to say to him: “Take me with you.” I feel it would be unreasonable. He is going to travel eighty leagues in a few days, and does not wish to expose me to this fatigue, though it seems to me that with him nothing could be difficult. What will you say, dear Kate, to your Georgina?—that you no longer recognize her great courage, and that inability to bear the least contrariety is not the mark of a Christian; that I ought rather to thank Providence for sending me the opportunity of gaining a little merit. Dear little preacher! the heart that loves does not reason, and René is my universe. But I promise you to accept this light trial.

Send your good angel to the traveller, darling Kate.

_Evening._—I set out to-morrow with the dawn! René read in my eyes that I was fretting, and altered his itinerary; I am radiant, and looking forward to a thousand delights.

Love your Georgina. Let us pray together for our green Erin, so worthy of our love. I have always in my heart the hope of its resurrection.

MARCH 6, 1867.

Shall I tell you about my journey, dearest Kate? We made a halt in Brittany, the land of true poets, where we are to pass the summer. As we walked over the barren heaths we shut our eyes and evoked the old memories of Armorica, while the mild image of Guy de Bretagne and of Isabelle aux Blanches Mains[136] mingled in our imaginations with the shades of the martyrs. Dear Kate, I enjoyed this excursion immensely. The farther I go, the more I realize the happiness which God has allotted me in giving me for guide, adviser, and support this dear and gentle René, so truly the _brother_ of my heart. We have been reading together the life of Saint Elizabeth by M. de Montalembert. The “dear saint” of Protestant Germany was wont to call her husband by the sweet name of brother, and this we thought so suave, so charming, and angelic that we agreed to call each other brother and sister when we are alone. Oh! what a heavenly thing is Christian love. That which I first of all admired in René, even when he was to me merely a stranger, was his recollectedness in church. He has often said to me—and with what earnestness!—“Georgina, let Jesus be all in all to us.” It is to your prayers, my darling Kate, that I owe this happy destiny.

What a surprise! My Aunt de K—— was not expected before the end of the week; but this morning, on returning from my visits among the poor, René left me at the house door, and I hastened as usual into the drawing-room to say good-morning to the dear little ones who daily welcome me with shouts of joy. On entering I beheld an unknown face; it was the _solemn aunt_. A sudden blush mounted even to my forehead. My mother-in-law introduced me; while I lost myself in reverences, my aunt bestowed on me a half-inclination of the head—so cold! looking at me all the time with so searching an eye that I was almost out of countenance. Fortunately, the door was again thrown open very wide, and a footman in full livery announced Mme. Edouard, M. Gaston (this is the pretty baby), and in succession M. et Mme. Adrien, M. et Mme. Raoul, M. et Mme. Paul. All were richly dressed. I hid myself as well as I could behind Lucy’s fauteuil to keep my shabby toilet out of sight, and then took advantage of the entrance of the children to make my escape before the entry of René. The solemnity of the _déjeûner_ nearly sent me to sleep. At eight o’clock in the evening Mme. de K—— retired to her room, alleging that she was fatigued with her journey; you may judge whether any one tried to detain her. Then we began to dress ourselves up, and exchanged silence for joyous dances and merry laughter. _Duchesse_ was a “golden fairy,” superb with her lofty air; there is a touch of my _solemn aunt_ about her. Picciola was charming in her ribbon-decked costume of a shepherdess. Your Georgina was dressed _en Sévigné_; the sparkling Lucy as a _soubrette_ of the time of Louis XIV. A few intimate friends joined us about nine o’clock. The brilliant chords of the piano troubled not the repose of Mme. de K——, who was purposely lodged far from the noise. Our songs, our dances, and lively follies went on till one o’clock; and as I am not tired, and, besides, make a point of sending you news of us before _mortifying_ Lent shall have proclaimed a truce to our delights, with René’s permission I relate to you these little events. Dear Kate, my letters will no longer speak of anything but sanctity. I kiss you with all my heart. _My brother_, who is beginning to read me a chapter of the _Imitation_, tells you how much he is devoted to you in Him whose love is the bond of our souls.

MARCH 10.

My dearest Kate, do not be anxious if I tell you that I am going to keep all the fasting days of Lent. The good doctor gives me permission to do so, in spite of my eighteen years, on condition that in case of the slightest fatigue I give it up. This is understood. M. l’Abbé Charles Perraud, of the Oratory, is preaching the Lent at _Sainte-Croix_. What a congregation! It was a compact crowd. The text was, “Man does not live by bread alone.” In order to please your love of sacrifice I will not send you another note during all these forty days; but as I have not yet made any vow to renounce the most legitimate gratifications of the heart, I shall keep a journal with great regularity, to send you after Easter.

I am reading again _Rob Roy_ with René; this is for our secular reading, but for the spiritual we have the Conferences of Fathers Lacordaire and De Ravignan.

12th.—Was at the sermon: “Enter into your heart.” The orator spoke of recollectedness, inviting us to enter into our heart, promising that by so doing we should find _light_, _joy_ and _virtue_; these were the three points of his discourse. We take interminable walks with Isabelle (Mme. Raoul) and her children. I am working a magnificent chasuble which I wish to present to our _curé_ in Brittany. René reads to us the _Revue du Monde Catholique_ and the _Union_. These gentlemen do not go to the club, but occupy themselves, according to their respective tastes, in painting, carving, illuminating, and creating surprises for us. My _solemn aunt_ took her departure this morning, and all that is cold, heavy and pompous went with her.

I have not told you that Hélène and I are the best of friends. We are of the same age; she has always had an especial liking for René, and she also entrusts me with her confidences. Dear Kate, this good young heart has likewise been wounded by the divine Hand, and she who is the idol of her family desires to leave us, that she may give herself wholly to God. The poor mother knows nothing, but she has a presentiment of this secret (at the same time sweet and distressing), and strives to dissuade her daughter from her purpose. Hélène wishes to be a Carmelite. She has her grandmother’s energy and greatness of soul, and nothing can shake her resolution. Thus there will be a separation under this happy roof; the singing-bird is about to spread her wings and fly away to other skies. Since my pretty niece opened her heart to me I have become quite thoughtful. If it should so happen that God required of me a similar sacrifice; and if, after giving up my sister to him, I must also give him a child of my own!… But I put aside this apprehension. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.

14th.—“Bear God in your heart and glorify him in your bodies.” This sermon has deeply impressed me; how I love the Catholic doctrine respecting the body of man!

I love to communicate by the side of René. Hélène followed us this morning; in returning from the altar I involuntarily looked at her, and was struck by the air of ecstatic joy and profound happiness which shone on her countenance. Kate, she is truly called! Adrien dotes upon his daughter. Each one of the family feels the charm of her bright and cheerful piety, which makes her admirable even in the smallest things; she is _grandmother’s_ right hand, who feels herself living over again in this fair child.… How we are going to suffer!

16th.—A long walk with all the darlings, which made me miss a sermon of the Abbé Bougaud, whom I so much want to hear. Visited two churches. Orleans is full of them, and reminds me of the towns in Italy, where one comes upon them at every step. I have had some letters from Ireland, from our friends in Dublin. Lizzie asks me if, like her, I have a “dear, sweet home”; she is enchanted with her position. Ellen, the lively Ellen, gently rallies me on my love for France, and reminds me of Petrarch:

_Non e questa la patria!_

How she misjudges my feelings if she thinks that my happiness could make me forgetful of Ireland!

21st.—Sermon on the love of our neighbor. I have no trouble in loving this dear neighbor of mine. _Duchesse_ allows herself to rally her aunt on what she calls her _love of everybody_! Happily for this lofty little person, Berthe (Mme. Raoul) wages unflinching war against the slightest tendency to pride, and the uncles surpass one another in teasing her out of it. My room is all perfumed with the sweet fragrance of violets. René has brought me home splendid ones from his morning’s ramble. I delight in my bouquets like a child with a plaything; it is long since I have had any flowers, and I love these balmy things, which the poetic Margaret calls the “beauties of nature, queens of solitude, and daughters of the sun.”

25th.—The weather was fine; René had the horses put in, and we set out together, delighted to be alone. As we were coming down the _Rue Royale_ I caught sight of Hélène and her father, lost in admiration before some fine engravings. “Shall we take them with us?” I said to René; and a minute afterwards the future Carmelite was giving us her impressions of the day. How charming she is! And all this beauty is going to conceal itself under the austere _bandeau_ and thick veil.… We went to the _Chapelle Saint-Mesmin_, where Monseigneur has his college and his summer residence. The pure air, the perfumes of the spring, the evening calm, gave me an inexpressible feeling of enjoyment. For a moment I forgot this earth, and in the isolation of thought went back to my childhood; saw our beloved home, and our so lamented mother watching us at play. Why is she not with us still? She would have been so proud of René. “What are you thinking of,” asked Hélène, “looking in this way up to heaven like the picture of the Mignon of Ary Scheffer?” “She is dreaming of Ireland,” replied _my brother_, who had understood me.

31st.—Sermon on the intellectual life: “Lord, give me understanding and I shall live.” My mother-in-law was rather unwell; I passed the day in her room. The whole _flight of doves_, profiting by this fine Sunday, went out to flutter in the bright sunshine. Hélène presented her grandmother with a bunch of double violets; she took them with a smile, and then delicately placed them in my hair, saying as she did so: “Darling Violet, receive your sisters.” I kissed her hand—that soft, white hand which reminds me of my mother’s.

April 2.—“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The days succeed each other, but are not much alike, it is said, immutability not belonging to this earth. That which always resembles itself is my union with René. He is no sooner absent than something within me suffers; as soon as he returns my heart overflows with joy. Lucy asked me, “Are you never sad?” “Never!” “Happy sister!” she rejoined; “as for me, I weep sometimes when baby suffers; then I feel as if all was lost—as if I must die. Edward calls this exaggeration.” “Dear Lucy, the Holy Ghost has said, ‘If you are glad of heart, sing: if sorrowful, pray.’ Pray, then, so that you may never be sad. God is so good that we ought to serve him with a joyful heart.”

7th.—Played some splendid duets with Hélène, who has remarkable power. Sermon on the supernatural life: “If you eat not the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” The Père Perraud was the intimate friend of the gentle Abbé Perreyve—“this delightful apparition,” said M. de Montalembert, “which, after an interval of thirty years, has made me seem to see again Lacordaire as he appeared before the court of the peers of France, young, eloquent, intrepid, gentle and frank, austere and charming, but above all ardent and tender, endowed with that spring of fascination, that key of hearts, which is found so rarely here below. In him one saw again that noble and sympathetic look which no one who had once received it could ever forget—that eye, questioning and candid as that of a child.”

I am reading again, with René, _Quentin Durward_ and _Charles the Bold_. I am translating into English _Les Enfants d’Édouard_ for Lucy, who says she likes English better than anything, and wishes to teach it to her son. Edward (ours) pretends that I possess all the qualifications for a good professor. They will spoil me, these kind brothers.

12th.—Way of the Cross, of the Friday. I love this devotion. Even the _dauphin_, Arthur, begs to go to it; he has a taste for music, and the pretty voices of the children of the choir fascinate him.

I have to-day been absorbed in a delightful book for which I am indebted to the obliging kindness of Adrien. It is the letters of Silvio Pellico, translated by M. Latour. What an admirable man Silvio is! Do you recollect the _Mémoires d’Andryane_? Silvio speaks of this book, and deeply regrets that his friend, the Frenchman, did not use more reserve in his confidences to the public, as there were still prisoners in the Spielberg.

14th.—Copied a beautiful letter of Mgr. le Comte de Chambord, _our king_, as _duchesse_ proudly says. Mgr. Dupanloup is at Orleans; this evening he appeared in the pulpit. I was there; for, although the sermon was for men only, I like so much to witness this fine spectacle of the nave quite filled with men. I know of nothing more solemn and imposing than the _Miserere_ chanted by this multitude of deep and powerful male voices, accompanied by the rich tones of the great organ. My heart beat; for I was about to listen to the great orator. Alas! after the invocation Monseigneur left the pulpit, and was replaced by the Père Perraud. He took for his text the words of the prophet Isaias: “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? And the watchman answered: The morning cometh, and also the night: if you seek, seek: return, come.”[137] M. Bougaud preaches the retreat for ladies; we are entering upon the week that is indeed holy.

15th.—Dear Kate, I am in a state of enthusiasm. M. Bougaud is quite what his _Sainte Chantal_ had led me to anticipate: an ardent soul, a heart of fire, his style unique, rich, picturesque, poetic, incisive, penetrating; the priestly heart which knows all the feelings, the aspirations, and the needs of souls.

“Who are you, and what say you of yourselves?” It was admirably fine. He described to us the three wounds, the three martyrdoms, or the three honors of man in this world:, in the mind, the thirst for infinite illumination; in the heart, a keen and incessant hunger after affections; and in the whole being, the craving for eternity. It is from eternity that we are descended, and thither we must ascend again.

I warmly expressed my admiration to René and Edouard, who were waiting for me. My sisters were detained at home by their maternal cares, but it is settled that to-morrow we are to go _in choir_.

16th.—Sermon on the duties of mothers: “Three things constitute a great soul, a soul strong and invincible: a horror of sin, a contempt for all that passes away, and the love of God.” Oh! if it were granted me to have a child, what happiness it would be to me to develop in him these three things.

17th.—I have not been to the sermon, dear Kate … A letter from Fanny W—— has informed me of the sudden death of our dear Mary. I have been weeping all day, thinking of the despair of her poor mother. There had been nothing to prepare her for this thunderclap. Mary appeared to have entirely recovered from the fall she had last year, of which the only remaining effect was an excessive paleness—“a paleness which rendered her so attractive that no one saw in it any alarming symptom. The eve of her death she was speaking of you, of Kate, the chosen one of her heart. Our vigil was prolonged to a later hour than usual; I make use of the word _vigil_, because Mary loved it. We spoke of the great subjects of interest about which she was so enthusiastic—of the church, of Ireland, and of Poland, that other martyr; and Mary said to us: ‘How the saints must implore the Lord for their brethren upon earth!’ Dear soul! she also implores him now. Comfort us, darling Georgina.” I have written. I have tried to comfort these two hearts, so stricken by death—that wound which is incurable here below. May God be their help! Dear Kate, you will not hear of this loss for eight days to come, in the midst of the Catholic alleluia; but it is indeed alleluia that one ought to sing over this early tomb. Happy are they whom God calls to himself! René has been reading to me this evening some chapters on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, by Father Thomas of Jesus. Truly, the Calvary of Lady W—— is the sudden departure of her angelic child; and who can console a mother?

Fanny is saddened on account of their isolation, although, with the marvellous intuition of pure souls, she feels that death separates bodies only. “She is always present to me,” she writes. A world of memories revived within me upon reading these pages, bedewed with many tears. How warmly this family is attached to us!

18th.—I could write a volume upon this Holy Thursday, the Thursday _par excellence_. At seven o’clock I was in the _Black Chapel_ with René; and we did not leave Ste. Croix until past eleven. What a service, dear Kate! The Catholic worship is nowhere more magnificently celebrated. To adorn this vast temple, Monseigneur is having admirable Stations of the Cross sculptured in the walls themselves; the sculptor requires a year for each station, of which the earlier ones are now open to the pious curiosity of the public. Before one o’clock I set out with René, Hélène, and the twins for the visits to the churches—a veritable steeplechase. _Duchesse_ had laid a wager with Arthur that she would see fifteen; and as she was bent upon gaining it, she so prettily pressed me to show her “some more” that we still went on and on. We had afterwards a time of repose; a sermon from that true orator, M. Bougaud: “Whensoever you shall do these things, do them in remembrance of me.” Our Lord has left us a remembrance. What is this remembrance, and with what feelings ought we to regard it? What eloquence! How well he depicted this remembrance, and also how thorough an insight he possesses of the heart! What happy similitudes and figures! How he feels and how he loves! It is plain that the love of God predominates all else in this soul. “When I was young I took offence at Bossuet for saying that friendships pass away with years; but now I am offended with him no more: he saw clearly; he saw only too well.” “When I glance over the globe I am greatly moved. I see Ireland dying of famine; Poland groaning forth her last sigh of agony; Germany, who has not yet stanched the bleeding wounds inflicted by her fratricidal wars; Italy, binding up her wounds in the sun like a poor stricken Samaritan; France, who perhaps in a few months’ time will be covered with blood—all the nations shattered and expiring.… “Dear Kate, I wept as I listened to this enumeration; for I thought of Mary, who died almost while speaking of the martyr-nations. With regard to what M. Bougaud said about the love of God, my pen is powerless to express it.

We are come back this evening from Ste. Croix. Never did I see anything more imposing. The cathedral was full. The singing of the _Stabat_ was something admirable. We were in the transept, and before us this mass of men like a moving sea, a profusion of lights, numerous clergy, the grand voice of the organ, and in the tribune the children of the choir, with the voices of angels. I was transported. A good day, upon the whole, although I should have preferred to all this agitation a few hours of solitude at the feet of Jesus. It is late; René is waiting for me for the holy hour. Good-night, dear Kate; let us love Jesus more and more.

19th.—This morning I hastened with Hélène to make the Way of the Cross before there was a crowd. The service was very fine. Monseigneur was present; he seemed to me to be in great suffering. I was at the sermon preached by M. Bougaud on the Passion. What attractive eloquence! What love for the divine Crucified One! The preacher showed us the Passion as the true Sacrifice in which are united the three parts of the sacrifices of antiquity: oblation, immolation, and communion. He portrayed the august Victim, his beauty, his courage, and his love; and in accents of the most touching pathos he retraced for us the great tragedy of the cross. How he has understood and experienced the Saviour’s love! Speech is inadequate to express his lofty enthusiasm, accompanied as it is by a heart and an imagination enkindled with such fervor.

On a day like this one does not know how to quit the church. We were there again this evening for the sermon of the Père Perraud: “He was bruised for our sins.” This young preacher was truly eloquent; he too believes and loves, and the love of God is a flame which is marvellous in its inspiration. He pointed out to us in the Passion of Jesus Christ a great teaching: hatred of sin; a sure hope; the mercy of the Lord. Kate dearest, this is the first Good Friday that I have ever spent away from you!

20th.—Heard three Masses with René; his ardent piety is a help to my tepidity. This is _the vigil par excellence_, the last of the holy forty days.

M. Bougaud’s concluding sermon has been worthy of the preceding ones; it was taken from the words of St. Augustine, spoken on the same day, in the year 387, when St. Ambrose gave holy baptism to this _son of so many tears_: “I believe in God; I believe in Jesus Christ; I believe in the church.” To listen to M. Bougaud is a royal treat; I hung, as it were, on his lips, drinking in that eloquence which is indeed the two-edged sword spoken of in Scripture. “God is the place of souls. A place is that which bears, which supports.” How ably he developed this great proposition! “Jesus Christ is the only veritable source of love, devotedness, immolation, and sacrifice. All in the present age that is vile, or despicable, or impious will never be able to effect anything against the church; while all it has that is beautiful, noble, refined, great, and excellent will never be able to effect anything but by the church; these I call the two axioms of the intelligence and love of the church. The distinctive and immortal sign which characterizes the church, and which belongs to her alone, is not science, eloquence, or genius; it is devotedness, immolation, sacrifice.” And speaking of the love of God, of Jesus Christ, and of the church, the characteristic of living souls, he said: “It is needful to awaken in souls this threefold love.” It was beautiful, sublime; but a discourse like this cannot be reproduced by lips profane. This evening we had no regular sermon, owing to the fatigue of the preacher. He contented himself with thanking his male auditors for their assiduous and willing attention (the Abbé Bougaud thanked us also, with a charm peculiarly his own), gave a _résumé_ of the principal features of the plan he has been following in this course of instruction, and, after saying a few words on the subject of the Paschal Communion, ended by inviting to it those who have not yet responded to the call of their Saviour, entreating them to be among the workmen who came at the eleventh hour. O Lord Jesus! draw all souls unto thee; reveal to them the incomparable sweetness of thy service.

Dear Kate, I am told so much of the beauties of the Procession of the Resurrection that I have decided to go to it. Marianne promises to wake me. Do you remember the good Duchess Elizabeth giving orders for her foot to be pulled in the night by one of her attendants, and of the pleasing trait of the Landgrave? To-morrow I shall have this volume put into the post; read in every line the unalterable affection of your Georgina. I do not mention René, our hearts having been melted into one alone. _Alleluia_, dear sister of my soul! When will the Catholic alleluia be sung in all the universe? Who can ever have made the title of _papist_ a term of reproach? May England herself one day become papist and receive the pardon of Ireland! O my country! how devotedly I love her.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[128] “To every noble, all honor” (proverb).

[129] Mmes. de T—— were detained in Brittany at the time of Georgina’s marriage. The birth of Jeanne, Mme. Paul’s fourth child, took place the same day.

[130] Our Lady of Good Help.

[131] Sermon preached at St. Roch, 1861.

[132] “The Virgin’s Thread,” the poetic and popular name in France for the gossamer.

[133] _L’entre chien et loup._

[134] _Désassombrir._

[135] _In choir_—in a body; a whole party.

[136] The white-handed Isabelle.

[137] Is. xxi. 11.

THE TYPICAL MEN OF AMERICA.

The commemoration of the birth of American independence one hundred years ago, which is now engaging the attention of our entire community, and exciting a lively interest in every quarter of the civilized world, while it affords us an excellent opportunity for the display of the most tangible evidences of great national prosperity and progress in arts, sciences, and industrial pursuits, will not be without its salutary influence on the thousands of intelligent foreigners who this year, for the first time, may visit our shores. Whether these strangers come to us merely to gratify their curiosity, or, actuated by a laudable spirit of investigation, to study our laws, institutions, and peculiar systems of labor, a personal inspection of our social and political condition will doubtless have the effect of removing many latent prejudices and false conceptions from their minds which have been planted and fostered there by ignorant journalists and hostile critics.

And if, instead of confining their observations to the things to be seen in the grand Exhibition at Philadelphia, or even to the seaboard cities, with their fleets of shipping, gigantic warehouses, and immense factories, they should penetrate into the interior, they will behold a condition of society unequalled in any country or age. There, in the near and far West, the observant traveller will find millions of happy homesteads, wherein the laborious husbandman can repose in the twilight of his useful existence, conscious that the fertile soil upon which he has spent the best years of his manhood, and the roof-tree that covers him, are absolutely his own, subject to no earthly authority but the law which he and his fellows have devised for their mutual happiness and protection.

But while these advances in material as well as political greatness are naturally subjects of honest pride with the people of this country, they likewise give rise to grave reflections, and instinctively suggest the question: Has our progress in the higher aims of life, in civilization, morality, and religion, kept pace with our extraordinary increase in wealth, population, political power, and material development? We have no desire to throw a passing shadow over the festive spirit of this centennial year by dwelling too emphatically on individual and national faults—faults which, though more apparent in our popular system of government than in the more secretive polity of other nations, are nevertheless common to all—but we are obliged in candor to admit that the grosser pursuits of life, the desire to possess the perishable things of the world, have occupied much more the attention of the busy brains and restless physical energy of our population, than the cultivation of solid mental gifts and the practice of public and private virtues.

Much, of course, may be urged in palliation of this undue tendency to materialism. Possessing a fertile, unsettled country of vast dimensions and inexhaustible agricultural and mineral wealth, it was not unnatural that the new-born energies of our young republic should be directed to the attainment of personal independence, by the cultivation and exploration of the almost illimitable public domain of which we became the owners by right of conquest or purchase. But is it not now time to pause on the threshold of our second century of existence, and enquire whether, in this headlong pursuit of material success, we have not almost lost sight of the great and sole end for which man was created, and the means by which his destiny in this world and the next is to be accomplished? Has not our test of human usefulness been an incomplete one, and our standard of mental and moral excellence far too low?

In nature, it is said, everything is great or little by comparison. If the same rule be applied to the conduct and achievements of the men of the present day, as contrasted with those of a past age, we fear it would be found that, while we are willing to honor the virtues of our ancestors and eager to claim a share of their glory, we have lamentably failed in following their brilliant example, and much more so in improving on their plans and methods of benefiting mankind. And yet examples worthy of imitation are not wanting in the short but eventful pages of our history. We need not go back to remote antiquity for them, or even search through tomes of mediæval chronicles for what is so plentifully supplied us in modern records—models of moral purity, unsullied reputation, unselfish ambition, and perfect manhood. Take, for instance, those two illustrious men whose names are most inseparably connected with American history—Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the New World, and George Washington, the central figure in that group of patriots and statesmen who founded the only really free republic that now exists or ever had an existence.

From the day he left his father’s house in Genoa, at the early age of fifteen, till, spent by toil and worn down by disease, he expired in Valladolid, the great discoverer pursued one unvarying course with a tenacity of purpose and a strength of will that were truly heroic. But Columbus was more than a hero: he was a Christian in the highest sense, a Catholic thoroughly imbued with the doctrines of the church, and as jealous of her honor and authority as the most loving son could be of the reputation of his earthly mother. During nearly half a century of constant study, adventure, grand successes, and disheartening changes of fortune, the experienced seaman, erudite astronomer, and close observer of natural phenomena exemplified in his whole career, with singular consistency, all the supernatural virtues with which God is sometimes pleased to endow his creatures. To a mind well disciplined and stored with all the human knowledge of his age were added a profound faith; deep-seated reverence for authority; a sincere love, not only for friends and relatives, but for all mankind; and an implicit reliance on the beneficence and justice of divine Providence that no terror could shake and no reverse lessen in the slightest degree.

A careful examination of the career of Columbus leads to the conviction that his chief object and ultimate aim from the beginning, what in after-life became more apparent, was to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the polluting grasp of the infidel, and to bring the light of Christianity to races of men who were in darkness; all other efforts, though consistent with this grand scheme, were subordinate and auxiliary to it. Actuated by an ambition less exalted or an enthusiasm less aborbing, he could never have attained that glorious success which, though partial, has linked his name to immortality. Neither was this crusader a theorist or a religious fanatic, but, on the contrary, one of the most practical and calculating of men. Though thoroughly satisfied with the feasibility of his plans and confident in the rectitude of his motives, he neglected no opportunity of qualifying himself for the noble task upon which he had set his heart. While others attempted to reach Asia by slow and uncertain coasting along the western shores of Africa, he proposed to launch boldly out on the unknown and trackless deep, and, by taking a direct course westward, to reach the remotest parts of the East, where was situated, it was reported, the great Christian empire of Kublai Khan, the land of gold and precious stones, a tithe of which would be sufficient to initiate and sustain a new and more successful crusade against the Mohammedans.

With this end constantly in view, Columbus carefully studied every work on cosmogony and the physical sciences within his reach, accurately noted down each new discovery in navigation, and was never tired of consulting old mariners on their experience and observations. Even the writings of learned churchmen were placed under contribution. “He fortified himself,” says one of his biographers, “by references to St. Isidore, Beda, St. Ambrose, and Duns Scotus.” He also became a practical sailor, and grew as familiar with the frozen seas of Iceland and the torrid heats of the African coast as with the bays and inlets of his native Italy. “I have been seeking out the secrets of nature for forty years,” he tells us, “and wherever ship has sailed, there have I voyaged.”

Having at length, by study and personal observation, accumulated a large and varied stock of scientific knowledge, the future discoverer retired with his family to the remote island of Porto Santo, the advanced outpost of African discovery. There for several years he devoted his leisure to the patient collation and arrangement of his authorities, till he was able to reduce a mass of crude philosophical speculations and ill-digested cosmical theories to an elaborate system, which, if not altogether borne out by subsequent investigation, was in the main correct, and far in advance of the intelligence of the fifteenth century.

His plans thus thoroughly matured, Columbus considered that the time had arrived to put them into execution. He had already submitted certain proposals to Portugal, but they were rejected by a body called the Geographical Council, who, while they treated with seeming contempt the scheme of the astute Italian, had the unparalleled meanness to appropriate and attempt to use secretly the results of his long years of toil and study. Armed with letters of recommendation, he now appeared before the court of Spain, and, with the earnestness and lucidity of a mind thoroughly convinced by long and patient analysis, he explained to Ferdinand and Isabella his great project of crossing the Atlantic and adding to their dual crown, not only a new continent, but the everlasting glory of having been the means of bringing into the bosom of the church millions of human beings. Though engaged in the desperate war which ended in the final overthrow of Moslem power in Spain, the Catholic sovereigns gave the daring adventurer a kind reception, and referred his proposition to a junta of cosmographers for consideration. The members of that body, however, seem to have been as incapable of understanding the merits of the questions submitted for their deliberation as they were of appreciating the high resolve and mental comprehensiveness of their originator. After five tedious years, during which Columbus, with anxious steps but unfaltering courage, followed the court from place to place as the exigencies of the war required, the junta reported that his plans were “vain and impossible.”

Disgusted, but not disheartened, Columbus retired to the small port of Palos, where, in the society of a few learned men, clerical and lay, he forgot for a while his disappointment, but not his darling project. Through the interference of friends negotiations with the Spanish court were renewed, and again broken off on account of the conditions demanded by Columbus being considered exorbitant. He did not think so, however, and the result proved that he did not overrate the value of his services. Abandoning all hope of co-operation from Spain, the gifted Italian was about to pass the Pyrenees, and was actually on his way to the French frontier, when a courier was despatched to recall him to court. The remonstrance of influential friends, and the fear of yielding to a rival the profits as well as the political prestige which were sure to follow the success of Columbus’ projects, at last overcame the caution of Ferdinand; while a strong sympathy with the daring designs of the gifted adventurer, and an ardent desire for the propagation of the faith, made Isabella an active advocate of his interests. At Santa Fé, on the 17th of April, 1492, the agreement between Columbus and the Catholic sovereigns was signed, whereby he became admiral and viceroy of all the seas and countries he might discover; a sharer, to the extent of one-tenth, in all the profits accruing from the trade with such foreign possessions; and, by virtue of his contribution of one-eighth of the expenses of the voyage, a proportionate part of the gains which might result from it.

These conditions, which had previously been looked upon as inadmissible, but which were now willingly allowed, furnish the key to the character of Columbus. Few men of that age cared less for titles, power, or wealth than he; but these means were necessary, he considered, for the accomplishment of his grand ulterior design—the Christian possession of Palestine. He had studied human nature thoroughly, and knew that no great movement, social or political, could ever command the confidence and sympathy of the world unless directed by leaders of approved position and sustained by liberal expenditures of money.

So far, then, his wish was gratified. Ferdinand, the cautious, had yielded a reluctant consent to the fitting out of the expedition on satisfactory terms, and Isabella, his consort, the noblest woman that ever graced a throne, pawned her jewels to procure funds for its proper equipment. Amid the congratulations of his sanguine friends and the prayers of the populace, Columbus, with his fleet of three frail boats and scanty crews, “after they had all confessed and received the sacraments,” set sail from Palos on the memorable 3d of August, 1492.

Once out of sight of land, on the boundless ocean where keel of ship had never ploughed before, naught around him but a gloomy waste of waters, naught above him save the sun and stars, no friend to consult, no familiar voice to whisper hope or combat despair, with a crew both ignorant and superstitious, he held on his prearranged course, self-reliant, watchful, and dauntless. Night succeeded day, and light followed darkness, in dreary succession, yet still no land appeared. Appalled by imaginary dangers and sick from hope deferred, his men, whose hearts were never wholly in their work, first began to murmur, then broke out into open reproaches, and finally threatened to throw their captain into the sea. It was amid such trying circumstances that the true character of the man became manifest in all its magnificent proportions. Calm alike in sunshine and storm, his hand constantly on the tiller and his eye directed to the west, he heeded little the rumbling of mutinous discontent beneath his feet, nor for a moment did he allow himself to doubt that God in his own good time would conduct him safely to the haven of his hopes.

In the dark watches of the night, when the waves ran highest and the heavens were obscured as with a pall, he felt that he had that within his soul beckoning him on, more brilliant in its coruscations than the starry cross that illumines the southern hemisphere, as unerring in its guidance as the beacon which of old led the children of Israel through the pathless desert—implicit belief in the sublimity of his mission, and an entire reliance on the mercy of his Creator, in whose hands he felt himself an humble instrument for the accomplishment of noble ends. Nor were his confidence and humility long unrewarded. After eight weeks of constant watching and unspeakable anxiety, land was at length discovered, the first glimpse of the New World presented to European eyes; and scarcely had the anchor of the _Santa Maria_ become embedded in the sands of San Salvador, than her brave commander and his now repentant followers hastened ashore to plant the sacred emblem of our salvation, and, weeping and prostrate on that heathen soil, to pour forth their thanksgiving to the Almighty.

The honors which were showered upon Columbus on his return to Spain after this great event were in strange contrast to the neglect, treachery, and injustice of which he was afterwards the victim. Three times again did he cross and recross the Atlantic, making on each occasion new and important discoveries. But ignorance, venality, and envy of his fair fame and spotless honor conspired to raise up against him a host of powerful enemies, who at last stripped him of his hard-earned rewards, and would, had it been possible, have robbed him even of the glory of having been the discoverer of America. However, he bore his trials with fortitude as he had worn his great honors with meekness, seldom retorting on his enemies, and but once, as far as we are aware, condescending to complain of the rank ingratitude of a country to which he had given a whole continent. This occurred during his fourth voyage, in a despatch to the king, in which he says: “Wearied and sighing, I fell into a slumber, when I heard a piteous voice saying to me: ‘O fool! and slow to believe and serve thy God, who is the God of all. What did he more for Moses, or for his servant David, than he has done for thee? From the time of thy birth he has ever had thee under his peculiar care. When he saw thee of a fitting age, he made thy name to resound marvellously throughout the earth, and thou wert obeyed in many lands, and didst acquire honorable fame among Christians. Of the gates of the ocean sea, shut up with mighty chains, he delivered to thee the keys; the Indies, those wealthy regions of the world, he gave thee for thine own, and empowered thee to dispose of them to others according to thy pleasure. What did he more for the great people of Israel when he led them forth from Egypt? or for David, whom from being a shepherd he made a king in Judea? Turn to him, then, and acknowledge thine error; his mercy is infinite. He has many and vast inheritances yet in reserve. Fear not to seek them. Thine age shall be no impediment to any great undertaking. Abraham was above a hundred years when he begat Isaac; and was Sara youthful? Thou urgest despondingly for succor. Answer! Who hath afflicted thee so much and so many times—God or the world? The privileges and promises which God hath made to thee he hath never broken; neither hath he said, after having received thy services, that his meaning was different, and to be understood in a different sense. He fulfils all that he promises, and with increase. Such is his custom. I have shown thee what thy Creator hath done for thee, and what he doeth for all. The present is the reward of the toils and perils thou hast endured in serving others.’”

Whether Columbus had a vision, which is not improbable, or that he adopted this metaphorical style of complaint to avoid giving offence to Ferdinand, it is equally characteristic of the depth of his religious feelings and the depth of his gratitude to the Almighty. But remonstrance, no matter how just or how delicately urged, had little effect on the court of Spain. He was soon after recalled, to end his days in comparative want and obscurity. It was not apparently in the designs of Providence that Columbus should have succeeded in his primary object—the delivery of Jerusalem—but his half-success, the demonstration of the rotundity of the earth and the discovery of our hemisphere, were productive of more benefit to humanity than the complete victories of most other great benefactors of mankind. While he has handed down to all ages an imperishable name, he has also left an example to posterity—and particularly to us Americans, who owe him so much gratitude and reverence—that far outweighs in importance his contributions to science and his efforts to aggrandize his adopted country. He has proved in his own person that a soul filled with deep and intense devotion to the Creator, and a will conformable in all things to his laws, are alone capable of leading human beings to the achievement of true and lasting greatness.

Equally salutary, though different in degree and purpose, is the lesson taught us by the life and labors of George Washington, who may be considered as having been in the natural what Columbus was in the supernatural order—a noble specimen of humanity; a lover and benefactor of his kind.

As Americans, we cannot study too diligently the character of him who was properly called the Father of his Country. No other among our Revolutionary ancestors embodied in himself so many of those civic virtues which constitute the perfect citizen. Like most men who have played prominent parts on the world’s stage, Washington was born with strong passions and an imperious disposition; but careful self-culture early changed his powerful impulses into tenacity of purpose and strength of will, while his natural exclusiveness gave him afterwards that dignity of word and action which is absolutely necessary for those who are called upon to command. As general of the army and president of the infant republic, he had men around him of more brilliancy, larger experience, and greater mental attainments; but he alone possessed in a superior degree that well-balanced organization and intuitive wisdom to which all could pay the homage of obedience.

Washington’s mind, however, was neither synthetical nor originating. He was more a man of ability than of genius. He never could have initiated a revolution, though once begun, as experience has proved, he was admirably adapted to carry it out successfully. In a monarchy, he might have been a loyal, chivalrous subject; under a wise, conservative government, he would have been the first to oppose innovation; under all circumstances, he could not have failed to be a high-toned, accomplished, and honorable gentleman.

We are not surprised that our Protestant fellow-citizens love to point with commendable pride to the example of their great and good co-religionist, though Protestantism, particularly that professed in his day, and by his family and associates, had little to do with the formation of his character or the regulation of his public actions; but as Catholics we yield to none in admiration and affection for the noblest citizen of our common country. We can never forget that when our numbers were “few and faint, but fearless still,” when Puritan fanaticism and Anglican superciliousness endeavored to underrate our services, malign our motives, and misrepresent our doctrines, George Washington, rising superior to the narrow, petty bigotry of his generation, was the first to give a hearty and candid recognition to our claims as good and faithful citizens. His words to Bishop Carroll and the other representatives of the Catholics of the Revolution are indelibly impressed on the memory of the millions of Catholics among us who feel, and are proud to acknowledge, that to him and his associates they are mainly indebted for the civil and religious liberty they now so freely enjoy. “As mankind become more liberal,” he wrote, “they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.”

Though a sincere Christian, Washington cannot be said to have been a religious man. The cold formalities of Episcopalianism to which he was accustomed could not touch his heart nor inspire his soul with great and glowing emotions; but this was more the fault of the system in which he was reared than of himself. The motives of his actions seem to have been principally based on a refined sense of honor, on his comprehension of the requirements of the natural law, which in his regard was usually in conformity with the teachings of the church. He was just, honest, truthful, and manly; faithful in his social relations and moderate in his ambition. Had he possessed some of the glorious enthusiasm of Columbus, great as he was, he might have been still greater; and had the discoverer united to his other wonderful qualities the worldly wisdom of Washington, his star might not have descended amid the darkness and disappointment which clouded the last years of his eventful life.

Taking the character of the two greatest personages, we find in their collective lives the development of the highest qualities which human nature is capable of exhibiting. As such, we desire to hold them up for imitation to the youth of this country, who in a short time will take the place of the present generation in the conduct of our civil and domestic affairs. That those men were of different races and peculiar national tendencies does not prevent the blending of their characters into one harmonious whole. The greatest nations of ancient and modern times, those which have developed the most equitable and stable systems of government, with the greatest liberty and the highest civilization, have been formed upon the union of various tribes, clans, and families, having many radically different tendencies and special characteristics. In what one people may be deficient another may have a superabundance; and the volatile and supersensitive nature of one race is counteracted by the sedateness and stolidity of others less imaginative. As the river Nile, flowing from different sources, bears in its course the riches of the soils of a hundred climes, and empties them all into the lap of Egypt, so families of men, gifted by their Creator with various qualities of heart and mind, collect together, each with its contribution, to form a lasting and magnificent commonwealth. This is as true of religious as of political society. The church, guided by a divine instinct, finds employment and turns to account the genius of all her children, no matter how peculiar or dissimilar their attributes. She welcomes and perfects the organizing power of the Latin races, and the fire and enthusiasm of the Celtic, equally with the solidity of the Germanic and the imagination of the Orientals. Unity in diversity, authority with liberty, are essentials and correlative in the science of good government, whether it be that of a republic or of the universal church.

Who knows but that the nation now in process of forming in the bosom of our republic, from the various races of Europe, with ampler natural capacities quickened into greater activity by the political character of its institutions, is destined, in the order of events, to give to Christianity an expression more adequate and more in accordance with its universal spirit and divine origin? The church of Christ has no reverses in the movement of her divine mission, and she has turned to account each race according to its gifts in the Old World from her beginning. May not all these, in their best energies combined in the New, be called to realize the highest type of the Christian character? Do not the leading traits of Columbus and Washington point out to us the ideal Christian, the union of the most exalted faith with the thoroughest manhood? For as Christ was perfect God and perfect man in one personality, so is he who unites the most exalted faith with the most thorough manhood in one personality the complete Christian. Is not this ideal Christian the glorious promise of the future of this New World?

Protestantism, which has been the religion of the vast majority of our countrymen, is gradually losing its hold upon their convictions. The religion alone which can claim the attention of all mankind is the Catholic. It alone has all the notes of truth, both inward and outward, in its favor.

Unsupported by religious convictions, no nation can realize its true destiny. Unity of religious conviction, and the virtues necessary to uphold its institutions, are more necessary to a republic like ours than to any other form of political government. The principles and views of human nature on which our republic is based are sustained by the doctrines of Christianity taught by the Catholic Church. Gradually the church and the republic are approaching each other, and with this nearer approach there springs up reciprocal appreciation and sympathy. Fanatics on one hand, and infidels on the other, may warn, may threat, and may attempt to keep them apart by conspiracy and persecution, but in vain; for God, in whose providence they are destined to be united, will not be frustrated by the puny efforts of his enemies to keep them asunder. Out of this divine wedlock will spring forth children whose lives will be of the highest type of Christian manhood, and whose civilization will be the most glorious development of God’s kingdom on earth.

CATHOLICS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The moment of England’s triumph in the last century was the dawn of American independence. When England, aided by her colonies, had at last wrested Canada from France, and, forcing that weakened power to relinquish Louisiana to Spain, had restored Havana to the Catholic sovereign only at the price of Florida, her sway seemed secure over all North America from the icy ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi. But her very success had aroused questions and created wants which were not to be answered or solved until her mighty American power was shattered.

While Spain and France kept colonies in leading-strings, England allowed her American provinces to thrive by her utter neglect of them. Monarchs granted charters liberally, and with that their interest seemed to vanish, until it was discovered that offices could be found there for court favorites. But the people had virtually constituted governments of their own; had their own treasury, made their own laws, waged their wars with the Indian, carried on trade, unaided and almost unrecognized by the mother country.

The final struggle with France had at last awakened England to the importance, wealth, and strength of the American colonies. It appeared to embarrassed English statesmen that the depleted coffers of the national treasury might be greatly aided by taxing these prosperous communities. The Americans, paying readily taxes where they could control their disbursement, refused to accept new burdens and to pay the mother country for the honor of being governed. The relation of colonies to the mother country; the question of right in the latter to tax the former; the bounds and just limits on either side, involved new and undiscussed points. They now became the subject of debate in Parliament, in colonial assemblies, in every town gathering, and at every fireside in the American colonies. The people were all British subjects, proud of England and her past; a large majority were devoted to the Protestant religion and the house of Hanover, and sought to remain in adherence to both while retaining all the rights they claimed as Englishmen.

A small body of Catholics existed in the country. What their position was on the great questions at issue can be briefly told.

They were of many races and nationalities. No other church then or now could show such varieties, blended together by a common faith. Maryland, settled by a Catholic proprietor, with colonists largely Catholic, and for a time predominantly so, contained some thousands of native-born Catholics of English, and to some extent of Irish, origin, proud of their early Maryland record, of the noble character of the charter, and of the nobly tolerant character of the early laws and practice of the land of Mary. In Pennsylvania a smaller Catholic body existed, more scattered, by no means so compact or so influential as their Maryland brethren—settlers coming singly during the eighteenth century mainly, or descendants of such emigrants, some of whom had been sent across the Atlantic as bondmen by England, others coming as redemptioners, others again as colonists of means and position. They were not only of English, Irish, and Scotch origin, but also of the German race, with a few from France and other Catholic states. New Jersey and New York had still fewer Catholics than Pennsylvania. In the other colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia, they existed only as individuals lost in the general body of the people. But all along the coast were scattered by the cruel hand of English domination the unfortunate Acadians, who had been ruthlessly torn from their Nova Scotian villages and farms, deprived of all they had on earth—home and property and kindred. With naught left them but their faith, these Acadians formed little groups of dejected Catholics in many a part, not even their noble courage amid unmerited suffering exciting sympathy or kindly encouragement from the colonists. Florida had a remnant of its old Spanish population, with no hopes for the future from the Protestant power to which the fortunes of war and the vicissitudes of affairs had made them subjects. There were besides in that old Catholic colony some Italians and Minorcans, brought over with Greeks under Turnbull’s project of colonization. Maine had her Indians, of old steady foes of New England, now at peace, submitting to the new order of things, thoroughly Catholic from the teaching of their early missionaries. New York had Catholic Indians on her northern frontier. The Catholic Wyandots clustered around the pure streams and springs of Sandusky. Further west, from Detroit to the mouth of the Ohio, from Vincennes to Lake Superior, were little communities of Canadian French, all Catholics, with priests and churches, surrounded by Indian tribes among all which missionaries had labored, and not in vain. Some tribes were completely Catholic; others could show some, and most of them many, who had risen from the paganism of the red men to the faith of Christ.

Such was the Catholic body—colonists who could date back their origin to the foundation of Maryland or Acadia, Florida or Canada, Indians of various tribes, new-comers from England, Germany, or Ireland. There were, too, though few, converts, or descendants of converts, who, belonging to the Protestant emigration, had been led by God’s grace to see the truth, and who resolutely shared the odium and bondage of an oppressed and unpopular church.

The questions at issue between the colonies and the mother country were readily answered by the Catholics of every class. Catholic theologians nowhere but in the Gallican circles of France had learned to talk of the divine right of kings. The truest, plainest doctrines of the rights of the people found their exposition in the works of Catholic divines. By a natural instinct they sided with those who claimed for these new communities in the western world the right of self-government. Catholics, of whatever race or origin, were on this point unanimous. Evidence meets us on every side. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, will mention Father Harding, the pastor of the Catholics in Philadelphia, for “his known attachment to British liberty”—they had not yet begun to talk of American liberty. Indian, French, and Acadian, bound by no tie to England, could brook no subjection to a distant and oppressive power. The Irish and Scotch Catholics, with old wrongs and a lingering Jacobite dislike to the house of Hanover, required no labored arguments to draw them to the side of the popular movement. All these elements excited distrust in England. Even a hundred years before in the councils of Britain fears had been expressed that the Maryland Catholics, if they gained strength, would one day attempt to set up their independence; and the event justified the fear. If they did not originate the movement, they went heartily into it.

The English government had begun in Canada its usual course of harassing and grinding down its Catholic subjects, putting the thousands of Canadians completely at the mercy of the few English adventurers or office-holders who entered the province, giving three hundred and sixty Protestant sutlers and camp-followers the rights of citizenship and all the offices in Canada, while disfranchising the real people of the province, the one hundred and fifty thousand Canadian Catholics. How such a system works we have seen, unhappily, in our own day and country. But with the growing discontent in her old colonies, caused by the attempts of Parliament to tax the settlers indirectly, where they dared not openly, England saw that she must take some decisive step to make the Canadians contented subjects, or be prepared to lose her dear-bought conquest as soon as any war should break out in which she herself might be involved. Instead of keeping the treaty of Paris as she had kept that of Limerick, England for once resolved to be honest and fulfil her agreement.

It was a moment when the thinking men among the American leaders should have won the Canadians as allies to their hopes and cause; but they took counsel of bigotry, allowed England to retrace her false steps, and by tardy justice secure the support of the Canadians.

The Quebec act of 1774 organized Canada, including in its extent the French communities in the West. Learning a lesson from Lord Baltimore and Catholic Maryland, “the nation which would not so much as legally recognize the existence of a Catholic in Ireland, now from political considerations recognized on the St. Lawrence the free exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome, and confirmed to the clergy of that church their rights and dues.”

Just and reasonable as the act was, solid in policy, and, by introducing the English criminal law and forms of government, gradually preparing the people for an assimilation in form to the other British colonies, this Quebec act, from the simple fact that it tolerated Catholics, excited strong denunciation on both sides of the Atlantic. The city of London addressed the king before he signed the bill, petitioning that he should refrain from doing so. “The Roman Catholic religion, which is known to be idolatrous and bloody, is established by this bill,” say these wiseacres, imploring George III., as the guardian of the laws, liberty, and religion of his people, and as the great bulwark of the Protestant faith, not to give his royal assent.

In America, when the news came of its passage, the debates as to their wrongs, as to the right of Parliament to pass stamp acts or levy duties on imports, to maintain an army or quarter soldiers on the colonists, seemed to be forgotten in their horror of this act of toleration. In New York the flag with the union and stripes was run up, bearing bold and clear on a white stripe the words, “No Popery.” The Congress of 1774, though it numbered some of the clearest heads in the colonies, completely lost sight of the vital importance of Canada territorially, and of the advantage of securing as friends a community of 150,000 whose military ability had been shown on a hundred battle-fields. Addressing the people of Great Britain, this Congress says: “By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modelled, and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices; that by their numbers swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to the same slavery with themselves.” “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world.”

This address, the work of the intense bigot John Jay, and of the furious storm of bigotry evoked in New England and New York, was most disastrous in its results to the American cause. Canada was not so delighted with her past experience of English rule or so confident of the future as to accept unhesitatingly the favors accorded by the Quebec act. She had from the first sought to ally herself with the neighboring English colonies, and to avoid European complications. When she proposed the alliance, they declined. She would now have met their proposal warmly; but when this address was circulated in Canada, it defeated the later and wiser effort of Congress to win that province through Franklin, Chase, and the Carrolls. It made the expeditions against the British forces there, at first so certain of success by Canadian aid, result in defeat and disgrace. In New York a little colony of Scotch Catholics, who would gladly have paid off the score of Culloden, took alarm at the hatred shown their faith, and fled with their clergyman to Canada to give strength to our foe, when they wished to be of us and with us. In the West it enabled British officers to make Detroit a centre from which they exerted an influence over the Western tribes that lasted down into the present century, and which Jay’s treaty—a tardy endeavor to undo his mischief of 1774—did not succeed in checking.

Pamphlets, attacking or defending the Quebec act, appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. In the English interest it was shown that the treaty of Paris already guaranteed their religion to the Canadians, and that the rights of their clergy were included in this. It was shown that to insist on England’s establishing the state church in Canada would justify her in doing the same in New England. “An Englishman’s Answer” to the address of Congress rather maliciously turned Jay’s bombast on men like himself by saying: “If the actions of the different sects in religion are inquired into, we shall find, by turning over the sad historic page, that it was the —— sect (I forget what they call them; I mean the sect which is still most numerous in New England, and not the sect which they so much despise) that in the last century deluged our island in blood; that even shed the blood of the sovereign, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, superstition, hypocrisy, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the empire.”

One who later in life became a Catholic, speaking of the effect of this bill in New England, says: “We were all ready to swear that this same George, by granting the Quebec bill, had thereby become a traitor, had broke his coronation oath, was secretly a papist,” etc. “The real fears of popery in New England had its influence.” “The common word then was: ‘No king, no popery.’”

But though Canada was thus alienated, and some Catholics at the North frightened away, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the French West the fanaticism was justly regarded as a mere temporary affair, the last outburst of a bigotry that could not live and thrive on the soil. Providence was shaping all things wisely; but we cannot be surprised at the wonder some soon felt. “Now, what must appear very singular,” says the writer above quoted, “is that the two parties naturally so opposite to each other should become, even at the outset, united in opposing the efforts of the mother country. And now we find the New England people and the Catholics of the Southern States fighting side by side, though stimulated by extremely different motives: the one acting through fear lest the king of England should succeed in establishing among us the Catholic religion; the other equally fearful lest his bitterness against the Catholic faith should increase till they were either destroyed or driven to the mountains and waste places of the wilderness.”

Such was the position of the Catholics as the rapid tide of events was bearing all on to a crisis. The Catholics in Maryland and Pennsylvania were outspoken in their devotion to the cause of the colonies. In Maryland Charles Carroll of Carrollton, trained abroad in the schools of France and the law-courts of England, with all the learning of the English barrister widened and deepened by a knowledge of the civil law of the Continent, grappled in controversy the veteran Dulany of Maryland. In vain the Tory advocate attempted, by sneers and jibes at the proscribed position of the foreign-trained Catholic, to evade the logic of his arguments. The eloquence and learning of Carroll triumphed, and he stood before his countrymen disenthralled. There, at least, it was decided by the public mind that Catholics were to enjoy all the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that citizens like Carroll were worthy of their highest honors. “The benign aurora of the coming republic,” says Bancroft, “lighted the Catholic to the recovery of his rightful political equality in the land which a Catholic proprietary had set apart for religious freedom.” In 1775 Charles Carroll was a member of the first Committee of Observation and a delegate to the Provincial Convention of Maryland, the first Catholic in any public office since the days of James II. “Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the great representative of his fellow-believers, and already an acknowledged leader of the patriots, sat in the Maryland Convention as the delegate of a Protestant constituency, and bore an honorable share in its proceedings.”

When the news of Lexington rang through the land, borne from town to town by couriers on panting steeds, regiments were organized in all the colonies. Catholics stepped forward to shoulder their rifles and firelocks. Few aspired to commissions, from which they had hitherto been excluded in the militia and troops raised for actual service, but the rank and file showed Catholics, many of them men of intelligence and fair education, eager to meet all perils and to prove on the field of battle that they were worthy of citizenship in all its privileges. Ere long, however, Catholics by ability and talent won rank in the army and navy of the young republic.

We Catholics have been so neglectful of our history that no steps were ever taken to form a complete roll of those glorious heroes of the faith who took part in the Revolutionary struggle. The few great names survive—Moylan, Burke, Barry, Vigo, Orono, Louis, Landais; here and there the journal of a Catholic soldier like McCurtin has been printed; but in our shameful neglect of the past we have done nothing to compile a roll that we can point to with pride.

When hostilities began, it became evident that Canada must be gained. Expeditions were fitted out to reduce the British posts. The Canadians evinced a friendly disposition, giving ready assistance by men, carriages, and provisions to an extent that surprised the Americans. Whole parishes even offered to join in reducing Quebec and lowering the hated flag of England from the Castle of St. Louis, where the lilies had floated for nearly two centuries. But the bigotry that inspired some of our leaders was too strong in many of the subordinates to permit them to reason. They treated these Catholic Canadians as enemies, ill-used and dragooned them so that almost the whole country was ready to unite in repulsing them. Then came Montgomery’s disaster, and the friends of America in Canada dwindled to a few priests: La Valiniere, Carpentier, the ex-Jesuits Huguet and Floquet, and the Canadians who enlisted in Livingston’s, Hazen’s, and Duggan’s corps, under Guillot, Loseau, Aller, Basadé, Menard, and other Catholic officers.

Then Congress awoke to its error. As that strategic province was slipping from the hands of the confederated colonies, as Hazen’s letters came urging common sense, Congress appointed a commission with an address to the Canadian people to endeavor even then to win them. Benjamin Franklin was selected with two gentlemen from Catholic Maryland—Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll. To increase their influence, Congress requested the Rev. John Carroll to accompany them, hoping that the presence of a Catholic priest and a Catholic layman, both educated in France and acquainted with the French character, would effect more than any argument that could be brought to bear on the Canadians. They hastened to do their utmost, but eloquence and zeal failed. The Canadians distrusted the new order of things in America; the hostility shown in the first address of Congress seemed too well supported by the acts of Americans in Canada. They turned a deaf ear to the words of the Carrolls, and adhered to England.

Canada was thus lost to us. Taking our stand among the nations of the earth, we could not hope to include that province, but must ever have it on our flank in the hands of England. This fault was beyond redemption.

But the recent war with Pontiac was now recalled. Men remembered how the Indian tribes of the West, organized by the mastermind of that chief, had swept away almost in an instant every fort and military post from the Mississippi to the Alleghanies, and marked out the frontier by a line of blazing houses and villages from Lake Erie to Florida. What might these same Western hordes do in the hands of England, directed, supplied, and organized for their fell work by British officers! The Mohawks and other Iroquois of New York had retired to the English lines, and people shuddered at what was to come upon them there. The Catholic Indians in Maine had been won to our side by a wise policy. Washington wrote to the tribe in 1775, and deputies from all the tribes from the Penobscot to Gaspé met the Massachusetts Council at Watertown. Ambrose Var, the chief of the St. John’s Indians, Orono of Penobscot, came with words that showed the reverent Christian. Of old they had been enemies; they were glad to become friends: they would stand beside the colonists. Eminently Catholic, every tribe asked for a priest; and Massachusetts promised to do her best to obtain French priests for her Catholic allies. Throughout the war these Catholic Indians served us well, and Orono, who bore a Continental commission, lived to see priests restored to his village and religion flourishing. Brave and consistent, he never entered the churches of the Protestant denominations, though often urged to do so. He practised his duties faithfully as a Catholic, and replied: “We know our religion and love it; we know nothing of yours.”

Maine acknowledges his worth by naming a town after this grand old Catholic.

But the West! Men shuddered to think of it. The conquest of Canada by a course of toleration and equality to Catholics would have made all the Indian tribes ours. The Abnakis had been won by a promise to them as Catholics; the Protestant and heathen Mohawks were on the side of England, though the Catholics of the same race in Canada were friendly. If the Indians in the West could be won to neutrality even, no sacrifice would be too great.

Little as American statesmen knew it, they had friends there. And if the United States at the peace secured the Northwest and extended her bounds to the Mississippi, it was due to the Very Rev. Peter Gibault, the Catholic priest of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and to his sturdy adherent, the Italian Colonel Vigo. Entirely ignorant of what the feeling there might be, Col. George Rogers Clark submitted to the legislature of Virginia, whose backwoods settlement, Kentucky, was immediately menaced, a plan for reducing the English posts in the Northwest. Jefferson warmly encouraged the dangerous project, on which so much depended. Clark, with his handful of men, struck through the wilderness for the old French post of Kaskaskia. He appeared before it on the 4th of July, 1778. But the people were not enemies. Their pastor had studied the questions at issue, and, as Clark tells us, “was rather prejudiced in favor of us.” The people told the American commander they were convinced that the cause was one which they ought to espouse, and that they should be happy to convince him of their zeal. When Father Gibault asked whether he was at liberty to perform his duty in his church, Clark told him that he had nothing to do with churches, except to defend them from insult; that, by the laws of the state, his religion had as great privileges as any other. The first Fourth of July celebration at Kaskaskia was a hearty one. The streets were strewn with flowers and hung with flags, and all gave themselves up to joy. But Clark’s work was not done. The English lay in force at Vincennes. Father Gibault and Colonel Vigo, who had been in the Spanish service, but came over to throw in his fortunes with us, urged Clark to move at once on Vincennes. It seemed to him rash, but Father Gibault showed how it could be taken. He went on himself with Dr. Lefont, won every French hamlet to the cause, and conciliated the Indians wherever he could reach them. Vigo, on a similar excursion, was captured by British Indians and carried a prisoner to Hamilton, the English commander at Vincennes, but that officer felt that he could not detain a Spanish subject, and was compelled by the French to release him. When Clark, in February, appeared with his half-starved men, including Captain Charlevoix’s company of Kaskaskia Catholics, before Vincennes, and demanded its surrender with as bold a front as though he had ten thousand men at his back, the English wavered, and one resolute attack compelled them to surrender at discretion. What is now Indiana and Illinois, Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, was won to the United States. To hold it and supply the Indians required means. Clark issued paper money in the name of Virginia, and the patriotic Colonel Vigo and Father Gibault exhausted all their resources to redeem this paper and maintain its credit, although the hope of their ever being repaid for their sacrifice was slight, and, slight as it might have been, was never realized.[138] Their generous sacrifice enabled Clark to retain his conquest, as the spontaneous adhesion of his allies to the cause had enabled him to effect it. The securing of the old French posts Vincennes, Fort Chartres, and others in the West which the English had occupied, together with the friendship of the French population, secured all the Indians in that part, and relieved the frontiers of half their danger. Well does Judge Law remark: “Next to Clark and Vigo, the United States are more indebted to Father Gibault for the accession of the States comprised in what was the original Northwestern Territory than to any other man.”

Those Western Catholics did good service in many an expedition, and in 1780 La Balm, with a force raised in the Illinois settlements and Vincennes, undertook to capture Detroit, the headquarters of the English atrocities. He perished with nearly all his little Catholic force where Fort Wayne stands, leaving many a family in mourning.

The first bugle-blast of America for battle in the name of freedom seemed to wake a response in many Catholic hearts in Europe. Officers came over from France to offer their swords, the experience they had acquired, and the training they had developed in the campaigns of the great commanders of the time. Among the names are several that have the ring of the old Irish brigade. Dugan, Arundel, De Saint Aulaire, Vibert, Col. Dubois, De Kermorvan, Lieut.-Col. de Franchessen, St. Martin, Vermonet, Dorré, Pelissier, Malmady, Mauduit, Rochefermoy, De la Neuville, Armand, Fleury, Conway, Lafayette, Du Portail, Gouvion, Du Coudray, Pulaski, Roger, Dorset, Gimat, Brice, and others, rendered signal service, especially as engineers and chiefs of staff, where skill and military knowledge were most required. Around Lafayette popular enthusiasm gathered, but he was not alone. Numbers of these Catholic officers served gallantly at various points during the war, aiding materially in laying out works and planning operations, as well as by gallantly doing their duty in the field, sharing gayly the sufferings and privations of the men of ’76.

Some who came to serve in the ranks or as officers rendered other service to the country. Ædanus Burke, of Galway, a pupil of St. Omer’s, like the Carrolls, came out to serve as a soldier, represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress, and was for some time chief-justice of his adopted State. P. S. Duponceau, who came over as aide to Baron Steuben in 1777, became the founder of American ethnology and linguistics. His labors in law, science, and American history will not soon be forgotten.

Meanwhile, Catholics were swelling the ranks, and, like Moylan, rising to fame and position. The American navy had her first commodore in the Catholic Barry, who had kept the flag waving undimmed on the seas from 1776, and in 1781 engaged and took the two English vessels, _Atlanta_ and _Trepassay_; and on other occasions handled his majesty’s vessels so roughly that General Howe endeavored to win him by offers of money and high naval rank to desert the cause. Besides Catholics born, who served in army or navy, in legislative or executive, there were also men who took part in the great struggle whose closing years found them humble and devoted adherents of the Catholic Church. Prominent among these was Thomas Sims Lee, Governor of Maryland from 1779 to the close of the war. He did much to contribute to the glorious result, represented his State in the later Continental Congress and in the Constitutional Convention, as Daniel Carroll, brother of the archbishop, also did. Governor Lee, after becoming a Catholic, was reelected governor, and lived to an honored old age. Daniel Barber, who bore his musket in the Connecticut line, became a Catholic, and his son, daughter-in-law, and their children all devoted themselves to a religious life, a family of predilection.

In Europe the Catholic states, France and Spain, watched the progress of American affairs with deepest interest. At the very outset Vergennes, the able minister of France, sent an agent to study the people and report the state of affairs. The clear-headed statesmen saw that America would become independent. In May, 1776, Louis XVI. announced to the Catholic monarch that he intended to send indirectly two hundred thousand dollars. The King of Spain sent a similar sum to Paris. This solid aid, the first sinews of war from these two Catholic sovereigns, was but an earnest of good-will. In France the sentiment in favor of the American cause overbore the cautious policy of the king, the amiable Louis XVI. He granted the aid already mentioned, and induced the King of Spain to join in the act; he permitted officers to leave France in order to join the American armies; he encouraged commerce with the revolting colonies by exempting from duties the ships which bore across the ocean the various goods needed by the army and the people. The enthusiasm excited by Lafayette, who first heard of the American cause from the lips of an English prince, soon broke down all the walls of caution. An arrangement was made by which material of war from the government armories and arsenals was sent out, nominally from a mercantile house. A year after the Declaration of Independence, France, which had opened her ports to American privateers and courteously avoided all English complaints, resolved to take a decisive step—not only to acknowledge the independence of the United States, but to support it. Marie Antoinette sympathized deeply with this country, and won the king to give his full support to our cause. On the 6th of February, 1778, Catholic France signed the treaty with the United States, and thus a great power in Europe set the example to others in recognizing us as one of the nations of the earth. America had a Catholic godmother. Amid the miseries of Valley Forge Washington issued a general order: “It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of the universe to defend the cause of the United American States, and finally to raise us up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and independence upon a lasting foundation, it becomes us to set apart a day for gratefully acknowledging the divine goodness and celebrating the important event, which we owe to his divine interposition.” France now openly took part in the war, and in July, 1778, a French fleet under d’Estaing appeared on our coasts, neutralizing the advantage which England had over us by her naval superiority. The ocean was no longer hers to send her army from point to point on the coast. This fleet engaged Lord Howe near Newport, and co-operated with Sullivan in operations against the English in Rhode Island. After cruising in the West Indies it again reappeared on our coast to join Lincoln in a brave but unsuccessful attack on Savannah, in which fell the gallant Pulaski, who some years before had asked the blessing of the pope’s nuncio on himself and his gallant force in the sanctuary of Our Lady of Czenstochowa, before his long defence of that convent fortress against overwhelming Russian forces.

In July, 1780, another fleet, commanded by the Chevalier de Ternay, entered the harbor of Newport, bringing a French army commanded by an experienced general, John Baptiste de Vimeur, Count de Rochambeau. An army of Catholics with Catholic chaplains, observing the glorious ritual of the church with all solemnity, was hailed with joy in New England. The discipline of that army, the courteous manners of officers and privates, won all hearts. What that army effected is too well known to be chronicled here in detail. When Lafayette had cornered Cornwallis in Yorktown, Washington and Rochambeau marched down, the fleet of the Count de Grasse defeated Admiral Graves off the capes of Virginia, and, transporting the allied armies down, joined with them in compelling Cornwallis to surrender his whole force; and old St. Joseph’s Church, in Philadelphia, soon rang with the grand _Te Deum_ chanted in thanksgiving at a Mass offered up in presence of the victorious generals.

None question the aid given us by Catholic France. Several who came as volunteers, or in the army or fleet, remained in the United States. One officer who had served nobly in the field laid aside his sword and returned to labor during the rest of his life for the well-being of America as a devoted Catholic priest.

But France was not the only Catholic friend of our cause. Spain had, as we have seen, at an early period in the war, sent a liberal gift of money. She opened her ports to our privateers, and refused to give up Captain Lee, of Marblehead, whom England demanded. She went further; for when intelligence came of the Declaration of Independence, she gave him supplies and repaired his ship. She subsequently sent cargoes of supplies to us from Bilbao, and put at the disposal of the United States ammunition and supplies at New Orleans. When an American envoy reached Madrid, she sent blankets for ten regiments and made a gift of $150,000 through our representative. When the gallant young Count Bernardo de Galvez, whose name is commemorated in Galveston, was made governor of Louisiana, he at once tendered his services to us; he forwarded promptly the clothing and military stores in New Orleans; and when the English seized an American schooner on the Louisiana lakes, he confiscated all English vessels in reprisal.

Spain had not formally recognized the United States. She offered her mediation to George III., and on its refusal by that monarch, for that and other causes she declared war against England. Galvez moved at once. He besieged the English at Baton Rouge, and, after a long and stubborn resistance, compelled it to surrender in September, 1780; he swept the waters of English vessels, and then, with the co-operation of a Spanish fleet under Admiral Solano and de Monteil, laid siege to the ancient town of Pensacola. The forts were held by garrisons of English troops, Hessians, and northern Tories, well supplied and ready to meet the arms of the Catholic king. The resistance of the British governor, Campbell, was stout and brave; but Pensacola fell, and British power on our southern frontier was crushed, and neutralized. Spain gave one of the greatest blows to England in the war, next in importance to the overthrow of Burgoyne and Cornwallis.

On the Northwest, too, where English influence over the Indians was so detrimental, Spain checked it by the reduction of English posts that had been the centre of the operations of the savage foe. America was not slow in showing her sense of gratitude to Catholic Spain. Robert Morris wrote to Galvez: “I am directed by the United States to express to your excellency the grateful sense they entertain of your early efforts in their favor. Those generous efforts gave them so favorable an impression of your character and that of your nation that they have not ceased to wish for a more intimate connection with your country.” Galvez made the connection more intimate by marrying a lady of New Orleans, who in time presided in Mexico as wife of the Viceroy of New Spain.

But it was not only by the operations on land that the country of Isabella the Catholic aided our cause. Before she declared war against England, her navy had been increased and equipped, so that her fleets co-operated ably with those of France in checking English power and lowering English supremacy on the ocean.

Yet a greater service than that of brave men on land or sea was rendered by her diplomacy. Russia had been almost won by England; her fleet was expected to give its aid to the British navy in reasserting her old position; but Spain, while still neutral, proposed an armed neutrality, and urged it with such skill and address that she detached Russia from England, and arrayed her virtually as an opponent where she had been counted upon with all certainty as an ally. Spain really thus banded all Continental Europe against England, and then, by declaring war herself, led Holland to join us openly.

Nor were France and Spain our only Catholic friends. The Abbé Niccoli, minister of Tuscany at the court of France, was a zealous abettor of the cause of America. In Germany the Hessians, sent over here to do the work of English oppression, were all raised in Protestant states, while history records the fact that the Catholic princes of the empire discouraged the disgraceful raising of German troops to be used in crushing a free people; and this remonstrance and opposition of the Catholic princes put a stop to the German aid which had been rendered to our opponent.

Never was there such harmonious Catholic action as that in favor of American independence a hundred years ago. The Catholics in the country were all Whigs; the Catholics of Canada were favorable, ready to become our fellow-citizens; France and Spain aided our cause with money and supplies, by taking part in the war, and by making a Continental combination against England; Catholic Italy and Catholic Germany exerted themselves in our favor. Catholics did their duty in the legislature and in the council-hall, in the army and in the navy; Catholics held for us our northeastern frontier, and gave us the Northwest; Catholic officers helped to raise our armies to the grade of European science; a Catholic commander made our navy triumph on the sea. Catholic France helped to weaken the English at Newport, Savannah, and Charleston; crippled England’s naval power in the West Indies, and off the capes of Virginia utterly defeated them; then with her army aided Washington to strike the crowning blow at Cornwallis in Yorktown. Catholic Spain aided us on the western frontier by capturing British posts, and under Galvez reduced the British and Tories at Baton Rouge and Pensacola. And, on the other hand, there is no Catholic’s name in all the lists of Tories.

Washington uttered no words of flattery, no mere commonplaces of courtesy, but what he felt and knew to be the truth, when, in reply to the Catholic address, he said: “I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.”

[138] “Father Gibault, but especially Vigo, had on hand at the close of the campaign more than $20,000 of this worthless trash (the only funds, however which Clark had in his military chest), and not one dollar of which was ever redeemed.”

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.[139]

What is the real nature of the new political movement or organization in Ireland which emblazons on its banner the device “Home Rule”? Beyond all question it has attained to national dimensions. It has concentrated upon itself more of the attention and interest, hopes and sympathies, of the Irish people than any political endeavor on the same field of action for many years. More than this, it seems to have succeeded in exacting a tribute to its power and authority which no previous movement received from the adverse ministers, publicists, and people of England. These, while they combat it, deal with it as “Ireland.” It makes propositions, exacts terms, directs assaults, assents to arrangements on behalf of and in the name of the Irish people; and, as we have indicated, the singular part of the case is that not only is its action ratified and applauded by them, but its authority so to act in their name is virtually recognized by the government. In the House of Commons it takes charge of Irish affairs; has almost an Irish (volunteer) ministry, certainly an organized party not inferior, if not superior, in discipline to that of the “government” or “opposition.” We hear of its “whips,” its councils, its special division-lists, its assignment of particular duties, motions, or bills to particular individuals; and, lastly, we hear of it boldly challenging the Disraelian hosts, fighting them in debate throughout a set field-day, and, despite the actual government majority of forty-eight and working majority of seventy, running the ministerialists to within barely thirteen votes.

In all this there is much that is new in the history of Irish politics; and it were impossible that it should not intensely interest, if not affect, the Catholic millions of America, bound, as most of them are, to Ireland by the sacred ties of faith and kindred and nationality.

What, then, is Home Rule? Is it Fenianism, “veiled” or unveiled? Is it Repeal? Is it less than repeal, or more than repeal? Is it a surrender or a compromise of the Irish national demand; or is it, as its advocates claim, the substance of that demand shaped and adjusted according to the circumstances, requirements, and necessities of the present time?

With the fall of the Young Ireland party, and the disastrous collapse of their meditated rather than attempted insurrection in 1848, there seemed to foes and friends an end of national movements in Ireland for the balance of the century. It is almost a law of defeats that the vanquished are separated into two or three well-defined parties or sections: those whom the blow has intensified and more embittered in their opposition; those whom it wholly overawes, who thereafter consider they have done enough for honor, and retire entirely from the field; and, lastly, those who recognize, if they do not accept, the defeat; who admit the impossibility of further operations on a position so advanced, fall back upon some line which they imagine they can hold, and, squaring round there, offer battle with whatever of strength and resources survive to them. This is just what resulted in Ireland in 1848-49. The Young Ireland movement of 1848 was never national in dimensions or acceptance. O’Connell’s movement _was_, from 1842 to 1844; but from that date forward, though there were two or three rival movements or parties, having for their leaders respectively O’Connell, Smith O’Brien, and John Mitchel, no one of them had the nation at its back. The Young Irelanders led away from O’Connell the youth, talent, enthusiasm, and, to a large extent, though not entirely, the resolute earnestness and honesty of the old Repeal party. It is a very common but a very great fallacy that they broke away on a “war policy” from the grand old man whose fading intellect was but too sadly indicated in the absurd conduct that drove the young men from his side. They had no “war” policy or design any more than he had (in the sense of a war attack on England), until they caught up one in the blaze and whirl of revolutionary intoxication scattered through Europe by the startling events of February, 1848, in Paris. They seceded from O’Connell on this point,[140] because they would not subscribe to the celebrated test resolutions (called “Peace Resolutions”) declaring that under _no_ circumstances was it or would it be lawful to take up arms for the recovery of national rights. Spurning such a declaration, but solemnly declaring they contemplated no application of its converse assertion in their political designs for Ireland, the seceders set up the “Irish Confederation.” But the magic of O’Connell’s name, and indeed the force of a loving gratitude, held the masses of the people and the bulk of the clergy in the old organization. The Confederates were in many places decidedly “unpopular,”[141] especially when, the Uncrowned Monarch having died mournfully in exile, his following in Conciliation Hall raised the cry that the Young Irelanders “killed O’Connell.” Soon afterwards the seceders were themselves rent by a secession. The bolder spirits, led by John Mitchel and Devin Rielly, demanded that the Confederation, in place of disclaiming any idea of an armed struggle against England, should avowedly prepare the people for such a resort. The new secession was as weak in numbers, relatively towards the Confederation, as the original seceders were towards the Repeal Association. The three parties made bitter war upon one another. A really national movement there was no more.

Suddenly Paris rose against Louis Philippe, and throughout Europe, in capital after capital, barricades went up and thrones came down. Ireland caught the flame. The Mitchel party suddenly found themselves masters of the situation. The Confederation leaders—O’Brien, Duffy, Dillon, O’Gorman, Meagher, and Doheny—not only found their platform abandoned, but eventually, though not without some hesitation and misgiving, they themselves abandoned it too, and threw themselves into the scheme for an armed struggle in the ensuing summer or autumn. It was thought, perhaps, that although this might not reunite the O’Connellites and the Young Irelanders, it would surely reunite the recently-divided sections of the O’Brien following; but it did so only ostensibly or partially. There were two schools of insurrectionists in the now insurrectionary party: Mitchel and Rielly declared that O’Brien and Duffy wanted a “rosewater revolution”; O’Brien and Duffy declared the others were “Reds,” who wanted a _jacquerie_. The refusal of the leaders to make the rescue of Mitchel the occasion and signal for a rising, led to bitter and scarcely disguised recrimination; and when, a couple of months later, they themselves, caught unawares and unprepared by the government, sought to effect a rising, the result was utter and complete failure. The call had no real power or authority behind it. The men who issued it had not the mandate of the nation in any sense of the word. They were at the moment the fraction of a fraction. They had against them the bulk of the Repeal millions and the Catholic clergy; not against them in any combative sense, but in a decided disapproval of their insurrection. Some, and only some, of the large cities became thoroughly imbued with and ready to carry through the revolutionary determination—an impress which Cork has ever since retained; but beyond the traditional vague though deep-rooted feeling of the Irish peasantry against the hateful rule of England, the rural population, and even the majority of the cities and towns, had scarcely any participation in “the Forty-Eight movement.”

When, therefore, all was over, and the “Men of ’48,” admittedly the flower of Ireland’s intellect and patriotism, were fugitives or “felons”—some seeking and receiving asylum and hospitality in America, others eating their hearts in the hulks of Bermuda or the dungeons of Tasmania—a dismal reaction set in in Ireland. The results above referred to as incidental to defeats as a rule were plainly apparent. Of the millions who, from 1841 to 1848, whether as Repealers, O’Connellites, Confederates, Mitchelites, Old Irelanders, or Young Irelanders, partook in an effort to make Ireland a self-governed or else totally independent nation, probably one-half in 1849 resigned, as they thought, for ever, all further hope or effort in that direction. Of the remainder, a numerically small party—chiefly, though not all, men who had belonged to John Mitchel’s section of the Young Irelanders—became only the more exasperated by a defeat in which they felt that their policy had not had even a chance of trying what was in it; a defeat, too, that left the vanquished not one incident to solace their pride and shield them from humiliation and ignoble ridicule. Chafing with rage and indignation, they beheld the rest of what remained at all visible of the national party effecting that retrograde movement alluded to in a foregoing page. Of all the brilliant leaders of Young Ireland, Gavan Duffy alone now remained to face on Irish soil the terrible problem, “What next?” Openly proclaiming that the revolutionary position could not be held, he ordered a retreat all along the line. Halting for a while on an attempt to revive the original Irish Confederation policy—an attempt which he had to abandon for want of support—he at length succeeded in rallying what could be called a political party on a struggle for “Tenant Right.” It raised in no way the “national” question. It gathered Presbyterians of the north and Catholics of the south, repealers and anti-repealers, in an organization to force Parliament to pass a bill preventing the eviction of tenant-farmers unless for non-payment of rent; preventing also arbitrary increasing of rent that might squeeze out the farmer in another way. “Come, now, this is something practical and sensible,” said matter-of-fact non-repealers and half-hearted nationalists. “Why, it is craven surrender and sheer dishonor!” cried the irreconcilable section of the ’48 men. A band of thirty or forty members of Parliament were returned at the instance of the Tenant League to work out its programme. They were mostly corrupt and dishonest men, who merely shouted the new shibboleth for their own purposes. Were the people thoroughly in earnest, and did they possess any really free voting power (there was no vote by ballot then), all this could be cured; but as things stood, the parliamentary band broke up in the first three months of their existence. The English minister bought up its noisiest leaders, of whom Keogh (now a judge) and Sadleir are perhaps most widely remembered. In some cases the constituencies, priests and people, condoned their treason, duped into believing it was not treason at all, but “a great thing to have Catholics on the bench.” In other places the efforts of priests and people to oppose the re-election of the traitors were vain; free election amongst “tenants at will” being almost unknown without the ballot. The tenants’ cause was lost. Thus ruin, in its own way as complete and disastrous as that which overtook the insurrectionary attempt of 1848, now overthrew the experiment of a great popular campaign based on constitutional and parliamentary principles. Not only was there now no movement for nationality in Ireland; there was not an Irish movement of any kind or for any Irish purpose at all, great or little. It was _Pacata Hibernia_ as in the days of Carew and St. Leger.

Now came the turn for the unchanged and exasperated section of the ’48 war party. Few in numbers, and scattered wide apart, they had hissed forth scorn and execration on Duffy’s parliamentary experiment as a departure from the revolutionary faith. If he in 1849 answered to their invectives by pointing to the fiasco of the year before, they now taunted him with the collapse of 1853. Not more than two or three of the ’48 men of any prominence, however, took up this actually hostile attitude. Most of them—O’Brien, Dillon, Meagher, O’Gorman, and even Martin—more or less expressly approved the recent endeavor as the best thing practicable under the circumstances in Ireland. Now, however, the men who believed in war and nothing but war, in total separation and nothing short of separation, would take _their_ turn. The Fenian movement thus arose.

If neither of the sections or subsections of the Irish nationalists in 1848 could be said to have succeeded in rallying or representing the full force, or even a considerable proportion, of Irish patriotism, this new venture was certainly not more fortunate in that respect. Outside its ranks, obstinately refusing to believe in its policy, remained the bulk of the millions who had followed O’Connell or Smith O’Brien. Yet the Fenians worked with an energy worthy of admiration—except where the movement degenerated into an intolerance that forbade any other national opinions save those of its leaders to be advanced. In truth, their influence on Irish politics was very mixed in its merits. In some places it was a rude and vaunting rowdyism that called itself Fenianism; in others an honest, manly, self-sacrificing spirit of patriotism marked the men who were its confessors and martyrs. If in their fall they drew down upon Ireland severities worse than anything known since 1798, it is only fair, on the other hand, to credit in a large degree to the sensations aroused by their trials the great awakening of public opinion on the Irish question which set in all over England at the time.

And now once more the board was clear. England had won the game; not a pawn remained untaken on the Irish side. Not an Irish association, or society, or “agitation,” or demand of any kind challenged Britannia’s peace of mind. Once more it was a spectacle of the lash and the triangle; state-trials, informers, and prosecutors; the convict-ship and the hulk; the chain-gangs at Portland and Chatham.

“Who will show us any light?” exclaims one of the Young Ireland bards in a well-known and beautiful poem. Such might well have been the exclamation of Ireland in 1867. Was this to be the weary cycle of Irish effort, for ever and for ever? Was armed effort hopeless, and peaceful effort vain? Was there no alternative for Irishmen but to become “West-Britons,” or else dash their brains out against a dungeon wall? Could no one devise a way whereby to give scope and vent to the Irish passion for national existence, to give a field to Irish devotion and patriotism, which would be consonant with the spirit of manhood, without calling for these hecatombs of victims?

Suddenly a new element of consideration presented itself; new, indeed, and rather startling.

It was Irish Protestantism offering the hand of reconciliation to Ireland.

The Tory party had come into power in the course of the Fenian prosecutions, and had carried on the work in a spirit which Cromwell himself would approve. They really held office, not because they had an effective majority in the House of Commons, but because the liberals were broken up and divided, unable to agree on a policy. To turn to his own account the “Fenian scare” was Mr. Gladstone’s brilliant idea. To make a dash on the Irish Church establishment would rally all the mutinous fractions of liberalism, on the principle of “hit him, he has no friends.” It would gratify all England as a sort of conscience-salve for the recent dragonnades and coercion laws. Yes; this was the card with which to beat Disraeli. True, Mr. Gladstone had only a few years before put down his foot and declared that never, “no, _never_,” could, would, or should that Irish Church be disestablished or interfered with in any way. What was he to say now to cover this flank movement, made for purely party purposes? In all Britain there is no brain more subtle, none more fertile of strategic resource, than that of W. E. Gladstone. He put it all on Fenianism. He had changed his mind, _not_ because he was out of office with a weak and broken party, and wanted to get back with a strong and united one, but because he had opened his eyes to Fenianism! He never hit on a more successful idea. On the cry of “Down with the Irish Church!” he was swept into office at the head of the most powerful majority commanded by any minister since Peel in 1841. It must not be thought that Mr. Gladstone was insincere, or meant anything but service to Ireland (while also serving his party) by this move. He has the faculty of intensely persuading himself into a fervid conscientiousness on any subject he likes, whether it be Free Trade, Church Establishment, Church Disestablishment, or Vaticanism.

The Irish Protestants had an unanswerable case against England—that is, as between them and her—on this matter of disestablishment. It was, on her part towards them, an open, palpable, and flagitious breach of faith—breach of formal treaty in fact. The articles of the Union in 1800 expressly covenanted that the maintenance of the Irish Church establishment was to be one of the cardinal, fundamental, essential, and everlasting conditions of the deed. Mr. Gladstone snapped his fingers at such considerations. “Mind, you thereby repeal and annul the Union,” cried Irish conservatives. “We will kick another crown into the Boyne,” said Parson Flanagan at an Orange meeting. “We have held by this bargain with you with uneasy consciences,” said and wrote numbers of sincere Irish Protestants; “break it, and we break with you, and become Irishmen first and before everything.”

It was rightly judged by thoughtful observers that, though noisy braggarts of the Parson Flanagan class would not only let the crown alone, but would cringe all the more closely by England’s side even when the church was swept away, there was much of sober earnestness and honest resolve in what hundreds of Protestant laymen (and even clergymen) spoke upon this issue. Yes, though the bulk of Irish Protestants would prove unequal to so rapid a political conversion, even under provocation so strong, there would still be a considerable movement of their numbers towards, if not into, the Irish camp. Time, moreover, and prudent and conciliatory action on the part of their Catholic countrymen, would be always increasing that _rapprochement_.

And so in the very chaos and disruption and upheaval of political elements and parties in Ireland from 1868 to 1870 there was, as by a mysterious design of Providence, a way made for events and transformations and combinations which otherwise would have been nigh impossible.

The church was disestablished; Irish Protestants were struck with amazement and indignation. England had broken with them; they would unite with Ireland. But, alas! no; this was, it seemed, impossible. They could never be “Fenians.” No doubt they, after all, treasured in their Protestant hearts the memory, the words, and, in a way, the principles of their great coreligionists, Grattan and Flood, Curran and Charlemont. In _this_ direction they could go; but towards _separation_—towards an “Irish republic,” towards disloyalty to the crown—they would not, could not, turn their faces. These men belonged in large part to a class, or to classes, never since 1782 seen joining a national movement in any great numbers. They were men of high position; large landed proprietors, bankers, merchants, “deputy-lieutenants” of counties, baronets, a few of them peers, many of them dignitaries of the Protestant church, some of them fellows of Trinity College. Such men had vast property at stake in the country. They saw a thousand reasons why Irishmen alone should regulate Irish affairs, but they would hold by a copartnership with Scotland and England in the empire at large. This, however, they concluded, was not what the bulk of their countrymen was looking for; and so it almost seemed as if they would turn back and relapse into mere West-britonism as a lesser evil for them than a course of “rebellion” and “sedition.”

At this juncture there appeared upon the scene a man whose name seems destined to be writ large on the records of a memorable era in Irish history—Isaac Butt.

When, on Friday evening, the 15th of September, 1865, the British government seized the leading members of the Fenian Society and flung them into Richmond jail, it became a consideration of some difficulty with the prisoners and their friends how and by whom they should be defended. In one sense they had plenty of counsel to choose from. Such occasions are great opportunities for briefless advocates to strike in, like ambitious authors of unacted plays who nobly offer them to be performed on Thanksgiving day or for some popular public charity. No doubt the prisoners could have had attorneys and lawyers of this stamp easily enough; but it was not every man whom they would trust equally for his ability and his honesty. Besides, there was the money difficulty. The crown was about to fight them in a costly law duel. To retain men of the front rank at the bar would cost thousands of pounds; to retain men of inferior position would be worse than useless. Could there be found amongst the leaders of the Irish bar even one man bold enough and generous enough to undertake the desperate task and protracted labor of defending these men, leaving the question of fee or remuneration to the _chance_ of funds being forthcoming? What of the great advocates of the state trials of 1843 and 1848? Holmes—_clarum et venerabile nomen_—dead! Shiel—gone too; Whiteside—on the bench; O’Hagan—also a judge; Sir Colman O’Loghlen—a crown prosecutor; Butt—yes, Butt, even then in the front rank, the most skilful, the boldest, the most eloquent, and most generous of them all—_he_ is just the man! Where is Butt?

Where, indeed? He had to be searched and sought for, so utterly and sadly had a great figure silently disappeared from the forum. Thirty years before Isaac Butt was the young hope of Protestant conservatism, the idol of its _salons_. He had barely passed his majority when he was elected to the professorship of Political Economy in Trinity College; and, at an age when such honors were unprecedented, was elevated to a “silk-gown,” as Queen’s Counsellor at the bar. Yet there was always about young Butt an intense Irishism; he was a high-spirited Protestant, a chivalrous conservative; but even in that early time the eagle eye of O’Connell detected in him an Irish heart and a love of the principles of liberty that would yet, so he prophesied, lead Butt into the ranks of the Irish people. The English Tory leaders enticed him over to London, and sent him into Parliament for one of their boroughs—Harwich. They made much of him—and were his ruin. In the whirl of parliamentary life, in the fascination of London society, he abandoned his professional business and fell into debt difficulty, and dissipation. Had he been less independent and less self-willed, he would no doubt have been richly placed by his ministerial friends. Somehow or another he and they drew apart as he went sullenly and recklessly downward. In 1864 he had almost dropped out of sight, having just previously ceased to sit in Parliament.

To the solicitation to undertake the defence of the Fenian prisoners he responded by giving them, it may be said, three whole years of his professional life. He flung himself into that fight for the men in the dock with the devotion, the enthusiasm, the desperate energy of a man striving for life itself. His genius and ability, conspicuous before, shone out more than ever. He was admittedly the first lawyer of his day; and now not only the crown counsel but the judges on the bench felt they were dealing with their master. Of money he took no thought. Indeed, in the best and worst days of his fortunes he gave it little heed. He has been known in the depth of his difficulties to hand back a special fee of a hundred guineas which he knew a poor client could not spare, and the same day pay his hotel bill with a check doomed never to be cashed. The incident is unfortunately only too typical of one phase of his nature.

Three or four years immersed in such labors—one protracted series of state trials—dealing in the most painfully realistic way with the problem of Ireland’s destiny, could not fail to have a profound effect on a man like Butt. Meantime, he grew into immense popularity. His bold appeals for the prisoners, which soon came to be the sentiments of the man rather than the pleadings of the advocate, were read with avidity in every peasant’s cottage and workman’s home. The Fenians, broken and defeated as an organization, yet still ramifying throughout the country, looked to him with the utmost gratitude and confidence. Under his presidency and guidance a society called the Amnesty Association was established for the purpose of obtaining the royal clemency for at least some of the Fenian convicts. A series of mass-meetings under its auspices were held throughout the island, and were the largest assemblages seen in Ireland since the Repeal meetings of Tara and Mullaghmast. In fine, Mr. Butt found himself a popular leader, at the head of at all events the pro-Fenian section of Irish political elements, and daily becoming a power in the country.

The resentful Protestants, just now half-minded to hoist the national flag, were many of them Butt’s old comrades, college-chums, and political associates. He noted their critical position, and forthwith turned all his exertions, in private as well as in public, to lead them onward to the people, and to prevent them from relapsing into the character of an English garrison. In his public speeches he poured forth to them the most impassioned appeals. In private he sought out man by man of the most important and influential among them. “Banish hesitation and fear,” he cried. “Act boldly and promptly now, and you will save Ireland from revolutionary violence on the one side, and from alien misgovernment on the other. You, like myself, have been early trained to mistrust the Catholic multitude, but when you come to know them you will admire them. They are not anarchists, nor would they be revolutionists if men like you would but do your duty and lead them—that is, honestly and faithfully and capably lead them—in the struggle for constitutional liberty.” The Protestants listened, almost persuaded; but some sinister whisper now and again of the terrors of a “Catholic ascendency” in an Irish parliament—a reminder that Irish Catholics would vote for a nominee of their clergy right or wrong, and consequently that if the Irish Protestant minority threw off the yoke of England, they should bear the yoke of Rome—seemed to drive them, scared, from the portals of nationality.

About this time, the beginning of 1870, Mr. Gladstone raised to the peerage Colonel Fulke Greville Nugent, M.P. for Longford County. He was a respectable and fairly popular “liberal” in politics, was a good landlord, and, though a Protestant, kindly and generous to the Catholic clergy and people around him. He had held his seat by and from the priests; for Longford County, from the days when it heroically won its independence a generation before, had been virtually in the gift of the Catholic clergy. This vacancy occurred in the very fever of the Amnesty excitement. A few months before Mr. Gladstone had rather harshly refused the appeal for Amnesty; and Tipperary made answer and commentary thereon by electing to Parliament one of the Fenian convicts, at the moment a prisoner in Chatham. It was proposed to imitate this course in Longford, but a more worthy resolve was taken: John Martin of Rostrevor—“Honest John Martin”—one of the purest, most heroic, and lovable of Irish patriots, was put in nomination, although at the moment he was travelling in America and unaware of the proceedings. But the clergy had at a private conference committed themselves to the son of their late member—a brainless young officer in the army. Neither party would withdraw their man; and out of this arose a conflict as fierce, bitter, and relentless as if the parties to it had been ancient and implacable foes instead of lifelong and loving friends. Altar denunciations of the most terrible kind were hurled at the men who dared to “oppose their clergy” by advocating John Martin. Platform denunciations were hurled at the men who dared to go “against Ireland” by preferring to a stainless and devoted patriot a brainless little fop who had not a political idea in his head or a spark of Irish patriotism in his heart.

Ireland, and England too, looked on in intense amazement and curiosity. Here was a great problem brought to a critical test. The old story of the anti-Catholic English press, that Irish Catholics would slavishly “vote black white at the ordering of their priests,” was about to be proved true or put to shame. The Longford clergy defeated John Martin and carried their man, but he was subsequently unseated on petition. The experiment otherwise, however, was decisive. For John Martin, a Presbyterian Protestant, a Catholic people fought their own clergy as vehemently as they and those clergy had ever fought the Tory landlords. It was an exceptional and painful incident, but at the moment one of vast importance, which proudly vindicated both priests and people from a damaging calumny.[142]

There was no misunderstanding all this. No Irish Protestant, patriotically inclined, could any longer be scared by the bugbear of “Catholic intolerance.” The time at last had come for the step they meditated. The moment had arrived also for some attempt to answer the aspirations of Ireland. And “the Hour had brought the Man.”

On the night of Thursday, the 19th of May, 1870, there were quietly assembled in the Bilton Hotel, Upper Sackville Street, Dublin—the most exclusive and aristocratic of the quasi-private hotels in that city—a strange gathering. Such men had never met to confer or act together before. It was a “private conference of Irish gentlemen to consider the state of Ireland.” But looking around the room, one might think the millennium at hand, when the wolf would lie down with the lamb and the lion slumber with the fawn. Men who were Tories, nay, Orangemen; men who were “ultra-montanes,” men who had been Repealers, men who were Whigs, men who had been rebels; Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians, Quakers, Fenians, anti-Fenians, knights, high sheriffs, aristocrats, democrats—a strange array, about fifty in all.[143] Soberly and earnestly and long they discussed and debated and deliberated. The men seemed thoroughly to realize the gravity of what they were about.

They did not claim any representative character whatever; they spoke each man for himself. The questions they had proposed to discuss dealt merely with “absenteeism and the consequent loss of trade and national prosperity,” and “the advantages of a royal residence in Ireland in a political and financial point of view.” But in the very first moments of discussion even the new converts to nationality took up bolder ground. Lord Mayor Purdon, a Protestant Conservative, a man universally respected in Dublin; Sir William Wilde (husband of the Young Ireland poetess “Speranza”), an archæologist of European fame; the Hon. Capt. King-Harman; and the Rev. J. E. Galbraith, fellow of Trinity College, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the age, were amongst the men of conservative politics who came especially to the front. The nationalists, both “extreme” and “moderate,” interfered but little in the discussions, looking on greatly astonished at all they heard and saw; but their part of the case was well handled by the man who was really the guiding spirit of the scene, and who eventually rose and in a brief speech of thrilling power proposed:

“That it is the opinion of this meeting that the true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish parliament with full control over our domestic affairs.”

A dozen men rose to second this resolution of Mr. Butt, which was carried in the meeting not only without a dissentient voice, but with enthusiasm. Considering the composition of the assemblage, this was one of the most startling incidents in Irish politics for half a century. Having appointed a committee to report resolutions to a future meeting, the assembly adjourned.

This was the birth of the Home-Rule movement.

The course of procedure adopted, following upon the above events, was one quite unique in Irish politics. Usually the promoters in such cases would hold a meeting as “we the people of Ireland” and begin to act and speak in the name of the country. Not only was this line of conduct eschewed, it was expressty repudiated, by the semi-private society or association which at first grew out of the Bilton Hotel meeting. It was only four months afterwards (1st of Sept., 1870) that they ventured to assume public form or shape as a political organization. During all this interval they announced themselves simply as a number of Irishmen associated together in an endeavor to ascertain the feeling of the country upon the subject of national autonomy. They had themselves arrived at certain general conclusions or resolutions (hereafter to be noticed), but they declared they could not arrogate to themselves any right or authority to speak for the nation at large. When at length they broke ground and took the field publicly as the “Irish Home Government Association,” they still disclaimed the right to assume the authoritative functions or tone of a great national organization.[144] _That_ would come at the right time, if the country thought well of calling forth such a body; but _this_ was at best a sort of “precursor society” projecting certain views, and submitting them to public examination by the people, with the avowed intention on the part of these “precursors” of some day, if they found encouragement for their course, calling on the country to pass its deliberate and decisive verdict upon those views, so that _Ireland, the nation_, might speak, and, speaking, command obedience from all loyal and faithful sons.

This was all Butt’s sagacity. _Festina lente_ was the motto that befitted work so grave and momentous as an effort to lift Ireland up and bid her hope and strive once more. There was need of this deliberation and caution. The experiment of bringing together such elements as he gathered around this new venture was a hazardous one. There were prejudices to be allayed, objections to be removed, antipathies to be conquered. Notoriously there were men who wanted not to go very far on a road so new to them, and whom a very little bit indeed of self-government would satisfy. Just as notoriously were there men who wanted to go a great deal further than they could get the rest of their countrymen to join them in attempting. These two sections—the Protestant loyalists and the Fenian secessionists—were the most widely opposed. Then there were men of the “Old Ireland” school and men of the “Young Ireland” school—men who objected to “repeal” as worthless without the addition of a separate and responsible Irish administration; and men who objected to repeal as dangerous without stronger guarantees against conflict and separation of the kingdoms.

It was expected that the greatest difficulty would be with the (Irish) Fenians; but this was not so. Mainly through Mr. Butt’s great influence with them, but partly because adversity had taught them useful lessons, they either came into the new scheme or else declared for a friendly neutrality. Not that any of them did so in the sense of recanting their Fenian principles. They expressly reserved their own convictions, but announced their determination to give a fair trial and a friendly aid to an honest endeavor in the direction proposed. Some of their body, absent in America, disapproved of this resolve, and bitterly decried the idea of letting any patriotic scheme but their own find tolerance, much less favor, from their ranks. In England, however—_i.e._, among the Irish in England—where the wreck and disorganization that had broken up Irish Fenianism had had little effect, and where for several years past there had resided whatever of strength and authority remained of that body, the proposals of Mr. Butt were taken up heartily, and even enthusiastically, by them.

A much more formidable work it was found to be to assure the men of large property that this was not an embryo scheme for rebellion and revolution; to persuade the Catholic clergy that it was not either a cloak for Fenianism or a snare of Orangeism; and to convince the Protestants that it was not a trap laid for them by Cardinal Cullen and the Jesuits.

And now what was the scheme or plan or “platform” put forward after such deliberation, inquiry, negotiation, and investigation? What specifically has been the Irish national demand as put forth to the world in 1870, solemnly ratified in a great National Conference in 1873, and unmistakably and triumphantly endorsed at the general elections of February, 1874?

Substantially the old demand and declaration on the basis of which Ireland has been ready enough any time for the last two hundred and fifty years to compromise with the English connection—equality in a copartnership, but no subjugation; the national autonomy of Ireland secured; the right of Ireland to legislate for and control her own affairs established. The Irish Confederate government of 1642, the free Irish parliament of 1690, the free Irish parliament of 1782, and the decree of the Irish millions organized in the Repeal movement of 1843 formulated just that programme—modified somewhat, no doubt, each time, it might be, according to the requirements of the period; but still, as the student of authentic historical documents will discover, it was on all those memorable occasions in substance the same. The Catholic Confederation at Kilkenny in the seventeenth century, and the Protestant convention at Dungannon in the eighteenth, spoke in almost identical tones as to Ireland’s position under the triple crown of Scotland, England, and Ireland. It was very much as if Virginia in 1865 said: “I have fought you long and bravely; recognize and secure to me the fulness of state rights, and I will loyally cast in my lot as a member of the United States.” How closely the founders of the new Irish movement kept on the old lines may be seen from the subjoined “platform” laid down by the “Home Government Association” in 1870:

“HOME GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION.

“GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

“I.—This association is formed for the purpose of obtaining for Ireland the right of self-government by means of a national parliament.

“II.—It is hereby declared, as the essential principle of this association, that the objects, and THE ONLY OBJECTS, contemplated by its organization are:

“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of managing our own affairs, by a parliament assembled in Ireland, composed of her majesty the sovereign, and her successors, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland:

“To secure for that parliament, under a federal arrangement, the right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, and control over Irish resources and revenues, subject to the obligation of contributing our just proportion of the imperial expenditure:

“To leave to an imperial parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting the imperial crown and government, legislation regarding the colonies and other dependencies of the crown, the relations of the United Empire with foreign states, and all matters appertaining to the defence and the stability of the empire at large.

“To attain such an adjustment of the relations between the two countries, without any interference with the prerogatives of the crown, or any disturbances of the principles of the constitution.

“III.—The association invites the co-operation of all Irishmen who are willing to join in seeking for Ireland a federal arrangement based upon these general principles.

“IV.—The association will endeavor to forward the object it has in view, by using all legitimate means of influencing public sentiment, both in Ireland and Great Britain, by taking all opportunities of instructing and informing public opinion, and by seeking to unite Irishmen of all creeds and classes in one national movement, in support of the great national object hereby contemplated.

“V.—It is declared to be an essential principle of the association that, while every member is understood by joining it to concur in its general object and plan of action, no person so joining is committed to any political opinion, except the advisability of seeking for Ireland the amount of self-government contemplated in the objects of the association.”

Though rather diffidently and unostentatiously projected, the new movement was hailed with general approbation. Yet it had for some time hanging on either flank very bitter though not very numerous assailants. The ultra-tories, led by the Dublin _Daily Express_, shrieked fiercely at the Protestant conservatives that they had entered the camp of Fenianism and Romanism; the ultra-whigs, led by the Dublin _Evening Post_, howled wildly at the Catholics that they were the tools of Orangemen who shammed Home Rule merely to spite Mr. Gladstone for disestablishing the Protestant Church. There can be no doubt this latter idea had long a deterrent effect on the Catholic bishops and clergy; they thought the new movement too like a Protestant revenge on an English minister whom they regarded as a benefactor. “The newly-born patriotism of these Tory-nationalists will soon vanish,” they said (not without show of reason); “wait until they have driven Mr. Gladstone from office, and got Disraeli back again—they will then draw off quick enough from Home Rule.” “Very likely,” answered the Catholic Home-Rulers; “we are quite prepared to find a large percentage of these men fall off, but enough of them will remain faithful and true to make the movement a success; and especially the Protestant _youth_ of the country henceforth will be ours.”

Time—at all events such time as has since elapsed—has quite vindicated this view.

Meantime the country was pronouncing gradually but decisively on the movement. Within the first six months the following corporations, town commissions, and boards of guardians passed formal votes endorsing its principles:

Cork (Municipal Council). Limerick “ “ Athlone (Town Commission). Ballinasloe “ “ Clones “ “ Dungarvan “ “ Galway “ “ Kingstown “ “ Longford “ “ Nenagh “ “ New Ross “ “ Mullingar “ “ Queenstown “ “ Tuam “ “ Dublin (Board of Guardians). Cork “ “ Drogheda “ “ Galway “ “ Kilkenny “ “ Kilmallock “ “ Millstreet “ “ Limerick Farmers’ Club Cork “ “ Mallow “ “

This was barely a few months’ work as to the pronouncement of popularly-elected public bodies. A number of public meetings in various parts of the country, attended by tens of thousands of the people, gave a further stamp of approval and a cheer of welcome to the movement.

The mode of electing the governing body or council of the association was peculiar. In place of the usual mode—proposing the list at the annual public meeting, and passing it there and then—the members of the council were elected by ballot-papers; each member of the association, no matter where resident, receiving his paper and exercising his vote as well as if he lived on the spot in Dublin. Much curiosity existed to see the result of this secret ballot-vote in a large body so mixed in religious class and (in a sense) political opinions. Two-thirds or three-fourths of the voters would be Catholics—was it not a grievous peril that by any chance they might ballot in a nearly exclusively Catholic council, and thus sow misgiving and mistrust amongst the Protestants? But never yet have the Catholics of Ireland, in private or in public, failed to refute by a noble tolerance the evil suspicions of their foes. The very first council thus elected (under circumstances, too, that precluded concert or arrangement as to either general or particular result) turned out to be composed of thirty-two Catholics and twenty-nine Protestants; and two Protestants headed the poll![145] The announcement had a profound effect, not only in cementing and solidifying the new union of parties and creeds within the organization, but also in spreading its principles abroad. A good idea of the varied classes composing the governing body thus elected may be gathered from the following analysis of the Home-Rule Council for 1872:

Catholic clergy, 5 Protestant clergy, 4 (The late) Lord Mayor, 1 Aldermen, 7 Deputy lieutenants, 3 Doctors of medicine, 3 Knights, 3 Justices of the peace, 4 Lieutenant-Colonel, 1 Members of Parliament, 5 Queen’s counsel, 1 Solicitors, 2 Town councillors, 3

The British Liberal party, who at first pooh-poohed the “Home-Rule craze,” at length began to take alarm; for without the Irish vote that party could neither attain to nor retain office. They warned the Catholic hierarchy to discourage this mischievous business. It was at best “inopportune”; it would arrest Mr. Gladstone’s beneficent design of settling the Catholic university education question; and would only “play the Tory game.” Liberalism was not going to die easily. Things came to a crisis in the Kerry election of 1872. On the death that year of Lord Kenmare, his son, Viscount Castlerosse, then Catholic-whig-liberal member for Kerry, attained to the earldom, and thus created a vacancy in the parliamentary representation. By a compact between the great landlords of the county, Whig and Tory, thirty years previously, it was agreed to “halve” the county between themselves: one Protestant Tory member from the great house of Herbert of Muckross, and one Catholic Whig from the noble house of Kenmare—an “alliance offensive and defensive” against all third parties or popular intruders being thus established. On this occasion the new Earl of Kenmare nominated as his successor in the family seat his first cousin, Mr. James A. Dease, an estimable Catholic gentleman acceptable to the people in every way but one: he was not a Home-Ruler. Although the Catholic bishop, Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty, joined the county landlords in nominating Mr. Dease, the bulk of the Catholic clergy, and the people almost unanimously, revolted, and, amidst a shout of derision at such a “hopeless” attempt, hoisted the flag of Home Rule. They, Catholics almost to a man, chose out as their candidate a young Protestant Kerryman barely home from Oxford University—Roland Blennerhassett, of Kells. He was a Home-Ruler, and much loved even as a boy by the Celtic peasantry of that wild Iveragh that breaks the first roll of the Atlantic billows on the stormy Kerry coast. Ireland and England held breath and watched the struggle as a tacitly-admitted test combat.

“Who spills the foremost foeman’s life, His party conquers in the strife.”

Such an election-struggle probably had not stirred Ireland since that of Clare in 1829. It resulted in an overwhelming victory for Home Rule. Deserted by every influence of power that should have aided and befriended them (save their ever-faithful priests, who, in nearly every parish, marched to the poll at the head of their people)—the frieze-coats of “O’Connell’s county,” rising in their might, tore down the territorial domination that had ruled them for thirty years, and struck a blow that decided the fortunes of the Home-Rule movement.

Barely less important (and only less important because of some peculiar features in the Kerry struggle) was another election being fought out in Galway County at the same moment. That county, about a year previously, had elected unopposed, on Home-Rule principles, a man the value of whose accession to the national ranks it would be almost impossible to overestimate. This was Mitchell Henry, of Kylemore Castle, near relative by descent of that Patrick Henry illustrious in American annals. Not because of his large wealth—he is said to have succeeded on his father’s death to a fortune of over a million pounds sterling—but for his high character, his great ability and thoroughly Irish spirit, he was a man of great influence, and his espousal of Home Rule was quite an event. Now, however, another election, this time contested, fiercely contested, had arisen; the candidates being Colonel Trench, son of Lord Clancarthy, Whig and Tory landlord nominee, and Captain John Philip Nolan, Home-Rule candidate, under the auspices of the great “Prelate of the West,” the world-famed Archbishop of Tuam. For years the grand old man had not interfered in an election or emerged from the sorrowful reticence into which he retired after the ruin of the Tenant League. But Ireland was up for the old cause, and “John of Tuam,” O’Connell’s stoutest ally in the campaign for Repeal, was out under the old flag. Not to let his name and his influence be discredited in his old age was as much the point of battle, certainly the point of honor, on the part of the people, as to return the Home-Ruler. The struggle was one of those desperate and merciless encounters between landlord tyranny on the one side and conscience in the poor man’s breast on the other, which used to make Irish elections as deadly and disastrous as armed conflicts in the field. Happily, it was the last of its class ever to be seen in Ireland; for the Ballot Act, passed a year after, closed for ever the era of vote-coercion. Captain Nolan was triumphantly returned. The famous “Galway Election Petition,” in which Judge Keogh so distinguished himself, unseated him (for a time) soon after; but Kerry and Galway struck and won together that week in February, 1872; and the one blaze of bonfires on the hill-tops of all the western counties, the following Saturday night, celebrated the double victory for the national cause.

In the course of the next succeeding year every election vacancy in Ireland but one resulted in the return of a Home-Ruler, Mr. Butt himself being among the number. There was now no longer any question as to the magnitude of the dimensions to which the movement had attained. “Home Rule” had become a watchword throughout the land; a salutation of good-will on the road-sides; a signal-shout on the hills. To this had grown the work begun almost in fear and trembling that night at the Bilton Hotel in 1870. The hour could be no longer delayed for convening the whole Irish nation in solemn council to make formal and authoritative pronouncement upon the movement, its principles, and its programme. In the end of the summer of 1873 it was accordingly decided that in the following November an Aggregate Conference of Delegates from every county in Ireland should be convened in the historic Round Room of the Rotunda, memorable as the meeting-place of the Irish Volunteer Convention more than three-quarters of a century before.

But the history of that important event fitly belongs to another chapter of such a record as this. The point now arrived at closes the first stage of the Home-Rule movement—from 1870 to 1873. The second three years—from 1873 to 1876—will exhibit it in a new light, with the mandate of a nation as its authority, and a powerful parliamentary party as its army of operation.

[139] The above article is from the pen of Mr. A. M. Sullivan, M.P. for Louth, editor of the Dublin _Nation_, and one of the leaders in the national movement for Home Rule in Ireland. The movement is one of great importance and significance. It has many enemies. It has been and continues to be much misrepresented. For these reasons we open our pages to one of its ablest and most eloquent exponents to give its history to our readers. Mr. Sullivan will resume and close the subject in the next number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.—ED. C. W.

[140] There were certain other issues, chiefly as to alleged profligacy of financial expenditure, and as to audit and publication of accounts, etc., which need not be considered here.

[141] Their meetings in Dublin were constantly “mobbed” for some time.

[142] Not many months later the climax was capped by the triumphant return of Mr. Martin for Meath, probably the most Catholic constituency in Ireland; the candidate whom he defeated (in a stiff but thoroughly good-humored contest) being the son of Lord Fingal, one of the best and most popular of the Irish Catholic nobility.

[143] As this assembly has become in a degree historical, it may be interesting to give the following list (never before published) of those who attended it, and others added by vote thereat to make up a Committee on Resolutions. In nearly every case an indication of the political and religious opinions of the parties is now added. The list includes some of the largest merchants in Dublin:

The Rt. Hon. Edward Purdon, Lord Mayor, Mansion House, Protestant Conservative.

Sir John Barrington, ex-Lord Mayor, D.L., Great Britain Street, Prot. Cons.

E. H. Kinahan, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, Merrion Square, Tory.

James V. Mackey, J.P., Beresford Place, Orangeman.

James W. Mackey, ex-Lord Mayor, J.P., 40 Westmoreland Street, Catholic Liberal.

Sir William Wilde, Merrion Square, F.R.C.S.I., Prot. Cons.

James Martin, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, North Wall, Cath. Lib.

Cornelius Denehy, T.C., J.P., Mountjoy Square, Cath. Lib.

W. L. Erson, J.P., Great Charles Street, Or.

Rev. Joseph E. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity College, Prot. Cons.

Isaac Butt, Q.C., Eccles Street, Prot. Nationalist.

R. B. Butt, Eccles Street, Prot. Nat.

R. W. Boyle, Banker, College Green, Tory.

William Campbell, 26 Gardiner’s Place, Cath. Lib.

William Daniel, Mary Street, Cath. Lib.

William Deaker, P.L.G., Eden Quay, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Gregg, Sackville Street, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Hamilton, Frederick Street, Cath. Repealer.

W. W. Harris, LL.D., ex-High Sheriff of the County Armagh, Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

Edward M. Hodson, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

W. H. Kerr, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

Major Knox, D.L., Fitzwilliam Square (proprietor of _Irish Times_), Prot. Cons.

Graham Lemon, Town Commissioner of Clontarf, Yew Park, Prot. Cons.

J. F. Lombard, J.P., South Hill, Cath. Repealer.

W. P. J. McDermott, Great Britain Street, Cath. Rep.

Alexander McNeale, 104 Gardiner Street, Prot. Cons.

W. Maher, T.C., P.L.G., Clontarf, Cath. Rep.

Alderman Manning, J.P., Grafton Street, Prot. Cons.

John Martin, Kilbroney, “Forty-eight” Nationalist, Presbyterian.

Dr. Maunsell, Parliament Street (editor of _Evening Mail_), Tory.

George Moyers, Richmond Street, Or.

J. Nolan, Sackville Street (Secretary Fenian Amnesty Association), Cath. Nat.

James O’Connor, Abbey Street (late of _Irish People_), Cath. Fenian.

Anthony O’Neill, T.C., North Strand, Cath. Rep.

Thomas Ryan, Great Brunswick Street, Cath. Nat.

J. H. Sawyer, M.D., Stephen’s Green, Prot. Nat.

James Reilly, P.L.G., Pill Lane, Cath. Nat.

Alderman Plunket, James’ Street, Cath. Nat. Rep.

The Venerable Archdeacon Goold, D.D., M.B., Protestant Tory—son of Goold of ’82.

A. M. Sullivan, T.C., P.L.G., Abbey Street, Cath. Nat. Rep.

Peter Talty, Henry Street, Cath. Rep.

William Shaw, M.P., Beaumont, Cork (President of Munster Bank), Prot. Lib.

Captain Edward R. King-Harman, J.P., Creevaghmore, County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

Hon. Lawrence Harman King-Harman, D. L., Newcastle, County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

George Austin, Town Commissioner of Clontarf, Winstonville, Prot. Cons.

Dr. Barry Rathmines, Cath. Lib.

George Beatty, Henrietta Street, Prot. Cons.

Joseph Begg, Capel Street, Cath. Nat. (Treasurer of Fenian Amnesty Association).

Robert Callow, Alderman, Westland Row.

Edward Carrigan, Bachelor’s Walk, Cath. Lib.

Charles Connolly, Rogerson’s Quay, Cath. Lib.

D. B. Cronin, Nassau Street, Cath. Fenian.

John Wallis, T. C., Bachelor’s Walk, Prot. Cons.

P. Walsh, Merrion Row, Cath. Nat.

John Webster, Monkstown, Prot. Cons.

George F. Shaw, F.T.C.D., Trinity College, Prot. Cons.

P. J. Smith, Dalkey, Cath. Nat. Repealer.

George E. Stephens, Blackhall Place, Prot. Cons.

Henry H. Stewart, M.D., Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

L. J. O’Shea, J.P., Margaret Place, Cath. Rep.

Alfred Webb, Abbey Street, Nat., “Quaker.”

[144] “This association has never proposed to itself the position and duties of such a great popular organization as must eventually take up and carry out to the victorious end the national question. It has rather proposed to itself the less ambitious though not less arduous task of preparing the ground for such a comprehensive organization.”—_First Report of the Irish Home Government Association._ Dublin: Falconer, Upper Sackville Street. 1871.

[145] Every year nearly the same five or six men have been returned at the head of the paper; Isaac Butt always first, next to him either O’Neill Daunt or John Martin; the others almost invariably being Rev. Professor Galbraith, A. M. Sullivan, J. P. Ronayne, and Mitchell Henry.—[Mr. Ronayne, we regret to say, died while this article was in our hands.—ED. C. W.]

SIR THOMAS MORE

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON

IX.

After the king had declared that he no longer wished her to assume any authority in the household, the queen secluded herself entirely in the most retired portion of the palace. In default of happiness, she at least found forgetfulness there; for it was no longer thought necessary to watch over her. Her rival, on the contrary, glorying in the light of the king’s favor and of her own youth and beauty, spent her days in festivity and enjoyment. She allowed herself to be carried away by the flattery of the throng of courtiers who followed in her train and servilely implored a glance from the eye, a smile or a word from her whom they had so quickly abandoned but a short time before.

For several days, however, the tumult of these _fêtes_, the sound of music and dancing, had not entered to wound the heart of Catherine in her seclusion. She was seated near the fire, and turning in her hands some worsted stuff intended to make a garment for a poor child. The heavy folds of the curtains hung motionless, the light flame of the waxen tapers burning near her had not wavered, and yet Catherine started nervously and trembled. The anguish of mind she had so long endured had, so to speak, worn away the mortal covering and brought her soul in direct contact with exterior objects; she saw that which possessed no corporeal shape, she heard that which had no sound. Some person unknown has entered her apartments; her beautiful eyes are turned towards the door. Very soon, in fact, the curtains roll on their golden rings. A man enters. He advances a step and pauses. It is Norris, the favorite attendant of Henry VIII.

“What wouldst thou?” asked the queen with that sweet but imposing majesty of manner so natural to her that she could not lay it aside.

“Madam—the king—madam!” And the unfortunate man hesitated, trembling in every limb.

A mist passed over Catherine’s eyes.

“Madam,” he was at last able to articulate, “the king, my lord, sends me to tell you that before daybreak to-morrow morning he wishes you to be ready to leave the palace.”

The queen turned pale.…

“Has your majesty any command to give me?” said Norris after a moment’s silence.

“The king shall be obeyed,” replied the queen coldly, and she made a sign for him to withdraw. He bowed and hastily left the apartment. Catherine remained mute with grief and astonishment. “I have, then, still more to suffer!” she cried at length, falling on her knees. “He drives me from his presence—he, my own husband. He will not even permit me to breathe in the most remote corner of his palace!… Ah! well. Yes, I will fly from this house of malediction, whose hearthstone has been soiled by infamy, and may I never enter it again!”

But, alas! Catherine had as yet spoken for herself alone. Suddenly the mother’s heart asserted its supremacy; she arose hastily, seized one of the lights near her, and, passing rapidly through several apartments, she at length paused, panting for breath.

“No one!” she exclaimed, looking wildly around her, “no one has been near these apartments to disturb her rest. The most profound silence reigns.” And in her turn she feared to awaken her daughter.

Softly approaching the bed on which reposed the little Mary, she drew aside with her royal hand the heavy curtain of purple and gold. The child was sleeping profoundly; her head rested on one of the delicate arms; her long, golden hair, loosened from all confinement, hung over her lovely neck and shoulders, and down on her light muslin nightdress. She had thrown off the bedclothing that covered her. The blood, pure and calm, circulated gently through the transparent veins. She seemed as happy, as tranquil, as her mother was agitated and miserable. Catherine, in an agony inexpressible, regarded her sleeping child, her hand nervously clenching the curtain she was holding back.

“Sleep on, my daughter, sleep!” she murmured. “Mayst thou never know the weary vigils and bitter anguish of suffering! But what do I say? Does he not involve thee in the unjust proscription of thy mother? The hatred he bears towards her, will he not extend it to thee? Art thou not the very link that must be broken?”

And Catherine, in despair, drew back like a stranger in this apartment she must leave before the dawn of the morning.… Again she returned to the couch of her child. She bent over her; her lips almost touched her forehead. Then a gloomy courage took possession of her soul.

“Why torture myself thus,” she cried, “since thou art still left to me? Though all forget me, though the earth open beneath me, I will never more be separated from thee. Thou shalt be my joy, my life, my hope; thou shalt become my sole, my only friend! One day, yes, one day thou wilt understand thy mother. Let him cast thee far away from him—ah! what matters it? I open my heart to thee! The earth is vast; she will welcome her unfortunate children. And when, worn down by sorrow, I shall be ready to yield up my life, my hand will still be raised to bless thee, and my eyes will be fixed upon thine. It shall be thou who wilt close these eyes before I descend into the night of the grave, and thy tears will bedew my last resting-place. Then wilt thou be courageous, and in thy turn learn how to vanquish and defy evil fortune.”

Thus spoke the unhappy queen. She arose and again fell on her knees. But the hour strikes—that hour she had desired, hoped, waited for, as a moment of happiness, of hope and consolation. It now strikes, clashing, resounding through the silent chambers of her stricken heart, only to awaken a new and fearful sorrow. Still, she hesitates not; she again embraces the child, then tears herself away—flies. She hastens eagerly on—Catherine has disappeared.…

* * * * *

On being informed of the clergy’s refusal the king fell into a furious rage. For three days the bishops were shut up in Westminster. The royal commissioners went to and fro continually from the king’s palace to the assembly; but the deliberations were conducted with so much secrecy that nothing was known of them outside.

Meanwhile, night came on, and the most profound silence reigned throughout the long cloisters of the abbey. The pale rays of the moon alone illuminated the splendid arches. The sanctuary was deserted, and the red flicker of a lamp suspended in the immense vault showed no larger than a luminous point set in space. A woman covered with a long veil stood within the sacred place, leaning against the iron railing, apparently absorbed in prayer. But no, she was not praying; the human soul must be calm and resigned before it can truly lift itself up towards God. Burning tears streamed from her eyes in torrents upon the stone pavement beneath her feet; she started at the slightest creaking of the wooden stalls surrounding the choir, and her attentive ear caught even the least breath of air. Anon footsteps were heard.

“St. Catherine, pray for us,” said a dear and well-known voice.

“Amen,” responded the queen; and she advanced towards two men who were approaching.

“More!” she exclaimed, “More! you have abandoned me, then?”

“Never, madam!”

“Well, then,” she cried, seizing his hand, “abandon me now! Cease, cease to sacrifice yourself for me! Know that you have no longer a queen; the banished Catherine leaves to-morrow the palace of her cruel husband. No place of refuge is offered her; she is left to choose some obscure corner of the earth where she will be at liberty to die. But he is mistaken! I will never leave the soil of England—no, never!” she cried. “I will never look again upon my own happy land. ‘Woman,’ they would say to me, ‘you have deserted your children; you have not known how to die in the land over which you ought to reign; has the Spanish blood, then, ceased to flow in your veins?’ No, never!”

On hearing her speak thus More stood transfixed with astonishment and sorrow.

“They have dared!” he said at last, “they have dared, Rochester!”

“Yes,” replied the queen, “they have dared! But, Rochester, speak; the time is short; every moment is precious. What has passed in the assembly?”

“Where shall I find words to tell you, madam?” replied the good and venerable old man. “Parliament has been won over; your friends, powerless, have been made to tremble for their own lives; threats of death pass from mouth to mouth. I myself have scarcely been able to escape their criminal attempts on my life; a dish on my table was poisoned, and several of my people have died from eating of it. Consternation reigns secretly in every heart. The clergy are threatened on all sides; the people are exasperated by a thousand calumnies, the sources of which remain scrupulously concealed. The soil of old England seems about to be shaken to its foundations. Vice stalks forth with head erect, while the virtuous man flies in terror. There is time yet, madam. Save yourself! Save us all! Renounce an alliance so fatal for you; abandon this prince who no longer puts any restraint upon his passions—he is not worthy of you; and let the house of the Lord become your retreat and be your refuge!”

“What sayest thou?” replied Catherine. “Was it for cowardly advice like this I called you to me, Rochester? And my daughter—what kingdom and what father would you give her?”

“God, madam, and the justice of her cause!” cried the afflicted old bishop.

“Then you have yielded?” said the queen.

“Yes,” replied Rochester, “we have recoiled before our worst fears; we have made a pact with falsehood, since we can no longer believe in the veracity of the king. He has summoned before him in turn each one of the most influential members of the conference. He has sworn to them, in the presence of God himself, that he desired in naught to usurp the authority of the spiritual head of the church; that naught could ever change him from being the faithful and obedient child of the church he is; that he hated heresy, and that his sole desire was to prevent it spreading in his kingdom—in a word, that he wished to live and die in the Catholic faith, in the faith of his fathers, and that he only asked of them a title that would give him honor and prove the confidence they had in their prince and the love they bore toward their lawful sovereign. Now, madam, what shall I say to you? He has been so far successful in convincing them that they have carried the majority of votes. We have granted him everything—with this restriction, however: that we acceded to his demand only so far as the law of God would permit. But, alas! discouragement and dissensions have entered among us, and the choice of men by whom the king surrounds himself is sufficient evidence of the road he is resolved to follow. Thomas Audley replaces More, and Cranmer, that base intriguer, is installed in the place of the learned and immortal Warham.”

“Great heaven!” said the queen, “that vile tool of Anne Boleyn primate of England? Then all is lost to faith, hope, the future, succor—all!”

Meanwhile, a strange disturbance was heard, and all at once a door leading to the interior of the abbey was opened. A number of the king’s guard appeared, armed and bearing torches. The queen, terrified, hurriedly retired with More and Rochester within the shadow of a chapel where for centuries had reposed the ashes of the old Saxon kings. The tombs, on which they were represented in sculpture the size of life, lying at full length, their hands crossed on their breasts, the head and feet resting on pillows of stone, cast deep shadows all around them. These shadows, fortunately, concealed the queen, Rochester, and More entirely from observation, while they could see distinctly all that took place in the choir.

The monks, marching in two lines, defiled two by two and took their places in the stalls, while the guards stationed themselves at the different openings. The gleam of the torches lighted up everything. Soon was seen to enter the Abbot of Westminster, who preceded three men richly dressed and enveloped in cloaks. They all three seated themselves in large velvet arm-chairs; but one of them sat in the loftiest and most richly adorned of all. In a word, it was plain that a tribunal was constituted, but that it waited the presence of the accused in order to give judgment. He tarried not long. The door again opened, and they beheld a young woman enter whose countenance was very pale. She walked between two guards, and her dress was that of a religious.

“What!” said Sir Thomas in a stifled tone. “Why, that is the Holy Maid of Kent! I believe she has her hands bound. No, it is her veil. What a strange matter! Poor young girl! The rumor of her predictions must have reached the king’s ears. I have so constantly warned her not to meddle in affairs of state!” murmured More.

“Can it be she?” cried the queen and Rochester in the same breath. “More, are you sure of it?”

“Quite sure,” he answered. “I remember perfectly her pale and suffering countenance.”

In the meantime they made the young girl seat herself on a stool in the midst of the assembly, and the Abbot of Westminster began to interrogate her.

“What is your name?” he asked in a very loud tone of voice.

She neither moved nor replied.

“I conjure you, my sister, to answer me,” he added more solemnly still. “What is your name?”

“Elizabeth Barton,” she answered, fixing on him a lingering look of surprise and astonishment.

“Where were you born?”

“In Aldington, in the county of Kent,” answered she very distinctly.

“What is your age?”

“Twenty-three years.”

“Why did you become a religious?” continued the abbot.

“I am not a religious; I have assumed this habit in order to do penance and take care of the poor.”

“Who has persuaded you to do this?”

“Myself.”

“But do you not pretend to have revelations from heaven, and have you not told the assembled people of extraordinary things which are hidden in the future?”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied; and her eyes began to gleam with a singular light.

“Well! repeat what you have said,” interrupted he who was seated in the loftiest chair, rising abruptly to his feet. “Repeat what you have said,” he continued. And the long, flame-colored plume that shaded his large hat seemed to tremble with impatience, like the head which it covered.

At the sound of that voice, so imperious and bearing the expression of a soul so deeply agitated, the Holy Maid of Kent seemed stricken with horror. She arose and stood in the midst of the assembly, and, turning toward the speaker, extended her hand.

“O King Henry!” she cried, “think not to conceal yourself from my eyes. I know you; I know with what power you are invested; and now you would have me tell you what I have said and teach you what I have learned. Well, then, … yes, … king, … but mortal like myself, … tremble, recoil with horror and dismay, at sight of the black hypocrisy with which you have enveloped your heart. Look well; fix your eyes on the infamous vices that have eaten out the last sentiment of virtue God had implanted there.… Your crimes have multiplied like the sands which roll with the waves in the depths of the sea; you will inundate the steps of your throne with the blood of the noblest and purest. Heresy, introduced by you into this land, will multiply under a thousand different forms; everywhere with truth will be banished true charity. The years of your reign will witness the birth of more calamities than the rain of heaven will cause flowers to grow. The woman you desire will dishonor your bed and perish on the scaffold which your own hands will have erected; and your daughter, the child you this day reject, shall reign. Yes! she shall reign,” she cried, “in spite of all your efforts. Then your bones, eaten by worms, shall be buried under the stones of the sepulchre; but your execrable memory shall live among men, and your name—this name of Henry VIII., stamped with the ineffaceable seal of blood—will carry down to ages most remote the horrible memory of a monster!… I have spoken!”[146]

Who could describe the effect produced by these last words on the spectators? Whiter than the linen robe which enveloped his form, the Abbot of Westminster was seized with terror. It was he who had persuaded the king to summon this woman, in order, he said, to undeceive the people, who believed in her, and pacify in this way the credulous and superstitious masses.

A prolonged silence reigned throughout that vast temple; who should dare to speak?

Cromwell alone turned towards the king. He encountered his fixed and furious gaze, which plainly said: “Woe to those who have deceived me!”

He was not at all disconcerted by it. “Be calm, sire,” he said in a low voice, “be calm; nothing is lost yet.”

Henry made no reply, but Cromwell needed no answer.

“My dear sister,” he said in a gentle and honeyed tone, “who has instructed you to say these things?” And he saw Henry VIII. convulsively clench his fists.

“No one,” answered she in a sweet, sonorous voice.

“No one! That is hard to believe,” he replied in a tone almost of derision.… “You have, at least, repeated all this to several others.… That the king, your lord, may believe you to be sincere, you should hide nothing from him. Have you not written to Cardinal Wolsey?”

“Without doubt,” she replied, “I have informed him of what I ought to have let him know, … because that was my duty. Sir Thomas More, the lord chancellor, can bear witness that I tell you the truth.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas too,” replied with emphasis the odious Cromwell; and he dwelt especially on the name of this just man. “Sir Thomas More! It is very well, my dear sister. We verily believe thee.”

The anxiety that seized on the invisible spectators of the chapel may be imagined. The queen was entirely absorbed with the thought of her daughter; but on hearing the terrible indiscretion of this foolish or inspired woman she with difficulty stifled a cry of terror.

“More has written to you, then?” continued Cromwell, whose ingenuity was never at fault.

“Yes, to recommend himself to my prayers, but not on this subject.”

“But you have spoken with him many times,” replied Cromwell in a confident tone, although he really knew nothing about it.

“Once only,” she answered, “in the house of the Carthusians at Richmond, where I saw him with Masters Beering, Risby, and my Lord Rochester.… But they advised me not to speak of these things, and to keep my revelations secret.”

“They were only the more criminal,” replied Cromwell; “because it was their duty to have unfolded the wicked designs of which you are guilty toward his royal majesty.”

At the word “guilty” she raised her head and fixed her black and piercing eyes upon Cromwell.

“Guilty!” she exclaimed. “It is a crime, then, to speak the truth?”

She said no more, but took her seat without awaiting permission.

In the meantime the king, thanks to Cromwell, had time to recover from the astonishment that had seized him, and to hide from the monks the humiliation which he could hardly wait to avenge; for, not disdaining himself to subdue this feeble enemy whom they had represented as unable to speak in his presence, he had believed, on the faith of his confidants, it was worth while to summon the Holy Maid of Kent before him, in order to show that she was worthy of no confidence. Now the most furious thoughts were at strife within him. How had she recognized him? Had the queen’s friends instructed her?… But she would not name them. What a story this would make throughout the kingdom! And his hardened heart could not cease being troubled.

Cromwell, despite the joy he felt at having made her name More and the Bishop of Rochester, was at a loss how to close with dignity this disagreeable scene. The monks opened their office-books and pretended to be reading; the woman remained seated on her stool and said nothing more; the guards waited some signal, which no one gave.

The king decided the question, which was becoming every moment more and more embarrassing.

“It is well,” he said; “we have had enough of it; I am satisfied.”

He arose abruptly. All followed him; the guards threw open the doors, extinguished the lights, led away the Holy Maid of Kent, and the monks slowly retired into the abbey.

* * * * *

The hours of night rapidly succeeded each other; already a whitish circle began to rise and extend over the horizon. Nevertheless, all were wrapped in sleep in the plain and beneath the shadow of the woods. The industrious husbandman still rested his weary limbs on his rude couch; the dog which guarded his thatched cottage had ceased to howl; and even the invalid found, at the approach of day, a moment of repose. But idleness, always so prolonged in the palaces of kings, seemed to have been banished from the palace of Whitehall. Lights were seen glancing to and fro athwart the large windows; hurried footsteps were heard running up and down the marble stairways; whilst a coach with several horses attached, slowly drove around a distant courtyard.

Anne Boleyn herself was already occupied with the arrangement of her attire. She was seated upon soft cushions of velvet before a toilet table of ebony and gold. A young girl named Anne Savage, whom she preferred above all her maids because of her uninterrupted cheerfulness, her merry chat, and her expertness in the arts of the toilet, perfumed the long and beautiful hair which she was arranging with extreme care on the brow of her mistress, while the latter was searching in a casket she held in her lap for the jewels she wished to adorn her ears and add to her _coiffure_.

“There is nothing at all in this box!” cried Boleyn, tossing over pell-mell the most magnificent jewelry.… “These emeralds are so trying to the face! These pearls injure the complexion! Anne, go bring me something else. All these are frightful I tell you!… But what is that? I hear a noise, … a cry.… Listen.… No, … it is in the king’s apartments.…”

“I hear nothing,” replied Anne Savage after a moment’s silence, during which she had not breathed.

“Ah! yes, I hear it,” replied Anne Boleyn; “I suspect the cause of it, too.… But I do not want to think about this.… However, it is a bad omen.…”

And as Lady Boleyn was very superstitious, and her conscience far from easy, she let the casket fall at her feet, and, bowing her head on her bosom, seemed to be absorbed in deep reflection.

Anne Savage tried to complete the _coiffure_ as she sat in that position, but she failed in her task.

“If my lady cannot hold up her head,” at last cried the maid impatiently, “it will be impossible for me to arrange her head-dress properly.”

This admonition recalled Anne Boleyn to herself; she immediately raised her head and began carefully to scrutinize herself in the mirror placed before her. Well pleased with her appearance, she arranged two or three hair-pins ornamented with pearls strung like the beads of a rosary, and drew down a little the net-work of gold that fell below her cap and confined her tresses.

With this improvement she arose, in order to choose from among the dresses she had caused to be brought and laid out on all the furniture in the room.

“This blue, … or rather this lilac,” she murmured; “no, these embroideries are heavy and ugly. I will try this white.… I would have liked a rose-color; here is one. Really, there is nothing here that pleases me.… It is true,” she continued spitefully, “any of these ought to be good enough for one who is going to be married in a garret!”

“In a garret!” interrupted the maid. “What! is it not in the chapel my lady is to be given away?”

“No,” replied Lady Boleyn, reddening. “The king has changed everything since yesterday evening. He has had an altar put up in one of the upper rooms of the palace. You alone are to carry my train, and Norris and Heneage will serve as witnesses. These are the honors which he deigns to accord the Queen of England.… Ah! my dear Anne, I am very miserable,” added Lady Anne, almost ready to burst into tears.

“In a garret!” repeated Savage, and she stood as if stupefied. “In a garret! O my lady! how can you suffer this?… Well, now do you not think I was right in telling you that you would do wrong to marry the king, and abandon so cruelly Lord Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and lord of I know not how many boroughs? He would not have believed himself obliged to marry you in the garret of Northumberland Castle! He loved you so much; he was so proud of you! Many a time has he said to me: ‘Anne, you are a good girl; you have the same name as your mistress. You shall never leave my wife; I will give you a marriage portion and an honest man for a husband.’ Besides, madam,” continued Anne Savage in a grave, sententious manner, “I can never forget that my grandfather, who was very learned and respected by all the parish, used to say to me as I would sit by his side to sew: ‘Remember well, my little Anne, never to marry a man who is above you in wealth or rank; otherwise you will not be happy, because love flies away very quickly, and reproaches follow.’”

“Ah! my dear Anne, do not recall anew my regrets,” cried Lady Boleyn, with tears in her eyes. “I have never ceased to love Percy; … and when I compare the violence and haughty manner of the king with the gentleness and virtues of Percy, I am miserable for having listened to my ambition. Oh! how severely I am punished. Henry considers me overwhelmed with honor by his loving me! Submissive to all his caprices, I am for ever fearful of losing his favor; while Percy, happy in the sole hope of marrying me, always thanked me for every smile or word that I addressed him. Anne, do you believe that he has entirely forgotten me?” she asked suddenly.

“Truly, my lady, I wot not; I only know by my cousin Savage that he no longer receives any one in his fair castle at York.… But be it as it may, how, my lady, could it profit you to-day?”

“Nay, as thou sayest, naught, my poor Anne,” replied Lady Boleyn; but as she spoke she could not restrain her tears.

She recalled to mind all that she had done to induce the king to marry her; that, since she had been able to attain an end so difficult, she certainly ought to feel satisfied; and yet, in spite of these considerations, she found herself overwhelmed with regrets for the past and fears for the future. She reflected that Henry had conducted himself so cruelly toward the queen, if ever she ceased to please him she would have everything to fear; and the happiness of that brilliant picture of thrones and honors which she had always dwelt on with such ardent longings seemed to vanish at the very moment when she saw it about to be realized. But Anne Savage could not conceive what should afflict her on this point.

“Why,” she exclaimed, “should you torture yourself in this way? It is too late to think of bringing him back, since he is already married. Besides, it is very strange; for you have told me a hundred times that you loved nobody but the king.”

“You are right,” replied Lady Boleyn; “that is true. I did love him, and I love him still; but I feel that it is impossible to love very long a person whom one cannot respect.”

“Better to have thought of that sooner,” murmured the maid; but she took care not to say so aloud.

Absorbed as she was in her sorrow, Lady Boleyn did not forget the care of her toilet, and, to assist in drying her tears, she turned the Venetian mirror in every direction in order to survey herself; but she was by no means satisfied with the _ensemble_ nor the details it presented to her.

“See!” she cried, “how badly these sleeves fit; and these heavy plaits around my waist. In sooth, never was I so badly dressed. This white satin robe with silver flowers is frightful.… Besides, I wanted a rose-colored dress, … but of a color that is not here. They leave me with naught indeed. This may not be borne. Go, bid all my women enter; I would know what they think of me.”

Anne Savage ran to open the door. Scarcely had she opened it.…

But let us leave the frivolous and coquettish Boleyn to adorn with so much care that form which the dust of the tomb has long since claimed, and follow rather this man, all flushed, out of breath, and hurried, who eagerly mounts the stairs in search of the king. The guards are standing near the doors; the mats on which they passed the night are still lying on the floor in the lower hall of the palace; they rub their half-opened eyes, still bewildered with sleep. They offer the usual salutations to Norris, who advances, and whom they recognize; but he passes through their midst without seeming to perceive them, and enters abruptly the apartment of the king.

Henry VIII., leaning against one of the windows, his face pressed close to the glass, was gazing eagerly out to behold all he had been able to see of Catherine’s departure; but, hearing the door open, he turned quickly around, withdrew from the window, and, going to the far end of the apartment, took his seat.

“Well, good Norris,” he said, looking attentively at him, “what a sad air you wear! It was, then, very difficult to get Catherine off? I had foreseen it all, however.”

“Your majesty had foreseen it all, and yet methinks you have chosen not to be by the while.”

“What, then, has happed?”

“Naught, of great moment—no, in sooth, naught but what should have been. But I vow my heart was bruised sore when the queen’s grief brake forth. Nothing loath was she to go; but when she saw the Princess Mary was not let go with her, and the door of the coach closed, she fain would have cast herself without. Then she uttered cries the most heartrending, and, stretching out her arms towards us, besought us to let her return and once more embrace her daughter. The princess, seeing the despair of her mother, with sobs and cries begged to follow her. At length, there being no way to prevent the queen from descending, she clasped her a thousand times in her arms. She then wrote something on a scrap of paper I have here, and bade me deliver it to your majesty, which I promised to do. She entreated all present to beg you to have compassion on her and send the Princess Mary to her; that she asked but this one favor, and then she would consent to do all that you wished. It was necessary to carry her to the coach; for she fell fainting while embracing her daughter for the last time.”

“Always these fainting fits of hers,” replied the king angrily; “yet will she say it is I who have slain her. Come, let us see the paper!”

Norris presented it.

The king opened it and read the following words which the queen had written in a trembling hand:

“SIRE: What have I done to you that you treat me thus? You banish me from your palace and condemn me to exile. Alas! to this I had submitted; but why have you the cruelty to separate me from the only good of mine that is left in all the world? You know well that never have I gainsaid wish of yours; but is it in my power not to be your lawful wife? I conjure you, then, to have compassion on me! Give me back my daughter; give her to me, and I will weep no more the lot you have cast for me. Become a stranger in the land over which you reign, at least permit to die in peace an unfortunate woman whom you have deprived of her rank, her country, and her friends. Leave me my daughter to console the last days of a life that is almost ended. What can you hope or fear from her? Since you cast her out from your arms, leave me the happiness to take her to mine. I am her mother; I have brought her into the world in sorrow; I have nourished her from my own bosom—she is mine; and, since it is your will to deprive her of a father, do not, at least, tear her from the arms of her unhappy mother.”

This letter, still all wet with tears, produced a painful impression on the mind of Henry.

“This fellow will assuredly find me of the cruelest,” he said to himself. “It is well, it is well,” he added in a loud voice. “It is a request that she makes to me; we will see to it later on. Everything is ready, Norris?” he added immediately.

“Yes, sire; your orders have been executed with the greatest exactness. Heneage and Lady Berkley are below; they await your majesty.”

“Is Dr. Roland also there?” demanded the king. “Yes, sire; he has been there more than an hour.”

“Well, go and seek Lady Boleyn.”

Norris immediately descended. He found all the doors of Lady Boleyn’s apartments open, and in the distance heard exclamations mingling, and unceasingly repeated.

“Oh! how lovely is my lady. Never did she look more fair!” they cried. “How handsomely my lady’s hair is dressed, and what beautiful hair it is! What a sweet complexion, what a charming figure! There is not a woman in all the kingdom who is my lady’s equal!”

Hearing this concert of praise, Anne Boleyn began to take courage.

“No, no,” she said with an air of disdain; “I am very badly dressed to-day.”

As she said these words Norris entered and announced to Lady Boleyn that the king awaited her.

She followed him at once, accompanied by Anne Savage; the other women stood in astonishment, and were very curious to know why this favor was shown to their companion, while the jealousy with which they already regarded her was still further increased.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[146] See Sanders on the Holy Maid of Kent.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND.[147]

This volume reads pleasantly. There is attached to it a peculiar interest, and something of the charm of a romance, for those who have had some knowledge of the transcendental movement in New England, and acquaintance with its leaders. The author has evidently written his account with feelings of sympathy and friendship, which he acknowledges, and these have led him to bring out all the good points of the movement, while its shortcomings, exaggerations, and absurdities are scarcely, if at all, hinted at. The style is clear and smooth, the narrative never falters; the writer has contrived to throw a certain halo around the leaders of transcendentalism, and succeeded in presenting in his book a series of ideal portraits calculated to impose somewhat upon strangers. The impression which the work leaves on the mind of the reader is as if he had been listening to the conversation of a member of a mutual admiration society. Octavius Brooks Frothingham is not a “central thinker,” his knowledge of the subject of which he treats is very limited, and his religious insight is null. Transcendentalism requires a differently-equipped man to be its historian. There is, somehow, a narrowness of structure and a peculiar twist in the faculties of the New England mind—perhaps a constitutional inheritance—which renders it inapt to conceive first principles and grasp universal truths; and although transcendentalism was an effort to rise above this condition, it nevertheless carried with it in its flight all these defects.

Our author has not written a history, but an interesting sketch which will be useful, no doubt, to some future historian. To write a history, especially of a philosophical and religious movement such as transcendentalism pretended to be, and really was, requires more than an acquaintance with persons and facts. One must comprehend its real origin, and have mastered and become familiar with his subject. This is a task which Mr. Frothingham has not accomplished.

Every heresy segregates its adherents from the straight line of the true progress of the human race, all deviations from which are, in the nature of things, either transitory or fatal. They live, for the greater part, outside of the cumulated wisdom and the broad stream of the continuous life of humanity. When the heresy has almost exhausted its derived life—for no heresy has a source of life in itself—and the symptoms of its approaching death begin to appear, the intelligent and sincere who are born in it at this stage of its career are the first to seek to regain the unbroken unity of truth. This is reached by two distinct and equally legitimate ways. The first class gains the knowledge of the whole body of the originally revealed truth, from which its heresy cut it off, by tracing the truths retained by the sect to their logical connection with other no less important truths equally contained in the same divine revelation. The second class falls back upon the essential truths of natural reason; and as all supernatural truth finds its support in natural truth, it follows that the denial of any of the former involves a denial of the latter. Heresy always involves a mutilation of man’s natural reason. Once the integral natural basis recovered, the repudiation of heresy as contrary to reason follows logically. But the experience of the human race, that of the transcendentalists included, shows plainly that nature does not suffice nature; and this class, at this moment, starts out to find a religion consonant with the dictates of reason, satisfactory to all their spiritual necessities, and adequate to their whole nature. They ask, and rightly, for a religion which shall find its fast foundations in the human breast. This appeal can only be answered, and is only met, by the revelation given to the world in the beginning by the Author of man, completed in the Incarnation, and existing in its entirety and in unbroken historical continuity in the Catholic Church alone.

This dialectical law has governed the course of all heresies, from which they could not by any possibility escape; the same law has governed the history of Protestantism on its native soil, in Germany, as well as in old England, in New England, and wherever it has obtained a foothold.

Our business at present is with those of the second class, under which head come our New England transcendentalists; and what is not a little amusing is the simplicity with which they proclaim to the world, in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, the truths of natural reason, as though these were new and original discoveries! They appear to fancy that the petty sect to which they formerly adhered, and their dreary experience of its rule, have been the sad lot of the whole human race! It is as if a body of men had been led astray into a cavern where the direct rays of the sun never penetrated, and, after the lapse of some generations, their descendants approach its mouth, breathe the fresh air, behold the orb of light, the mountains, the rivers, and the whole earth covered with trees, flowers, and verdure. For the first time this glorious world, in all its wonderful beauty, bursts upon their view, and, in the candor of their souls, they flatter themselves that they alone are privileged with this vision, and knowledge, and enjoyment! Their language—but, be it understood, in their sober moods—affects those whose mental sight has not been obscured by heresy; somewhat like the speech of children when first the light of reason dawns in their souls. For the transcendental movement in New England was nothing else, in its first instance, than the earnest and righteous protest of our native reason in convalescence against a false Christianity for its denial or neglect of rational truths.

Mr. Frothingham tells us that “he was once a pure transcendentalist,” and that perhaps “his ardor may have cooled.” We protest, and as a disinterested party assure him that he writes with all the glow of youth, and in his volume he has furnished a pretty cabinet-picture, in _couleur du rose_, of transcendentalism in New England, without betraying even so much as the least sign of a suspicion of its true place in the history either of philosophy or religion. In seeking for the “distinct origin” and the place in history of the transcendental movement in New England, he goes back to Immanuel Kant, born at Königsberg, in Prussia, April 22, 1724, and finds it, as he supposes, in Kant’s famous _Critique of Pure Reason_, published in 1771. After mentioning some of the disciples of Kant, we are taken to the philosophers of France—Cousin, Constant, Jouffroy; then we are next transported across the Channel to old England, and entertained with Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; finally we are landed in New England and are told:

“With some truth it may be said that there never was such a thing as transcendentalism out of New England. In Germany and France there was a transcendental philosophy, held by cultivated men, taught in schools, and professed by many thoughtful and earnest people; but it never affected society in its organized institutions or practical interests. In old England this philosophy influenced poetry and art, but left the daily existence of men and women untouched. But in New England the ideas entertained by foreign thinkers took root in the native soil and blossomed out in every form of social life. The philosophy assumed its full proportions, produced fruit according to its kind, created a new social order for itself, or rather showed what sort of social order it would create under favoring conditions. Its new heavens and new earth were made visible, if but for a moment, and in a wintry season” (p. 103).

The contact with the productions of the foreign philosophers as well as religious and literary writers whom Mr. Frothingham mentions undoubtedly stimulated and strengthened the transcendental movement in New England; but it did not originate it. The movement was the spontaneous growth of the New England mind, in accordance with the law which we have stated, aided by the peculiar influence of our political institutions, as will be shown further on. Its real authors were Channing, Alcott, and Emerson, who were neither affected at their start nor afterward—or if at all, but slightly—by foreign or extraneous influences.

Moreover, the Kantian philosophy afforded no logical foothold for the defence of the movement in New England. Were our New Englander, who still clings to his early faith in transcendental ideas, to present himself to the philosophical offspring of Kant, he would no more pass muster than his old orthodox Protestant antagonist of the exclusive traditional school. The logical descendants of Kant are, in the region of philosophy, to use an Americanism, played out, and those who still keep up an existence will be found in the ranks of positivism, materialism, and blank atheism.

The idea of God, the immortality of the soul, the liberty of the will, the creation of the world—these and all such ideas the descendants of Kant have politely conducted to the frontiers of philosophy, and dismissed each and every one, but not before courteously thanking them for their provisional services. Our New Englander would appear to their eyes as a babe still in swaddling-clothes, or as a child learning to read by amusing itself with the pictures of old Mother Goose stories. Whatever hankering Mr. Frothingham and some few others may have after their first love of transcendental ideas—and those in New England with whom they are most in sympathy, one and all are moving in the same direction—they are only in the initial stage of the process of evolution of the Kantian germ-cell, the product of Protestant protoplasm, and will end eventually in the same logical issues as their less sentimental German, French, and English _confrères_.

To give us a right history of transcendentalism, Mr. Frothingham must enlarge the horizon of his mental vision, and include within its scope a stretch of time which elapsed before his ancestors were led off by heresy into the cavern of obscurity. He will find a historical no less than a “dialectical basis” for its ideas or primary truths, and other truths of natural reason of which he has not yet made the discovery, in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, in Augustine, in Vincent of Lerens, in Anselm, and above all in Thomas of Aquinas, whose pages contain all the truths, but purified from the admixture of error, of the pagan philosophers, as also of those who had preceded him in Christian philosophy—men whose natural gifts, as well as devotion to truth, were comparable, to say the least, with Immanuel Kant and his French, or English, or American disciples. Those profound thinkers maintained and demonstrated the truth of the great ideas which Kant, according to his own showing, neither dared affirm nor deny, and which the transcendentalists held for the most part by openly contemning logic and by submissively accepting the humiliating charge of being “sentimentalists.” What those great men taught from the beginning has been always taught, even to our day, by all sound Catholic teachers in philosophy. So jealous has the supreme authority of the church been in this matter of upholding the value of the natural powers of human reason against those who would exalt tradition at its expense it has required, if they would teach philosophy in the name of the church, as a test of their orthodoxy, a subscription to the following proposition: “Reason can with certitude demonstrate the existence of God, the spirituality of the soul, and the liberty of man.” Had the author of the volume which we are briefly reviewing read the _Summa_ of St. Thomas, or only the chapters which treat of these subjects, and understood them—which is not, we hope, asking too much from an advanced thinker of our enlightened age, inasmuch as St. Thomas wrote this work in the “dark ages” for mere tyros—he would have gained a stand-point from which he might have done what he tells us in his preface was “the one purpose of his book—to define the fundamental ideas of philosophy, to trace them to their historical and speculative sources, and to show whither they tended” (p. viii.) Such a work would have been more creditable to his learning, more worthy of his intellectual effort, more satisfactory to intelligent readers, and one of permanent value. We commend to Octavius Brooks Frothingham the perusal and study of St. Thomas’ _Summa_—above all, his work _Contra Gentiles_, which is a defence of Christianity on the basis of human reason against the attacks of those who do not admit of its divine revelation; or if these be not within his reach, to take up any one of the modern works on philosophy taught in Catholic colleges or seminaries to our young men.

After all, perhaps, the task might prove an ungracious one; for it would not be flattering to the genius of originality, on which our transcendentalists pride themselves, to discover that these utterances concerning the value of human reason, the dignity of the soul, and the worth of man—barring occasional extravagant expressions attributable to the heat of youth—were but echoes of the voice of the Catholic Church of all ages, of the traditional teachings of her philosophers, especially of the Jesuitical school; all of which, be it said between ourselves, has been confirmed by the sacred decrees of the recent Vatican Council! Still, passing this act of humiliation on their part, it would have afforded them what our author says their system “lacked,” and for which he has had recourse—in our opinion in vain—to the great German systems: namely, a “dialectical basis.” He would have found in Catholic philosophy solid grounds to sustain every truth which the transcendentalists so enthusiastically proclaimed in speech, in poetry, and prose, and which truths, in their practical aspect, not a few made noble and heroic sacrifices to realize.

To have secured such a basis would not have been a small gain, when one considers that these primary truths of reason are the sources from which religion, morals, political government, and human society draw their vitality, strength, and stability. Not a small service to humanity is it to make clear these imperishable foundations, to render them intelligible to all, and transmit them to posterity with increased life and strength. It is well that this noble task of philosophy did not depend on the efforts of the transcendentalists; for Mr. Frothingham sadly informs us in his preface that “as a form of mental philosophy transcendentalism may have had its day; at any rate it is no longer in the ascendant, and at present is manifestly on the decline, being suppressed by the philosophy of experience, which, under different names, is taking possession of the speculative world” (p. vii.) Who knows what might have been the precious fruits of all the high aspiration and powerful earnestness which were underlying this movement, if, instead of seeking for a “dialectical basis of the great German systems,” its leaders had cast aside their prejudices, and found that Catholic philosophy which had interpreted the divine oracles of the soul from age to age, consonant with man’s original and everlasting convictions, and sustaining his loftiest and noblest hopes?

But with the best will in the world to look favorably on the practical results of the transcendental movement, and our sincere appreciation of its leaders—both of which, the issues and the men, are described from chapter vii. to xv., which latter concludes the volume—in spite of these dispositions of ours, our sympathy for so much praiseworthy effort, and our respect for so many highly-gifted men, in reading these chapters a feeling of sadness creeps over us, and we cannot help exclaiming with the poet Sterling:

“O wasted strength! O light and calm And better hopes so vainly given! Like rain upon the herbless sea, Poured down by too benignant heaven— We see not stars unfixed by winds, Or lost in aimless thunder-peals, But man’s large soul, the star supreme, In guideless whirl how oft it reels!”

But this is not to be wondered at; for although these men had arrived at the perception of certain great truths, they held them by no strong intellectual grasp, and finally they escaped them, and their intellectual fabric, like the house built upon sand, when the storm came and the winds blew, great was the fall thereof. This was the history of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, communities in which the two wings of transcendentalism attempted to reduce their ideas into practice. Here let us remark it would have increased the interest of the volume if its author had given to his readers the programme of Brook Farm, “The Idea of Jesus of Society,” together with its constitutions. It is short, interesting, and burning with earnestness. There is scarcely any account of the singular enterprise of the group of idealists at Fruitlands, and the name of Henry Thoreau, one of the notables among transcendentalists, is barely mentioned, while to his life at Walden Pond there is not even an allusion. True, these experiments were, like Brook Farm, unsuccessful, but they were not without interest and significance, and worthy of a place in what claims to be a history of the movement that gave rise to them; at least space enough might have been afforded them for a suitable epitaph.

We will now redeem our promise of showing how the influence of our political institutions aided in producing what goes by the name of transcendentalism. But before doing this, we must settle what transcendentalism is; for our author appears to make a distinction between idealism and transcendentalism in New England. Here is what he says:

“There was idealism in New England prior to the introduction of transcendentalism. Idealism is of no clime or age. It has its proportion of disciples in every period and in the apparently most uncongenial countries; a full proportion might have been looked for in New England. But when Emerson appeared, the name of idealism was legion. He alone was competent to form a school, and as soon as he rose, the scholars trooped about him. By sheer force of genius Emerson anticipated the results of the transcendental philosophy, defined its axioms, and ran out their inferences to the end. Without help from abroad, or with such help only as none but he could use, he might have domesticated in Massachusetts an idealism as heroic as Fichte’s, as beautiful as Schelling’s, but it would have lacked the dialectical basis of the great German systems” (p. 115).

If we seize the meaning of this passage, it is admitted that previous to the knowledge of the German systems Mr. Emerson had already defined the axioms, run out their inferences to the end, and anticipated the results of the German transcendental philosophy. But this is all that any system of philosophy pretends to accomplish; and therefore, by his own showing, the distinction between idealism and transcendentalism is a distinction without a difference.

Mr. Frothingham, however, tells us on the same page that “transcendentalism, properly so-called, was imported in foreign packages”; and Mr. Frothingham ought to know, for he was once, he tells us, “a pure transcendentalist”; and on pages 128 and 136 he criticises Mr. Emerson, who identifies idealism and transcendentalism. With the genius and greatness of the prince of the transcendentalists before his eyes, our author, as is proper, employs the following condescending language: “It is audacious to criticise Mr. Emerson on a point like this; but candor compels the remark that the above description does less than justice to the definiteness of the transcendental movement. It was something more than a reaction against formalism and tradition, though it took that form. It was more than a reaction against Puritan orthodoxy, though in part it was that. It was in a very small degree due to study of the ancient pantheists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of Plutarch, Seneca, and Epictetus, though one or two of the leaders had drunk deeply from these sources. Transcendentalism was a distinct philosophical system” (p. 136).

So far so good. Here is the place, if the author knows what he is talking about, to give us in clear terms the definition of transcendentalism. But what does he? Does he satisfy our anticipations? Mr. Emerson, be it understood, does not know what transcendentalism is! Well, hear our author, who thinks he does. He continues: “Practically it was an assertion of the inalienable worth of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the natural constitution of mankind.… Through all was the belief in the living God in the soul, faith in immediate inspiration, in boundless possibility, and in unimaginable good” (p. 137). Ordinarily when writers attempt to give a definition, or convey information of a “distinct philosophical system,” they give one to understand its first principles or axioms, its precise method, and its important conclusions, and particularly wherein it differs in these respects from other systems of philosophy. This is what Mr. Frothingham in the passage last quoted has led us to expect; but instead of this he gives to the reader mere “assertions” and “beliefs.” And these assertions and beliefs every one knows who has heard Dr. Channing, or Mr. Emerson, or Mr. Alcott, or who has a slight acquaintance with their writings, to have been the sources of inspiration in their speech, which appear on almost every page they have written! Proof is needless; for there is no one who will venture a contradiction on this point. The men who were most influenced by the study of the philosophers abroad were neither the originators nor leaders of the so-called transcendental movement in New England—Brownson, Parker, and William Channing. Mr. Frothingham, we submit, has not made out his case, and has given too much credit where it was not due, while robbing others of their just merit, whatever that may be. If “transcendentalism was a distinct philosophical system,” nowhere in his book has this been shown.

Transcendentalism, accepting the author’s statement as to its true character, was never a philosophical system in New England; and had its early disciples been content to cultivate the seeds sown by its true leaders, instead of making the futile attempt to transfer to our clime exotics from Germany which would not take root and grow in our soil, we should have had, in place of a dreary waste, stately trees whose wholesome and delicious fruits would now refresh us.

And now for our reasons why it was native to the soil from which it sprang. If we analyze the political system of our country, we will find at its base the maxim, “Man is capable of self-government.” The American system exhibits a greater trust in the natural capacities and the inherent worth of man than any other form of political government now upon this earth. Hence all the great political trusts are made elective; hence also our recourse to short periods of election and the great extension among us of the elective franchise. The genius and whole drift of the current of our political life runs in this direction. Now, what does this maxim mean, that “Man is capable of self-government”? It means that man is endowed by his Creator with reason to know what is right, true, and good. It means that man possesses free-will and can follow the right, true, and good. These powers constitute man a responsible being. It supposes that man as he is now born is in possession of all his natural rights, and the primal tendencies of his native faculties are in accordance with the great end of his existence, and his nature is essentially good. But such views of human nature are in direct opposition to the fundamental doctrines of Puritanism and orthodox Protestantism. These taught and teach that man is born totally depraved, that his nature is essentially corrupt, and all his actions, springing from his nature, nothing but evil. Now, the political influence of our American institutions stimulated the assertion of man’s natural rights, his noble gift of liberty, and his inalienable worth, while the religion peculiar to New England preached precisely the contrary. In the long run, the ballot-box beat the pulpit; for the former exerted its influence six days in the week, while the latter had for its share only the Sabbath. In other words, the inevitable tendency of our American political system is to efface from the minds of our people all the distinctive dogmas of the orthodox Protestant views of Christianity by placing them on a platform in accordance with man’s natural capacities, his native dignity, and with right and honorable views of God. Herein lies the true genesis of Unitarianism and its cogenitor, the transcendental movement in New England.

Dr. Channing was right in discarding the attempt to introduce the worse than idle speculation of the German and French philosophical systems in New England. “He considered,” so says his biographer, “pretensions to absolute science quite premature; saw more boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern schemes of philosophy; and was not a little amused at the complacent confidence with which quite evidently fallible theorists assumed to stand at the centre, and to scan and depict the panorama of existence.” “The transcendentalists,” he tells James Martineau in 1841, “in identifying themselves a good deal with Cousin’s crude system, have lost the life of an original movement.” In this last sentence Dr. Channing not only anticipated history but also uttered a prophecy. But how about a philosophy whose mission it is to maintain all the great truths for which he so eloquently and manfully fought? How about a conception of Christianity which places itself in evident relations with human nature and the history of the universe?—a religion which finds its sanctuary in man’s soul, and aims at the elevation of his finite reason to its archetype and its transformation into the Infinite Reason?

Unitarianism in New England owes its existence to the supposition that Calvinism is a true and genuine interpretation of Christianity. “Total depravity,” “election,” “reprobation,” “atonement,” etc., followed, it was fancied, each other logically, and there was no denying one without the denial of all. And as it was supposed that these doctrines found their support in the divinity of Christ, and in order to bring to ruin the superstructure they aimed at upsetting its base by the denial of the divinity of Christ. They had grown to detest so heartily the “five points” of Calvinism that they preferred rather to be pagans than suckled in such a creed. Is it probable, is it reasonable to suppose that our New Englanders, who have a strong vein of earnest religious feeling in their nature, would have gone across the ocean to find a support for the great truths which they were so enthusiastic in affirming among the will-o’-the-wisps of the realms of thought, when at their very doors was “the church which has revealed more completely man to himself, taken possession of his inclinations, of his lasting and universal convictions, laid bare to the light those ancient foundations, has cleansed them from every stain, from every alien mixture, and honored them by recognizing their impress of the Divinity?”

But Mr. Frothingham tells us: “The religion of New England was Protestant and of the most intellectual type. Romanism had no hold on the thinking people of Boston. None besides the Irish laboring and menial classes were Catholics, and their religion was regarded as the lowest form of ceremonial superstition” (p. 107); and almost in the same breath he informs his readers that “the Unitarians of New England were good scholars, accomplished men of letters, humane in sentiment and sincere and moral in intention” (p. 110). Is Octavius Brooks Frothingham acquainted with all “the ceremonial superstitions” upon this earth, and does he honestly believe that the Catholic religion is “the lowest form” of them all? Or—what is the same thing—does he think that the “good scholars and accomplished men of letters” of New England thought so? Perhaps such was his received impression, but that it was common to this class of men we stoutly deny. No one stood higher among them than Dr. Channing, and his estimate of the Catholic religion was certainly not the same as Mr. Frothingham’s. It would be difficult to find in a non-Catholic writer a higher appreciation of her services to humanity, and more eloquent descriptions of certain aspects of the Catholic Church, than may be found in his writings. Mr. Frothingham ought to know this, and only the limits of our article hinder us from citing several of these. Is he aware that President John Adams headed the subscription-list to build the first Catholic church in Boston. Our author, by his prejudices, his lack of insight, and limited information, does injustice to the New England people, depreciates the intelligence and honesty of the leaders in Unitarianism, and fails to grasp the deep significance of the transcendental movement.

He does injustice to the people of Boston especially, who, when they heard of the death of the saintly Bishop Cheverus, tolled the bells of the churches of their city to show in what veneration they held his memory; and if he was not of the age to have listened, he must have read the eloquent and appreciative eulogium preached by Dr. Channing on this great and good man. And Bishop Cheverus was the guide and teacher of the religion of the Irish people of Boston!

Mr. Frothingham will not attempt to make a distinction between the “Catholic religion” and “the religion of the Irish menial and laboring classes”—a subterfuge of which no man of intelligence and integrity would be guilty. The Irish people—be it said to their glory—have from the beginning of their conversion to Christianity kept the pure light of Catholic faith unsullied by any admixture of heresy, and have remained firm in their obedience to the divine authority of the holy church, in spite of the tyranny, of the bitterest persecution of its enemies, and all their efforts of bribery or any worldly inducements which they might hold out. When our searchers after true religion shall have exhausted by their long and weary studies Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Svenalis, Plato, Epictetus, Brahma, Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet, and any other notable inventor of philosophy or religion; when they have gathered up all the truths scattered among the different heresies in religion since the Christian era, the end of all their labors will only make this truth the plainer: that the Catholic Church resumes the authority of all religions from the beginning of the world, affirms the traditions and convictions of the whole human race, and unites, co-ordinates, and binds together all the scattered truths contained in every religious system in an absolute, universal, divine synthesis.

[147] _Transcendentalism in New England._ A History. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1876.

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.[148]

Charles Carroll’s is a household name in the American family—the name of a man marked among his peers for a purity of character on which a Christian mind loves to dwell: _integer vitæ scelerique purus_! His independence was so noble and sublime, yet so toned with homeliness withal, that of him it was said he walked the streets of his regenerated country with brow erect and mien expanded, because he was _sans peur et sans reproche, a preux chevalier_—the idol in the family sanctuary. He alone of the great founders chosen by the angel of this land was destined to witness, beyond the span of days usually allotted to man, the unparalleled prosperity and unequalled development of the resources of a virgin country. Such was the well-earned reward of a career marked by the purest disinterestedness in motives, justice in the choice of means, and humblest dependence on the assistance of the Lord God of nations.

On the anniversary of that day when the covenant that saved mankind was announced by an archangel from the highest heavens, and ratified on earth by the assent of the lowly maid of Jesse, the _Ark_ and the _Dove_ moored on the American waters of the Potomac. A stalwart band of men who were to herald—and they alone of all the Pilgrims—the great covenant of true liberty leaped on shore and planted the standard of salvation. They planted the cross on a new land to be added to Mary’s dowry. Truer men were never hailed by an uncivilized people—men who had learned how to fulfil their destinies in the schools of Bethlehem and of Golgotha.

The Catholic student of American history feels his heart glowing with sentiments of the holiest pride, as, reverting to the twenty-fifth day of March, 1632, he reads that the Catholic pilgrim alone, with his descendants after him, has held steadfastly and without swerving, even to this day, to the true dictates of that moral and religious economy whereby man can secure his happiness and moral independence here, with a never-wavering certainty of thereby securing a claim to an everlasting welfare hereafter. Cardinal McCloskey to-day represents and enacts these very same principles and laws among and to the millions of Catholics in America, which the humble Jesuit missionary Andrew White proclaimed among and to the tribes of the Potomac two hundred and forty-three years ago—nay, the same principles and laws which were, by the Lord’s mandate, proclaimed by Peter and the apostles when for the first time they announced their mission to the throngs gathered in the city of David.

We love to dwell on these facts. The child who was christened in his mother’s arms in Jerusalem on the day after Pentecost became endowed with the same heavenly prerogatives as the Indian babe regenerated in the laver of redemption by Father White sixteen ages later or by any priest of the church on this very day! In very deed, the indelible marks and divine perfections of the heavenly court are mirrored and reflected by the city of God on earth. That same and one Christ who reigned, with his laws, in the church of Jerusalem, and a thousand years after in Vineland of North America, reigns and rules to-day, with the same laws, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Meanwhile, where is the church of the Puritans? Where are her antecedents? Has any of her aspirations been fulfilled? Is there any mark of benediction left by her professors?

The past of Charles Carroll clusters around his life in manifold benedictions; his name is borne aloft on the waters of that grand stream over which the bark of Peter has triumphantly glided for eighteen centuries, and will continue its triumphant course to the consummation of the world. Such is the perpetuity of faith!

A half-century had hardly passed away since the landing of the Pilgrims when Daniel Carroll, the grandsire of our Charles, came to America (A.D. 1680). He was an Irishman, of that prodigious stock which, in the wonderful ways of Providence, being transplanted on our shores, was on some future day to give to America most energetic and determined laborers in the rearing of our independence. Surely did the orator of Concord, amid the festivities of the last Centennial, prove himself miserably ignorant of what his sires owed to the Irish[149] of Pennsylvania.

For let it be recorded for the hundredth time: but for those men our cause would have been lost, in the straits to which the public weal was brought. They came to the rescue, and George Washington took good heart and went on to victory.

Daniel was born in Littemourna, King’s County, Ireland. During the reign of James II. he held responsible offices. Lord Baltimore was his patron, and by his favor, close application, sterling honesty, and persevering industry he became the owner of large estates, and the family prospered and increased in wealth, although not in social or political position, during the second and third generations.[150]

Daniel Carroll rose very high in the estimation of the colony, and was chosen to offices of important and delicate trust. So great was his renown for spotless integrity, extraordinary ability, and love of the public weal that when Protestant bigotry obtained the upper hand, and, in the language of McMahon, the non-Catholic historian of Maryland, “in a colony which was established by Catholics, and grew up to power and happiness under the government of a Catholic, the Catholic inhabitant became the only victim of religious intolerance,” he was exempted from the opprobrious and hateful disqualifications inflicted upon his coreligionists by the penal code—an exemption, at first sight, of doubtful honor, were it not for the exceptional nature and circumstances of the case. It entailed not the least compromise on the part of the recipient, who accepted it without hindrance to an open profession of his faith; moreover, it enabled him to shelter less favored colonists in the enjoyment of rights most dear to their hearts and indispensable to their happiness.

Charles Carroll, the father of the signer, was born in 1702. He was a high-spirited man, but he had no chances to display his talents, nor field on which to exert his energies. He chafed under the wrong and ingratitude with which the children of mother church were harried in the “Land of the Sanctuary” which they had opened to the oppressed of all climes. Alluding to the legislation of the Maryland colony in 1649, Chancellor Kent says: “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.”

But Protestant intolerance demolished the sanctuary, the handiwork of noble and loving Catholic hands. In accord with the wish of many, Mr. Carroll entertained the idea of seeking freedom of action, liberty of conscience, and equality of rights under another sky. Thus, in one of his journeys to Europe, he applied to the French minister for the purchase of a tract of land in Louisiana. The project was far advanced, when the minister growing alarmed at the vast purchase which it was their wish to make on the Arkansas River, the negotiations were (providentially?) broken off. The project, viewed in the light of succeeding events, may appear, as it was then by many deemed, injudicious. Yet great praise is due to Charles Carroll, Sr., for his taking the lead in the movement at a time when, as Mr. Latrobe observes, “the disqualifications and oppressions to which Catholics were subjected amounted to persecution. Roman Catholic priests were prohibited from the administration of public worship. The council granted orders to take children from the pernicious contact of Catholic parents; Catholic laymen were deprived of the right of suffrage; and the lands of Catholics were assessed double when the exigencies of the province required additional supplies.”… Nay, more: a Catholic was levelled to the condition of a pariah or a helot—he was not even allowed to walk with his fellow-citizen before the State-house. Things were carried to a point beyond endurance. No wonder the Catholics of Maryland felt relief even in the thought of fleeing from home. And yet, with these facts, admitted by all American historians, staring him in the face, the British ex-premier has dared to flaunt a lie in the face of the whole world!

Charles Carroll, Sr., died at a patriarchal age, more than four-score years. Like Simeon of old, he had long waited for the consolations of Israel, for the day when the spouse of Christ would cast aside the slave’s garb, and, emerging from American catacombs, come forth in the radiant panoply of freedom and celestial splendor. He himself never had faltered in this hope. He always felt that Mary’s land would not be forsaken by her in whose name it was first held. He saw his country free, and he rejoiced. He witnessed around him the beneficent results accruing from the influences of mother church. He raised his hand to bless God, to bless his kin, to bless the land. But how shall we portray the emotions of his heart when no more in hiding-places, but in full noon-day, openly and freely, he saw the clean Sacrifice offered by the priests of the Most High? And when the form of his beloved son knelt before him for a last blessing, how with the father’s benedictions must have mingled feelings of pride and gratitude because even by the untiring labors of that son had the blessings of liberty to church and state been won!

It was the writer’s good-fortune, a great many years ago, to seek for rest in what, among Catholic Marylanders, was formerly known as the “Jesuit Tusculum.” In a secluded nook in Cecil County, on the Eastern Shore, lies embosomed within dense thickets and shady lanes the Bohemia Manor, a dependency of Georgetown College. When the Catholic youth of Maryland were debarred the privilege of collegiate training in their native schools, the members of the Company of Jesus had, at a very early period, opened there a boarding-school, especially for such of the American boys as would afterwards, like their persecuted peers in England, seek for a sound education and a thorough Christian training at the well-known academies of Belgium and France. Wandering through those woods, rowing over the meandering streams whose soft murmurings give life to the silent homes of the crane and gentle game, the youthful forms of the Carrolls and Brents, Dorseys and Darnells, haunted the imagination and brought one back to those days of fervent Catholic spirit, pure hearts, and high-minded youths who waxed in years and strength under the saintly training of Hudson and Manners, Farmer and Molineux. To the care of experienced, learned, and saintly Jesuits was entrusted the training of that part of the Lord’s vineyard which, amid persecution and manifold dangers, mirrored the days of primitive Christianity.

Young Charles Carroll, who was born in 1737, was sent thither to drink the first pure waters of secular learning and Christian training. At one time well-nigh twoscore of the sons of the more fortunate colonists were there united with him at the Tusculum of the Company of Jesus.

But a day of separation dawned. Charles was in his eleventh year when not the swift steamship of our time but a laggard craft was to convey him to distant shores. He was accompanied in his journey by his cousin, John Carroll, with whom many years after he accomplished a most delicate and important mission at the command of the government. Thus he added to the ties and sympathies of blood a link of such friendships as are so apt to knit in college life and ever after congenial souls and hearts beating in unison. True, when the day arrived on which each was to enter an avenue of life that would lead to the career for which each was fitted by nature, they chose different gates, but came forth on the great drama of life to be the leaders of two generations, one in the church, the other in the state. Charles Carroll with unerring finger points to the Catholic layman the resources which he should improve for the perfect execution of his part; John Carroll has represented him who is the infallible guide of the church, becoming at the same time the model of bishop and priest, the pride and the joy of the anointed minister of that same church in the United States.

Six years did young Carroll spend at St. Omer’s, in French Flanders, in the study of the classics of ancient and modern times under Jesuit tuition; thence he passed to Rheims; and lastly he entered the college of Louis le Grand in Paris. In the two last places he applied himself, under the guidance of learned Jesuits, to the study of logic and metaphysics, mathematics and natural sciences. When at Louis le Grand the elder Charles crossed the ocean a third time to feast his eyes and gladden his doating heart on the son who had waxed in years as well as in grace. He found the promising boy grown into a manly youth, and bade him say farewell to the charms of a life whose days glided on in unruffled peace, breathing in an atmosphere of religion and science. His intercourse there was with men whose aspirations were to the greatest glory of God, whose conversation was in heaven. These men, so noble, so learned, so perfect, had entwined the hearts of their pupils with their own.

In 1757 Charles Carroll removed to London to enter upon the study of law. Admitted to the Inner Temple, an inmate, or at least a frequenter, of those halls wherein surely the Holy Ghost did not hold an undisputed sway, the noble-minded and pure-souled Maryland youth must have felt the change to the quick. What a contrast to the simplicity of his western home at the paternal manor, the sweet influences and innocent life at the Bohemian Tusculum, and in the blessed halls of Bruges and St. Omer’s! At the Temple he spent the five years requisite in order to be called to the bar; but he remained in Europe until 1764, when he again set sail for his western home.

A great change had meanwhile come over the moral atmosphere of his native State. Whilst bickerings about religion were growing distasteful, a rumbling noise of threatened disasters in the distance drew the hearts of the colonists together. Indistinct and sombre figures of enemies lurking around the premises counselled measures of internal peace, equal distribution of civil rights, and a unity of sentiments and aims as the only hope of averting ruin and of conquering a powerful foe. Ties of friendship were strengthened, measures of concerted action were discussed, whilst religious questions were laid aside, and arrogant claims of superior rights on the part of non-Catholics forgotten, in the presence of an impending danger; the more so because it was felt that there was a party brooding in their midst which was in accord with the enemy outside.

When the boy left the land of his birth, and the prow of the ship that bore him ploughed the waters of the Atlantic, his soul expanded with a heretofore unexperienced sentiment of liberty; for only then did he begin to feel that freely under the canopy of heaven he could practise his religion without let or hindrance, without the sneers or intermeddling of his neighbors. Add to this the anticipated enjoyment of the liberty in wait for him on the eastern lands of Catholic faith. Yet the prospective and future return to the land of bondage must from time to time have thrown shadows of sadness over the gushing and joyful youth at school. But now comes a truce to religious dissensions and family quarrels; a victory is gained: the church is free, her shackles broken. Catholic and non-Catholic worship at the altar of their choice freely and publicly. They are all children of the same political family, members of the same moral body!

But the liberties of the colonies are crushed by the mother country, and Charles Carroll lands on these shores only in time to be one of the mourners at the funeral of liberty. His countrymen had been galled with bitterness by the contempt, insolence, and arrogance of the British soldiery, and felt a contempt for the martinet leaders of the Braddock defeat, while at the same time a feeling of superiority was engendered in their heart by the warlike qualities displayed by rank and file under the leadership of him who was already first in the hearts of his peers. They chafed at being made the hewers of wood and drawers of water to British indolence; they felt the sanctuary of their homes desecrated by the writs of assistance; their inmost souls were moved with indignation at being ordered to sacrifice their hard-earned comforts, their very subsistence, to the pleasure of a ribald soldiery. Such things could not be endured by the sons of liberty. And thus it happened that Charles Carroll was not welcomed with the cheers of a hearty greeting; he only heard the groans, the smothered curses, the oaths of vengeance deep and resolute, uttered by his oppressed fellow-colonists.

His soul was fired with wrath and zeal; but a wrath subdued by self-control, a zeal swayed by prudence. His was a self-possession that was never thrown off its guard. He seemed ever to be on the alert against surprises—a foe more fatal to armies than cannon and shot.

During the excitement of the Stamp Act Charles Carroll, who had returned from the Continent “a finished scholar and an accomplished gentleman,” was at first a silent but careful and discerning observer. He studied the tendency of events, and the moral elements on which these events should work some remarkable development. Cautious but firm, he gradually entered the lists, and then in the struggles which seemed so unequal he fought heart and soul with that noble galaxy of Maryland patriots who, bold and undismayed, opposed an unbroken front to those first encroachments which were even countenanced by interested parties in the colony. But for a prompt resistance a breach would have been opened for such inroads into the domain of our liberties as would break down its ramparts, overwhelm our defenders, and enslave the people.

It is not necessary for us here to relate how the obnoxious law was repealed—a tardy and unwilling act of atonement (“an act of empty justice,” as McSherry well defines it); yet its revocation was hailed by the colonies with great rejoicings as the harbinger of a better rule and the dawn of a day of just polity in the home government. Surely, the rulers in the mother country had felt the temper of her children abroad; they loved her fondly as long as she proved herself a mother; woe were she to forget the ties of love and harshly deal with them!

Charles Carroll was neither blinded nor hoodwinked by this sporadic token of motherly justice. Those years of residence in England were not lost to him. He well knew the temper of the British lion, his arrogance and his treachery. Sooner or later another paroxysm of exigencies would come over him; they must be met, cost what it may.

“_Wicked_ is the only word which I can apply to the government of your colonies. You seem to regard them as mere material mines from whence the mother country is to extract the precious ore for her own luxury and splendor.”[151]

The victory gained and the danger averted for the nonce, Mr. Carroll devoted himself to promoting the welfare of the colony. In fact, whilst a short period of comparative peace lasted outside the colonies, Maryland was not free from internal disturbance. Two sources of disquietude were then opened—the Proclamation and the Vestry Act. Nor was the colony less annoyed by the unfaithfulness of leading merchants in Baltimore, who, goaded by thirst of money and not prompted by feelings of love for their country, had slackened in their opposition to the encroachment of the government at home. They only followed in the wake of New York and Philadelphia, and even of Boston. The love of lucre and the diseased tastes of what was then called _the quality_ allowed the merchants of those cities to fall away from the compact entered upon with the sister colonies. To advance their interests and to satisfy a portion of the community, they forsook their principles and paid the hated tributes for proscribed commodities. But outside Baltimore the people in the counties remained firm and unshaken in their patriotism.

Charles Carroll was young in years, but ripe in judgment. The future statesman lost no opportunities. It was of the utmost importance that he should thoroughly know the habits of his fellow-citizens and their calibre, whether he looked upon them as a distinct colony or in their relations to the other provinces; what were the materials and the resources of the whole country; what guarantees could be drawn from the past for the welfare of the future; how far or within what bounds should the liberties of the colonies be restrained; what security for the rights of conscience; were the rights of each colony to be paramount over the exigencies of the whole family of provinces?… To a mind well stored with the choicest theoretical lore it became an easy matter to trace its course and clearly see the way ahead. Thus prepared, he grappled with Charles Dulany, the champion of those who opposed the people’s claims and remonstrances. Dulany was his senior by many years, had grown up identified with the selfish interests of office-holders and of the established clergy, himself high in the councils of the government, whilst his opponent had just arrived from a long sojourn abroad, and was a “papist” enthralled and disfranchised.

The main point of dispute turned on the rights of the government of the colony to tax the people arbitrarily for the payment of officers and the support of the clergy. The history of the Proclamation, drawn up by Dulany himself, and the burial thereof amid a most solemn pageant by the freemen of Annapolis on the 14th of May, 1673, are too well known to require detailing here. It is enough to say that by general acclamation the people acknowledged Charles Carroll as their champion. He could not be selected as a delegate, enthralled as he was, but in public meetings held in Frederick, Baltimore, and Annapolis they unanimously voted and formally tendered him the thanks of the people.

Mr. Carroll entered the lists veiled under the name of _First Citizen_, whilst Dulany met him in combat as _Antilon_—an unnecessary disguise, for he was too well known, being the patriot “who,” says McSherry, “had long stood the leading mind of Maryland.” The war was carried on in the columns of the _Maryland Gazette_, and Mr. Carroll sustained his character of “finished scholar and accomplished gentleman.” Never did he swerve from the high tone of a writer who was conscious of his own powers. Assailed with offensive names by his adversaries, he never descended to their level. When the real name of the _First Citizen_ was yet unknown, the excitement created by his articles, written in a style ready and incisive, and withal most graceful, was enhanced by and received a keener zest from the stimulus of curiosity. Wonderful was the avidity with which they were sought and read. These articles fed the public spirit, inspired the people with courage, and shaped the course to be pursued not only by the colonists of Maryland, but even in sister colonies. The articles by _First Citizen_ were held in so much esteem that Joseph Galloway, when speaker in the Pennsylvania Assembly, would copy them with his own hand, on the loan from a fortunate subscriber, and send them to Benjamin Franklin.

Thus the popular party triumphed. The party of oppression, with the established clergy at their back, was discomfited. Hammond and Paca were elected. Maryland was saved, and her saviour was Charles Carroll. Amid these controversies arose a young man, spirited, wealthy, and highly educated, who threw himself headlong into the struggle, and, growing with its trials, became renowned in its darkest hours, and honored and cherished in its glorious success” (McSherry, p. 170). That young man, only seven-and-twenty, was already a renowned statesman.

A distinguished non-Catholic historian remarks that Charles Carroll brought to play on whatever he undertook “a decided character, stern integrity, and clear judgment.” Truly, the star of his name had reached the meridian of its course already. There it became fixed. His countrymen were guided by it during the dark days of the most perilous events, through battles and storms, dissensions and heart-burnings, the exuberancy of victories and the dejection of defeats. Thirty years, the best of his life, his whole manhood, a long manhood—for he grew old only when others cease to live—he devoted to the welfare of his country.

The life of Charles Carroll becomes at this period so entwined and blended with the history of the country that our article would swell into a portly volume were we to undertake a narrative of the details of his public career. We have endeavored to give a faithful portrait of the character of a man who is the pride of the secular history of the Catholic Church in America. It has been our aim to give a key to open the inmost recesses of that soul the noblest of the noble, that heart the purest of the pure, that mind greatest among the great. Therefore we shall only hint at the events of his public life, _omnia quæ tractaturi sumus, narratione delibabimus_, as Quintilian would teach us.

As foreseen, the British lion awoke from his apparent lethargy, and with a roar and a spring he bounded anew. Stung to the quick at being, even only once, foiled in his endeavors to saddle on the colonies unjust burdens, he made renewed attempts, and the tax on the “detestable weed” was revived. The people arose in their indignation, and gave vent to it in the hazardous but successful festivities of the famous Boston Tea Party. Massachusetts was disfranchised. Indeed, it was the vent of a petty spite. Not the Bay State alone, but all the colonies, would soon disfranchise themselves, all in a body, and in a way of their own. But Massachusetts had given the example, and Maryland followed close in the wake. The latter even improved on the act of the former; for what had been achieved in the Boston Bay under disguise the citizens of Maryland consummated at Annapolis openly and undisguised. And yet brave Maryland had intestine troubles that engrossed her attention—troubles which were aggravated even by the fact that the abettors thereof were interested in carrying out the measures of the home government. But there shone above them the guiding star—Charles Carroll led them to victory. Undaunted and uncompromising, Mr. Carroll looked coming events in the face; and when Mr. Chase indulged in the hope that there would be no more trouble, for “had they not written down their adversaries?” he would not thus flatter himself with illusions of enduring peace. To other means they would have yet to resort. “What other means have we to resort to?” asked the other. “The bayonet,” calmly rejoined Charles Carroll. And so firm was his conviction that they should resort to arms that he held his opinion against many at home and abroad. His reply to the Hon. Mr. Graves, M.P., who averred that six thousand soldiers would easily march from one end of the colonies to the other, is too characteristic of the statesman not to copy it here: “So they may, but they will be masters of the spot only on which they encamp. They will find naught but enemies before and around them. If we are beaten on the plains, we will retreat to our mountains and defy them. Our resources will increase with our difficulties. Necessity will force us to exertion, until, tired of combating in vain against a spirit which victory after victory cannot subdue, your armies will evacuate our soil, and your country retire, a great loser by the contest. No, sir; we have made up our minds to abide the issue of the approaching struggle, and, though much blood may be spilt, we have no doubt of our ultimate success.” In these few lines the spirit, the gallantry, the tactics, the greatness of our armies from Lexington to Yorktown are both eloquently and accurately described.

And when a second cargo of the “detestable weed” entered the waters of Maryland, the friends of Mr. Stewart, a leading merchant in the colony, to whom the brig _Peggy Stewart_ belonged, and to whom the cargo was consigned, appealed to Charles Carroll for advice and protection. The _First Citizen_ was ever consistent. Was not the importation an offence against the law? Was not the majesty of the people insulted? To export the tea to the West Indies or back to Europe was no adequate reparation—what if Mr. Stewart was a friend of his?… “Gentlemen, set fire to the vessel, and burn her with her cargo to the water’s edge!” With sails set and colors flying, she floated, a sheet of fire, amid the shouts of the people on shore.

Besides the powerful promptings of a heart burning with love of country, Charles Carroll felt moved to deeds of heroism and self-defence by motives of equal, if not superior, importance. He became, nay, he seemed to feel that he was, in the hands of Providence, the chosen champion to assert Catholic rights and liberty—ay, might we not look upon him as the O’Connell of America in the eighteenth century? It can be proved beyond all doubt that the Catholics of the colonies placed great trust in him. Surely he became their representative. There was power in his name. He had become a leading genius, inspiring with wise resolves, and determination to carry them out, those valiant men of his faith who had clustered around the Father of his Country, or were admitted to the councils of the nation, or formed part of the rank and file in the American army, or had it in their power to swell with generous hands the national resources. This power of Mr. Carroll was felt even outside the pale of his own church. The case of the _Peggy Stewart_ is one to the point.

Another and far more important illustration of his power is the following: Thomas Conway, a meteor of sinister forebodings, with his plots of disaster and ruin, has defiled a very short page of American history. Yet, brief as his career was in this country, it worked mischief. “Conway’s Cabal” is well known. It is well known how the despicable adventurer was bribed into a conspiracy against Washington in favor of an unpopular superior officer. Charles Carroll was a member of the Board of War. In that board there was a party covertly yet powerfully at work to displace the commander-in-chief in favor of Horatio Gates. Mr. Carroll, as usual, always on his guard, watched his opportunity. He was approached cautiously and warily, even before a vote was taken. Then calmly and stoutly, yet with that rock-like firmness of his that had become proverbial, he said: “Remove General Washington, and I’ll withdraw.” Words were those pregnant with weighty consequences. Carroll was at the head, he was the representative of the Catholics. Maryland went with him; the Catholics of Pennsylvania, nine-tenths of the whole population, an element of great power, indispensable to success, were with him. The colonies needed the aid of Catholic France sadly. What if Charles Carroll withdrew to Carrollton? What if he recrossed the ocean? George Washington was _not_ removed; and under God’s favor was not George Washington _the_ chosen leader, _the_ appointed conqueror, the Moses of his day, the Josue of his people? Who was there to take his place as _the first_ over those fierce legions of sturdy and resolute assertors of a nation’s life?

We must be allowed here to transfer to these columns, in words far more eloquent and true than we could ever command, both the source and the development of the ideas to which the deeds of those two men in the infancy of the nation has given rise in our mind.

In a dialogue between himself and a mysterious apparition on the threshold of that Temple whose entrance was forbidden to the Emperor Theodosius, Frederick Faber, yet an Anglican, thus addresses his companion:

“Do you not think that we should be in a more healthy state if there were a greater indifference to politics amongst us?”

“No,” replied he; “I know of no indifference which is healthy, except indifference to money. The church has a great duty to perform in politics. It is to menace, to thwart, to interfere. The Catholic statesman is a sort of priest. He does out in public the secular work of the retired and praying priesthood; and he must not be deserted by those spiritual men whom he is arduously, wearily, and through evil report conscientiously representing.”

Could modern publicist ever utter words more squarely tallying with the circumstances of our own times?

We have followed our hero only to the performance of his first acts in the great drama in which the Ruler of nations had appointed him to bear such important parts. Charles Carroll, in his adjuncts and circumstances, as regards both his cast of religion and politics, stood alone among his peers. Much he had to destroy ere he could build. But he addressed himself to his work with well-appointed tools, a clear mind, a steady hand, a glowing heart, and an immovable reliance in Him who hath said that “unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it” (Ps. cxxvi.) Thus appointed, he never faltered. On, on he advanced, step after step; stretching forth himself to those things that were before him, he pressed towards the mark, until he had received the prize.

More than onescore years and ten he labored as man never did labor for the well-being of his country. When he had reached the sixty-fourth year of his life, and only then, he rested; he unbuckled his armor and laid it down, to enjoy the blessings which his own heart and mind had drawn on America. How beautifully were his talents apportioned, in equal distribution—thirty years of study in the best schools of Europe; thirty years of the most faithful service in the greatest work that it ever was the lot of man to be engaged in; thirty years of unruffled peace in the bosom of his family, in the home of his youth, which became the Mecca of the people, as a writer calls it—a shrine of wisdom and goodness! There “the patriarch of the nation” taught two generations; he laid before their appreciative minds the principles and inspired their grateful hearts with those sentiments of Christian polity of which he himself was such a shining ornament and faithful embodiment.

We well remember how, in days long passed away, old men who had known him in the days of his manhood were wont to speak of him; how that heart, so noble and so pure, fondly watched the healthy growth of that tree of liberty to plant which he himself had lent a strong hand. These men would tell how the ripe and veteran statesman felt as much zest in the enjoyment of surrounding events as when, a boy and a youth, he applied himself to literary studies, or pursued the more arduous acquisition of scientific lore in the halls of philosophy or in those of law and jurisprudence. His was an equanimity of character seldom witnessed in man. And that placid, calm bearing which made his countenance the mirror of a soul preserved in patience and perfect in self-control never forsook him to the very last hours of his life. A very old member of the Company of Jesus, a professor and superior of the Georgetown University, has more than once related, within hearing of the writer, that the appearance of Charles Carroll riding into the college enclosure, on a docile and yet lively pony, when the great patriot had already overstepped the fourscore years of life, conveyed the impression of a youthful and innocent old age, so full of charm and gravity, pensiveness and gayety, authority and condescension, that it was felt indeed, but could not be described. It was the reflection of a past without reproach, and of a future without fear. His very carriage, the manner of his conversation, were an embodiment of his last words: “In the practice of the Catholic religion the happiness of my life was established!” Holy words! Sublime expression of the hopes of Christianity! May the example of such a man never fail, and be for ever the mould in which the young American spirit should be cast! Providence seems to have granted him so long an existence because he was the purest of the Revolutionary patriots, and he wished his example to last the longest!

After his death no page was ever written to vindicate his character or plead in behalf of one single shortcoming! No word of merciful forgiveness was heard at his grave. His peers, his descendants, had naught to forgive. With one voice of acclamation from one end of the country to the other, amid wreaths of unspotted lilies and fragrant roses, his name was emblazoned on the fair escutcheon of the American nation as the name of

THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH.

On the shield of this untrammelled and free American Church let two names for ever be emblazoned with undying fame—John and Charles Carroll; one the father of his clergy, the other the leader of his people; John Carroll, the first vicar-apostolic, the first American bishop; Charles Carroll, a signer of our Magna Charta, the assertor and defender of those rights which shall for ever be the palladium of religious freedom. Could a line of conduct be laid before us in more unmistakable words and surer meaning?

Not by the ties of blood alone were those two souls knit to one another, like David and Jonathan of yore; but inspired with love of country, and deep, holy, unswerving affection for the church, they fully appreciated the resources, moral and physical, which with proper culture would make of this land a favorite portion of the mystical Vineyard and the asylum for the oppressed. John within the sacred enclosure of God’s tabernacle, Charles in the halls of legislation, they worked in different departments, yet with one accord, the former to give the great garden fit husbandmen, and provide it with every appurtenance in nurseries of virtue and learning; the latter to lead the instincts born with a people, purified by trials and trained to justice, into a current which, swelling in its course within the bounds of Christian discipline, would, the one directing, strengthening, hallowing the other, run to endless days in great majesty and overwhelming power.

Charles outlived the archbishop by many years, and witnessed the triumphs of the Redeemer’s spouse to the achievement of which his great kinsman had devoted the resources of his extraordinary mind, the most tender and inviolate affections of his exuberant heart, and the untiring exertions of a long apostleship.

And here we feel as if we may lay down our pen and look upon our task as accomplished. We have endeavored to be the faithful limner of a character noblest among the noble, the pride and the guide of our Catholic laity in the American Church.

How grand that figure loometh in the galaxy of our greatest men! Great and grand, pure, unselfish, guileless, wise, loving, he stands on a pedestal of imperishable renown, religion blended with wisdom, charity with prudence, firmness with condescension!… When shall we look upon his like again? Yea, the memory of his deeds is fresh, and his many virtues as a Christian and as a statesman are even mirrored in the lives of many noble, devoted, valiant followers—bright examples of true patriotism and golden righteousness to our rising youth, on whose stern vigor, unfaltering courage, and sterling virtues mother church will lean for comfort and defence—a youth called, may be, to fight even fiercer battles than our great ancestor, their shining model, had to meet; battles that will need stout hearts, level minds, souls prompt in bold resolves. But the God of yesterday is the God of to-day; and with Charles Carroll in the van our gallant youth will advance to the battle, sure also of the victory.

[148] The medal of which the above is an engraving gives its own history. It was struck, we are informed at the expense of the Carroll family. It was suggested long since that if the _fiftieth_ anniversary of American Independence was so befittingly honored by thin tribute of love and heartfelt gratitude of a whole nation to the only survivor of the signers, and he a Catholic, it would be _dulce et decorum_ for the Catholics of these United States to restrike it for distribution, and as a lively reminder on the dawn of the _hundredth_ anniversary. Nor would it be a difficult or costly undertaking. We are told the die is still preserved, although not at the mint. The only alteration should occur in the legend of the reverse, thus: d. Nov. 14, 1832, æt. 98. The exergue should read: July IV. MDCCCLXXVI.

[149] “We enter upon the second century of the republic with responsibilities which neither our fathers nor the men of fifty years ago could possibly foresee.” Again: “This enormous influx of strangers has added an immense ignorance and entire unfamiliarity with republican ideas and habits to the voting class.” And: “It has introduced powerful and organized influences not friendly to the republican principle of freedom of thought and action,” etc.—Geo. W. Curtis, LL.D., of New York, oration before the town authorities of Concord, Mass., April 19, 1875. Printed by permission. The _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_, vol. xxix., October, 1875.—Strange that Mr. Curtis should have forgotten the foreign _influx_ among the signers! Yet Thornton was born in Ireland; Smith also, Taylor also; Lewis in Wales; Witherspoon near Edinburgh; Morris in Lancashire, England; Wilson in Scotland; Gwinnett in England. Strange that of fifty-nine signers so many should be strangers, besides those who were born of foreigners! And strange that the most refined and elegant civilians George Washington associated with in Philadelphia were Irishmen. And was not that a strange influx of Nesbitt saving Washington’s army from starvation? And what of the $25,000 that Barclay gave, and the $50,000 given by McClenaghan, etc., etc.?—an influx _in infinitum_. The influx worked well a hundred years ago; fear not, it will work well even now, but keep demagogues and false patriots aside. Yet on what side are most of them to be found?

[150] Hence sprung the qualification added to the name of Daniel’s grandson. When Charles, as one of the members delegated by the State of Maryland to attend the Convention in Philadelphia, advanced on the 2d of August, 1776, to the secretary’s desk to sign his name to the Declaration, allusion was made to the great wealth of the Maryland delegate, who would thereby jeopardize it all. “But,” remarked a bystander “it will be hard to identify; are there not several Charles Carrolls?”

“Ah! yes,” rejoined the signer; and dipping the pen anew in that famous ink-stand, with that noble grace of person so peculiar to him, he bent over the parchment once more, and added, of _Carrollton_. Surely Carrollton was the only manor of that name, and our Charles was the only master thereof. Hence the qualification which has since become useless—Charles Carroll of Carrollton. In our days the great American family knows only one Charles Carroll.

[151] A supernatural interlocutor in Father Faber’s _Sights and Thoughts_. London: Rivingtons, 1842, p. 181.

THE CATHOLIC SUNDAY AND PURITAN SABBATH.

“Mamma, what kind of a place is heaven?” inquired a boy, after a two hours’ Sunday session in a parlor corner, with the Bible for mental aliment. “Why, my child, heaven is one perpetual Sabbath!” “_Well, ma! won’t they let me go out sometimes, just to play?_” Absurd as was his mode of expressing it, the boy was right as to the fundamental idea; and though he could not have given the steps by which he reached the conclusion, yet he judged well that the Almighty, when sending us into this world, did not decree that we should be perpetually miserable in it. The enforced performance of what was intended for a devotional exercise was, in his case, beginning to bear its legitimate and inevitable fruits of irksomeness at the outset, wearisomeness while it lasts, and loathsomeness at the end.

All who claim the name of Christians observe, with greater or less strictness, one day in seven as a day of rest and worship; the devotional exercises conjoined therewith, emanating from the authority of the church in the case of Catholics, and from the varying taste and fancy of the sect, congregation, or even, it would seem, of the individual, among non-Catholics. We propose in this article to inquire into the origin of the Catholic usage regarding the Sunday; the grounds and mode of its observance among Protestants; the difference between the sectarian modes of keeping it and that enjoined by the church. And as about every religious practice where variance exists there must be a right and a wrong—a method of observance consistent with authority and reason, and one either less so or entirely incongruous therewith—we shall try to find (apart from the authority of the church, which, though ample for us, would be of little avail for _outsiders_) on which side right reason is, and to show the absurdity of wrong custom in the matter.

The church tells us simply what the law of nature informs us of, the existence of God the Creator, and of our duty of worshipping him; but the time when all other things must be abandoned for this special purpose is subject to another law—the ceremonial—and as under the Mosaic dispensation that law was only a shadow of future good, to be laid aside when the true Light should descend upon earth, so the Jewish Sabbath, which was clearly established in the third commandment of the Decalogue, is no longer to be held sacred, but the first day of the week, which was consecrated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the descent of the Holy Ghost, is _by her_ ordered to be kept holy; and she enjoins on all her children at least to hear Mass devoutly and to abstain from servile labor on that day. Having to provide, however, for all sorts and conditions of men, the church adds that reasons of necessity or transcendent charity will excuse us from either obligation. And this is all that our holy mother enjoins on the subject. As Catholics we accept and celebrate the Sunday wholly on her authority; and, _à fortiori_, we are not bound to any further observance of it than she dictates.

While it is clear from Holy Scripture that the apostles did meet with each other and with the early converts to Christianity twice on the _Dominica_ or Lord’s day, yet there is nothing to show that it was even habitual with them to convene on that day; still less is there anything, either in the form of precept or exhortation, in the entire New Testament, that would manifest the fact of any change in the ceremonial law of Moses on the subject. There is no announcement whatever either of the abrogation of the Sabbath of the Jews or of the establishment of Sunday instead; so that, had we but the Scripture to refer to, we should grope in the dark both as to the obligation itself and the mode of its fulfilment. But when we come to the fathers of the Church, the very earliest of them indicate distinctly that the Christians of their day did habitually meet together on the first day of the week (called by them κυριακὴ, or _Dominica_). As we go on we find them frequently enjoin, both expressly and by clear implication, the obligation resting upon all Christians of meeting together on that day for participation in the Holy Mysteries. Later still we find them affirm this duty as of apostolic institution. To give a single example of many, St. Saturninus, before suffering martyrdom at Abitina, in Africa, in the year 304, under Diocletian, _for celebrating Mass on Sunday_, exclaims, in presence of his judges: “_The obligation of the Sunday is indispensable; it is not lawful for us to omit the duty of that day!_” From the earliest Christian records to the present day there is no break, no link wanting. Historians have clearly shown the practice of the faithful, and councils have firmly enjoined and reiterated it. So much for the origin and history of Sunday worship in the Church.

It is, of course, one of the cardinal principles of Protestantism—in fact, its sole _raison d’être_—that “the Bible is the only rule of faith and practice”; that everything therein commanded should be performed literally; and that whatever has no clear and direct warrant of Scripture is purely of man’s device, and, by consequence, of no authority whatsoever. All very fine, in words; but when we examine how the doctrine works in point of fact, we shall find an amazingly great discrepancy between the expressed faith and the actual, tangible practice. There has certainly been no considerable drain upon the reservoirs of our large cities in carrying out the injunction that “if ye wash not one another’s feet, ye have no part in me.” It is not, so far as we are informed, peculiarly characteristic of any sect of Protestants, when “smitten on one cheek,” immediately to “turn the other” for a repetition of the blow. No special alacrity has ever been shown, even by the straitest sects, in eager obedience to the command, “From him that borroweth from thee, turn not thou away”; and so far are they from obeying the absolute injunction of the Apostle James to “call in the priests of the church to the sick,” and to “anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord,” that they rave and rage against Catholics for doing so, and affirm it to be a superstitious observance. If St. Paul ever expressed himself clearly on any point, he certainly does so most unmistakably when he says that “it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church”; yet the sectarian world is now very largely supplied with “reverend” ladies, widowed, married, and maiden, who evangelize with great acceptance, and even officiate as regular pastors to various congregations throughout the country. It would seem, therefore, that the cardinal principle aforesaid must have either disappeared or some ingenious mode have been discovered by which it works only when wanted, to be set aside whenever its admission would run counter to the whim which may happen to be in vogue.

Now, the only texts of the New Testament that mention the Sunday in such way that it would be possible to draw from them any inference in regard to its observance are Acts xx. 7 and 1 Cor. xvi. 1, neither of which declares the abolition of the ancient Sabbath or enjoins the observance of Sunday. But notwithstanding this fact, Protestants at large have accepted our Sunday, whether _on tradition_, which they reject; _or on the authority of the church_, which they despise; or, finally, of their own good pleasure—certainly not _on Scripture_, since it is not instituted therein. It is hardly worth while, owing to their paucity, to mention as exceptions the Sabbatarians, who maintain that Christians have no authorization for changing the divine institution of the Jewish Sabbath, and who consequently observe Saturday. Luther does not pretend any divine authority for the change, but takes for granted that “mankind needs a rest of one day, at least, in seven; and the first day, or Sunday, having prescription in its favor, ought not lightly to be changed.” He says elsewhere that “if any man sets up its observance on a Jewish foundation, then I order you to labor on it, to ride or dance on it, or to do anything whatever on it that shall remove its infringements on Christian liberty.” The Augsburg Confession pointedly says: “Those who judge that in place of the Sabbath the Lord’s day was instituted, as a day necessarily to be observed, do very grossly err.” Calvin says in his Institutes: “It matters not what day we celebrate, so that we meet together for the desirable weekly worship; there is no absolute precept”; and he adds that the sticklers for Sunday are “thrice worse in their crass and carnal view of religion than the Jews whom Isaias (ch. i. 13) denounced.” The doctrine of the English Reformers on the subject is most concisely and strikingly put by Tyndale, who, in his _Answer_ to Sir Thomas More, thus speaks:

“As for the Sabbath, _we be lords over the Sabbath_, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day, ass we see need, or may make every tenth day holy day, only ass we see cause why. We may make two every week, if it were expedient and one not enough to teach the people. Neither was there any cause to change it from Saturday, but to put a difference between ourselves and the Jews; neither need we any holy day at all, if the people might be taught without it.”

Even in Scotland John Knox, who attached himself to the innovators with a bigoted zeal, did not pretend to find any Gospel warrant for what he was pleased to call _the Sabbath_; and Dr. Hessey candidly acknowledges that the strained sabbatarianism of Scotland is by no means to be attributed to him or his coadjutors, mentioning at the same time that Knox, when on a visit to Calvin at Geneva, found that eminent Reformer occupied, on the Sunday of his arrival, at a game of bowls! If, then, it be plain that the arch-innovators are not responsible for that peculiarly unlovely, rigid, and ultra-Judaic observance of the Sunday (the traces of which, growing fainter year by year, are yet plainly discernible in the laws, institutions, habits, and manners of the English-speaking portion of the Protestant world), whence did it originate? Why are the ideas of English-speaking Protestants so widely different from those of their brethren, and even of their own founders, on this subject?

Fuller (in whose pages much quaint and naïve information about the history of those transition days is to be found) tells us that the _Puritans_, “who first began to be called by that name about 1564,” and who dissented from the church of King Henry on the ground that the Reformation had not gone “far enough,” were, like all other renegades, anxious to distinguish themselves by hostility at every point to the camp they had abandoned. They preached that to throw bowls on the Sabbath “were as great sin as to kill a man”; to make a feast or wedding dinner on that day “were as vile sin as for a father to cut the throat of his son with a knife”; and that to ring more bells than one “were mickle sin as is murder.” Of this brood was Vincent Bownde, whose great work on the _Observance of the Sabbath_ first appeared in 1595; and to this book, which began the polemical controversy on the subject, is due the rabid sabbatarianism of the English Puritans during the remainder of the reign of Elizabeth and the dynasty of the Stuarts. The Scottish Calvinists eagerly seized the cry, and from both sects (their influence, pertinacity, and numbers being much greater than those of the Anglican Establishment, which was itself, of necessity, largely tinctured by their practice), through our own hard-headed but harder-hearted Puritans of New England, who practised this unmitigating observance of the day with the same zeal of enforcement that they displayed in many other grimly ludicrous things, we of this age and country are still to a great extent under the sway of an intolerant and enforced sabbatarianism which the spread of intelligence and liberality is gradually wearing away, but which, after all, dies very hard. Just as no enmity is so envenomed, no hatred so intense, so in like manner no distinctive practice or usage disappears so slowly, as those originally engendered by religious faction. It was clear that no Scriptural authority existed for the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, and equally evident that the denial of the authority of the church destroyed for ever all ecclesiastical sanction for Sunday. There remained, consequently, no possible authorization for it but to insist that the mere meeting together of the apostles on that day (which, so far as anything to the contrary can be shown from Scripture, _might have been accidental_) constituted sufficient warrant; and next to regulate the observance of the day by the practice of the Jews with regard to the Sabbath. This Bownde did without hesitation. His book, gratifying as it did at once the malignity of the Puritans against the church, their envy of the established sect, and their own exclusiveness, became exceedingly popular, was largely read and quoted, and its influence remains to the present day. Here in the United States we yet retain traces of it in our laws; as, indeed, we still do of that other intolerance by which Catholics were, in former days, not allowed to hold civil office. In some of the New England States Sunday (or _Sabbath_, as they wrong-headedly insist on calling it) begins at sunset on Saturday; but in most of them it legally begins at twelve o’clock on Saturday night, lasting twenty-four hours. In some States contracts made on that day are void; but generally they are binding, if good in other respects. Of course the name Sunday is the Anglo-Saxon _Sunnan-dœg_, equivalent to the Roman _dies solis_, so called in both tongues from its being anciently devoted to the worship of the sun. Sabbath is the Hebrew noun _shabbāth_ (rest) from the verb _shābath_ (to rest).

To ourselves and those who think with us that the state, in legislating about matters of religion, whether doctrinal or merely of exterior observance, is overstepping her proper limits—nay, who go further, and insist that government was no more instituted to educate our children than to feed and clothe them; that there is not an assignable ground for the former which would not be even more conclusive for the latter—it follows that all such legislation, from that of Cromwell’s Puritans and the Six Sessions of Scotland, down through the Blue Laws of Connecticut, to the last municipal regulation that allows no concert on Sunday unless it be a “sacred” one, and no procession accompanied by a band of music on that day, seems, what it really is, an absurdity and a monstrosity, a relic of odious strifes and bitter hates; and we would be glad, in common, we think, with sensible and tolerant men of all creeds, to see our statute-books rid of its remotest traces.

In speaking of any religious practice enjoined by the Catholic Church we have this advantage: viz., that what it is at one place or time it is in all places and at all times. The practice, then, of Catholics, in accordance with the church teachings above stated, is to hear Mass on Sunday, and, except in cases of necessity, to abstain from servile labor. Most Catholics also attend Vespers on that day, though there be no absolute obligation. We take no extreme cases, either of the very pious on the one side who for their souls’ sake may be said to make a Sunday of every day in the week, or of those on the other hand whose religion sits so lightly upon them that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether, beyond a feeble claim to the name of Catholic, they have any religion at all. Among the 200,000,000 Catholics of the world are to be found many of both descriptions. We speak, however, of the average. Among these, Mass and Vespers being over, there will be found no strait-lacedness; no tone peculiar to a Sunday, put on for that day, and not observable on other days; no hesitation in conversing about sublunary affairs of all kinds that can and may engage the attention during the week. Should a concert-hall be open, as in Europe is often the case, the Catholic hesitates not to go there, providing it be one to which he would go on any day—_i.e._, if it be a proper place for himself or family under any circumstances. He converses on business or for pleasure with his friends in the public gardens, at the _cafés_; with his family he visits other families with whom they may be intimate. He does not hesitate to write a business letter, to view a lot which he thinks of purchasing, or to take the railway train on that day. It is needless to go further. He has complied with the command of the church, and, not being a _law unto himself_ spiritually, he invents for himself no obligations superadded to those of the church, which, in accordance with the commands of Scripture, he believes himself _bound to hear_.

In speaking of Protestant doctrine or practice we are, of course, more at a loss to speak definitely than when we lay down Catholic usage; since the former rarely remains the same on any single point, even within the same sect, for an ordinary generation of man. Why, fifty years ago Christmas was an abomination, “a rag of popery,” to all but the Anglicans. The sign of the cross was “the mark of the beast.” An organ in a meeting-house was “a seeking out of their own inventions.” Of the least approach to a liturgical observance, were it but the repetition of the Creed, it was said: “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Now nearly all the sects make a feint of some sort of service or observance of the Christmas season; the cross is displayed within and without many church buildings; not merely organs but string and brass bands fill the choirs of Protestant fashionable churches; they may nearly all be heard falsely repeat, Sunday after Sunday, that they “believe in the holy Catholic Church”; and the prophet who should now foretell their changes in another half-century would run the risk of being mobbed in the public streets.

We give the doctrinal teaching of the Presbyterians on Sunday and its observance, or at least of so many of the different religious bodies going under that name as still subscribe to, and say they deduce their doctrines from the Bible _via_ the Westminster Confession of Faith. It was formerly, and is to some extent still, the most generally received teaching on the subject of observing the Sabbath among English-speaking Protestants, who seem to have had a monopoly of spiritual information and an exclusive enlightenment on this whole matter. How much the bitter hatred existing between Roundhead and Cavalier had to do with the firm hold the said observance took on Puritans and their descendants is not to the present purpose to inquire. In response to the question, “How is the Sabbath to be sanctified?” we have this answer:

“The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting _all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days_; and spending _the whole time_ in public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as may be taken up in works of necessity and mercy.”

What was meant by this is sufficiently indicated by the legislation effected both before and subsequent to the meeting of the “Assembly of Divines.” We are assured by excellent authorities that in England, some twenty years after the appearance of Bownde’s book, people “dared not, for fear of breaking the Sabbath, kindle a fire, or dress meat, or visit their neighbors; nor sit at their own door nor walk abroad; nor even talk with each other, save and it were of godly matters.” In 1643 the Long Parliament enacted laws “for the more thorough observance of the Sabbath,” and caused to be burnt by the hangman James I.’s _Book of Sports_. In the next year the Court of Six Sessions forbade in Scotland all walking in the streets on the Sabbath after the noonday sermon; and soldiers patrolled the streets, arresting both old and young whom they should find outside their houses and not on the way to or from church. The gates of Edinburgh were ordered to be shut from ten P.M. of Saturday till four A.M. of Monday; and the case is on record of a widow who had to pay a fine of two merks for having “had a roast at the fire during sermon time.”

It is told of an English lady of rank in our own day that, having procured some Dorking fowl, she some time after asked the servant who attended to them whether they were laying many eggs; to which the latter replied with great earnestness: “Indeed, my lady, they lay every day, _not excepting even the blessed Sabbath_!” Nor is the puritanic feeling still existing to a considerable extent among some few of the sectaries in Scotland badly illustrated by Sandie’s remark when he saw a hare skipping along the road as the people were gathering for sermon: “Ay! yon beast kens weel eneuch it’s the Sabbath day!” And the countryman passing on his way to “meeting,” who, when asked by a tourist the name of a picturesque ruin in the vicinity, answered: “It’s no the day to be speerin’ sic like things,” gives the reader an idea of certain peculiarities (formerly quite prevalent among Protestants, and still too common for the comfort of those who have many of the straiter sort for neighbors) which, we believe, are gradually but surely fading out before the progress of intelligence and with the wave of superstition and intolerance. For it must be borne in mind that the same Westminster Confession, relying too on Scripture, insists on the right and power of the civil magistrate _circa sacra_, contends that “he beareth not the sword in vain,” and that kings should be “nursing fathers” and queens “nursing mothers” to the church. We will do our modern Presbyterians the charity to believe that in subscribing to this instrument, they do so with some “mental reservation”; otherwise the cry against union of church and state that we so frequently hear from them would (when taken in connection with their former antecedents as a sect and their present professed standards) be quite unintelligible.

Now, of the mode of keeping Sunday followed by Protestants in Continental Europe we need not speak, nor of the practice of Anglicans in the same regard, save in so far as the latter have (principally through the lower or _evangelical_ division of their body) been modified and influenced by its former subjection and present proximity to the Puritan element of the English population. In the countries of Europe claimed as Protestant, and as a very natural as well as logical result of the indifferentism taught by the so-called fathers of reform, Luther and Calvin, it is difficult for the tourist to discern in Prussia, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, save by the greater number of people at the theatres, concerts, and exhibitions, in the beer-gardens, taverns, and other places of resort, whether the day be Sunday or not. Some, of course, attend church on that day, it being almost the only day of the week on which such service is ever held. Geneva and the non-Catholic cantons of Switzerland may be passed with the same description, which completely exhausts Protestant Continental territory in Europe. Nor of the mode of observing Sunday inculcated by the Anglicans in England can we say that it is at all overdone or puritanical. They have, at least, escaped the dismal parody of asceticism which distinguishes such of their Scotch neighbors as have any trace of the ancient practice left.[152] Let us glance a moment at the laws of our Puritan friends of New England, that we may get an idea of bigotry run mad, and of the deductions that may be drawn from Vincent Bownde’s book and the teachings of the Westminster divines. “Having themselves,” as Washington Irving well observes,” served a regular apprenticeship in the school of persecution, it behoved them to show that they were proficients in the art.” The Puritans of Massachusetts thus legislate in regard to the “_Sabbath_” in the “Plymouth Code”:

“This court, taking notice of the great abuse and many misdemeanors committed by divers persons profaning the Sabbath, or Lord’s day, to the great dishonor of God, reproach of religion, and grief of spirit of God’s people, do therefore order that whosoever shall profane the Lord’s day by doing unnecessary servile work, by unnecessary travelling, or by sports or recreations, he or they that so trespass shall forfeit, for every such default, forty shillings, _or be publicly whipped_; but if it clearly appear that the sin was proudly, presumptuously, and with a high hand committed, against the known command and authority of the Blessed God, such a person, therein despising and reproaching the Lord, SHALL BE PUT TO DEATH, or grievously punished, at the discretion of the court.”

In support of the same wretched Sabbath superstition the colonies of Hartford and New Haven issue the following edicts:

21. “No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting.”

22. “No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath day.”

23. “No woman shall _kiss her child_ on the Sabbath or fasting day.”

Omitting, for very shame’s sake, to say anything of No. 38 of Governor Eaton’s code, the reader will perceive in the above quotations to what absurd results logical consistency drives the fanatic when he becomes so by cutting adrift from the safe moorings of God’s church and trusts his salvation to the puny cockboat of private judgment. These Puritans had disclaimed the title of the church which originated the Sunday; they would not, like Cranmer, accept it as “_a mere appointment of the magistrates_”; so there was nothing left for them but to slur over the utter vagueness of its mention in the New Testament, and refer the whole observance back to Moses and the Third Commandment. In doing this why were they not consistent throughout? Why did they not _let their lands rest in the seventh year_? Why not observe the _year of Jubilee_ ordered by the sanction of the same Lawgiver?

As before stated, Protestant practice, like the doctrines from which it emanates, is Proteus-like in form and phase; nor is the method followed in the observance of Sunday any exception to the general rule. But, upon the whole, the offspring of Knox, the descendants of Bownde, and the adherents of the straiter sects stand up more strenuously and make a stouter fight (not in argument, but by sheer persistence) for the rigorous keeping of the “Sabbath” than they have found it convenient to do for many doctrines and usages which, logically speaking, were of far more importance to Protestantism as a system. Our outward and visible life in the United States, in Canada, and in the British Isles is to this day, in this one matter, largely tinctured and deeply infected with the plague of stupid and superstitious keeping of the Sunday, begun in factious opposition to the English state establishment, propagated by the work of Bownde, eagerly appropriated by Andrew Melville and the Scottish politico-religious agitators of his day, and transmitted to us through the Rump Parliament and the Puritans of New England. The “able and godly” ministers of these latter, who, in the words of Mr. Oliver, “derided the sign of the cross, but saw magic in a broomstick,” though their descendants have recoiled from the teachings of their childhood into Unitarianism or infidelity; though not one-half the adult population of New England now belongs to any Christian sect; and though of all bodies of men that ever existed under a guise of religion in the face of day they were the most inconsistent, the most bigoted, the most superstitious, the most intolerant, and the most relentlessly persecuting, are yet often forced upon our admiration. It has somehow become the fashion to laud these bigots to the heavens in annual _palavers_ of New England Societies, Plymouth Rock orators, Fourth of July and other spread-eagle speakers; and though their other doctrines and practices have vanished, leaving on their chosen ground scarce a trace behind, yet we are reminded of their spirit and _quondam_ influence by the shackles of legal enactment in regard to Sunday observance; by the tumult that rises from certain classes of Protestants as silent custom or outspoken enactment from time to time sweeps out of existence some one or other of the trammels with which Puritanism, in its day of power, enthralled us. With what persistent zeal do they not agitate in the newspapers and petition authorities, municipal, State, and federal, against the running of the horse-cars, the rail-cars, and the mail steamers on the Sabbath! How terrible, in their eyes, are the Sunday excursions of the laboring people of our large cities! How clearly do they not perceive that liberty is a good thing only so long as everybody thinks and acts exactly as they do! Did they not prove that we lost the day on a famous occasion during the civil war by delivering battle on Sunday? How insanely anxious are they not to have the Almighty (their Almighty, that is to say) in some way constitutionally harnessed to the already hard-racked instrument which consolidates the government of these States! It is true that these men are the _têtes montées_ of fanaticism of this sort, and we are far from affirming that a majority of their co-religionists go with them. Indeed, we know, from daily observation, that in many of the sects there exists but little of the spirit indicated, and that what remains is fast disappearing. But there exists enough of the embers to render walking amid them very annoying, and, with the assistance of a good breeze from the preachers, these embers may easily, and on small provocation, be fanned into a flame! Has not fanaticism displayed an unexpected vigor in connection with the question of opening our great Centennial Exposition on the only day on which the industrious poor can have the chance of seeing it without manifest injury to their temporal interests?

Our Protestant friend of the stricter sort awakes on the Sunday morning, bethinks himself of the day, dresses (having shaved himself provisorily on Saturday night), schools his countenance into the most malignantly orthodox cast, takes in hand the Bible, Baxter’s _Call_, or Boston’s _Fourfold State_, and descends to the parlor; that is, he would descend but that he hears one of his boys whistling in an adjoining room, who must at once be reproved therefor, to be more fully punished next day.

“To Banbury came I, O profane one! There I saw a Puritane one Hanging of his cat on Monday For killing of a rat on Sunday.”

Having thus effectually “borne testimony” and quenched the spirits of the juvenile members of the family, who, fully knowing what Sunday means to them, have learned experimentally that

“Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage,”

he sits down gazing at his book, fancying, in some vague way, that he is doing God service (though how or to what end would seem indistinct, since, according to his most cherished doctrine, there is no merit whatever in good works). He hears with disgust the bell of the irreligious milkman, sees the unsanctified horse-car pass his door, the irreverent baker make his round, and notes the profane newsboy cry the Sunday papers. This last is the most afflictive dispensation of all, and the one against which he has most vainly and frequently petitioned, never thinking that, even on his own grounds, the real gravamen is in the papers of Monday morning, the work for which must necessarily be done on Sunday. Breakfast comes at length—eaten in solemn silence—the children being “hard up” for an apposite moral or religious observation, and fearful lest, should they say anything, it might be something mundane. Nor can the mother help them to diminish the gloom of the occasion, having been herself furtively engaged in eking out the shortcomings of the servant in preparing the meal, and painfully aware that, according to the family scheme of orthodoxy, she has not been sanctifying the Sabbath. Family worship (on this day longer in the prayer than usual) adds in no way to the general cheerfulness. Each boy and girl, supplied with a Sunday-school book of the stereotyped pattern and contents, and given to understand the enormity of even the desire to take a walk on that day, longs in the inmost heart that the day were over. Church time comes, when, with a warning that they will be expected to answer on the text, the sermon, and an admonition against drowsiness, all are trooped off to meeting, the parents bringing up the rear. Then ensues an hour and a half of dreary listening to what most of them cannot, by the remotest possibility, comprehend. More than likely some of them may have been overcome by sleep; in which case even the negative pleasure of apathy is taken away, and its place supplied by a fearful looking-for of judgment, either by rebuke or castigation. The dinner is, in want of hilarity, a repetition of the breakfast; for no secular idea may be expressed, and the spirit does not move the younger branches, in any special degree, to an interest in the rather languid remarks of the paterfamilias upon the theological tendencies of the sermon; said observations being delivered in his Sunday tone, compared with which a gush of tears would be exhilarating. Books are retaken; no cheerful game or romp among the children; no free play or interchange of ideas between the parents. To write a letter would be a crying sin for the father. It is a heinous fault when his mind spontaneously wanders to that note of his due on Wednesday next; and although the mother had the interesting and enlivening lucubrations of _Edwards on the Will_ in her hands, yet there is much reason to believe that the washing of to-morrow has more than once intervened to prove Edwards in the right; not to mention the occasion on which she caught herself recalling the trimmings of Mrs. X—‘s bonnet in the front pew. No visit from, none to, any family of their acquaintance; either would be a sin against the sanctity of the Sabbath! We need not visit the Sunday-school, to which the superstitious folly of the parents, fear of their fellow church-members, the Mrs. Grundyism of sects, or an unfounded belief that something valuable is learned there compels the parents to send their children. Probably most of our readers know how these things are managed; what is the _causa causativa_ of a Sunday-school superintendent; what is the calibre of the young men who teach, and the object which takes them there. We all, of course, know and recognize the high moral aims as well as the literary and theological ability of the misses who form the grand staff of instructors in those institutions! But we must not be diverted from our sabbatarian Sunday.

Then follows a dreary tea, meeting and sermonizing again, from which two of the children, having gone hopelessly asleep soon after the exordium, are brought home in a dazed state, nor does a protracted bout of family worship much assist in arousing them therefrom; and then to bed! We suppose the father to be honest. Many such men are. We doubt not but many of the Puritans were sincere, and slit the ears of the Quakers with the serenity of good men engaged in the performance of a virtuous action. But let us put the question squarely to reasonable men: Will it be a matter of surprise if this man’s children, when they grow up, loathe and abhor all religion, thinking it all of a piece with that in which they were brought up—if they turn out, in short, what the descendants of the Puritans have become? Why, the writer is acquainted with a school, kept by a well-meaning man, in which, by tedious Bible-reading, hymn-singing, and long-winded prayers at the school opening and closing, the teacher is unwittingly the cause of more of what _he_ would consider sacrilege, in an hour, than is heard of profanity among all the hackmen of New York on the longest day of the year; and his great object, which is to bring up Presbyterians, is thereby rendered as utterly futile as though he were an ingenious man doing his utmost to make infidels of them.

Curiously enough, people of this kind (we refer to the strict keeping of Sunday) are never satisfied with the liberty they enjoy (and which nobody wishes to curtail) of observing the day just as rigorously as they may desire. Not at all. There is no happiness or ease of spirit for them until by legal pains and penalties they can force you, me, and all their neighbors to their own peculiar way of thinking and acting. This was well illustrated by the Scotchman who, in telling how pious a people he had got among, said: “Last Sabbath, joost as the kirk was skailin’, there was a drover chiel comin’ alang the road, whustlin’ an’ lookin’ _as happy_ as gin it was the middle o’ the week. Weel, sir, oor lads is a _God-fearin’_ set o’ lads, an’ they wur joost comin’ oot o’ kirk. Od! they yokit on him, an’ amaist kilt him.” This is, after all, the point of the matter. We neither can, by right, ought to have, nor have we any objection to any observance of the Sunday, however rigid or however much (to our mind) it may seem strained, overdone, and even ludicrous. That is the affair of the man himself, and should lie between his own conscience and his Creator, where we have no right to interfere. But we all want and have a right to the same privilege for own conviction, or want of conviction, that we cheerfully accord to him. Now, this such people as he never will accord to us so long as they can possibly prevent it. They never have done so in the history of the world, and, taking experience for our guide, we have no reason to suppose that they ever will. They prate largely of liberty of conscience, but that phrase means in their mouth liberty to think as you please, _so long as you think with them_. Though he is my neighbor, may not my daughter play the piano on Sunday on account of his tender conscience? Must I not, because he fancies the Sunday thereby desecrated, practise the flute? I do not attempt to interfere with his drone of family worship; why should he be eternally petitioning to stop the delivery of my letters, or to prevent my going down-town in the horse-cars on that day? I insist that he has as much as he is called on to do in attending to the affairs of his own conscience; that the contract is quite as much as he can conveniently and creditably get through with and I object (I think with reason) to giving up mine to his charge. I want a keg of beer in my cellar, or, it may be, a basket of champagne. _Because he is virtuous, shall there be no more cakes and ale?_ Shall his being scandalized because I think proper to take a walk on Sunday confine me all that day to the house? Must his scruples of conscience prevent myself and family from entertaining our friends on Sunday? In short, must I always be on tenterhooks to know how his conscience regards every act of mine on that day? It would seem, though, as if that were just what my neighbor and his atrabilious friends have been aiming at. For, now that I think of it, they have been since ever I remember the self-same people, who have all along got up meetings, been active in urging petitions, and done their utmost to thwart every convenience or facility that for the past twenty-five years has been contrived for public accommodation on Sunday.

On further reflection, they are the identical individuals who have publicly and privately been marplots in every matter in our vicinage, during the same length of time, which did not fully recognize their little _Ebenezer_ or _Bethel_ as its fount and origin; and though they are possibly not to be convinced, yet it is highly important for these people and all their class to learn once for all that the days of Puritanism are gone, and that nowadays every man is responsible for his own acts to his Creator, and not to Mr. Jones next door, nor to the congregation with which he worships. We do not wish Mr. J—— to read his letters on Sunday, nor will we force him to patronize the street-car on that or any other day; but we want him and his friends to cease from making laws that interfere with our freedom, while thrusting upon them nothing which, _willy nilly_, they are bound to accept.

Thus it will be seen that our objection is not to our friends of the various illiberal “schemes of salvation” as individuals, nor to their practice of a peculiar and, to us, by no means an alluring primness of speech and gait on Sunday; but to their unwillingness to allow us, who see things differently, to follow our own convictions, and to their manifest determination that we shall, in the event of their ever having the power, be forced to adapt ourselves to their views and practices. This overbearing spirit seems to be inseparable from their pharisaic practice and its resultant prejudices, so that our dislike to both is well founded. As to the sanctification of the Lord’s day, they have an indisputable right to celebrate it just as austerely as may best suit them, though we think them grossly and foolishly wrong therein. They may call the day _Sabbath_, if they please, though we know that word to signify Saturday, and nothing else. But in return for this (not _concession_, for it is their right) we wish to suggest mildly that _we_ also have certain inalienable rights; that among these, according to a highly-respectable and much-lauded document of which we sometimes hear, “are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and we modestly venture the additional suggestion that the municipal and other laws which already exist, and those which these people would fain enact, touching an enforced observance of the Sunday after _their_ fashion, interfere largely with our _just liberty_ and militate strongly against our chances of success in the _pursuit of happiness_.

Finally, which method of observing the day seems the more in accord with right reason? And here we wish the Protestant to lay aside a moment, if he can, the prejudice engendered by the tyranny of early education, surrounding usage, and personal habit. Our having been accustomed from early youth to a specific article of diet, clothing, or to a habit of any kind, physical or mental, does not necessarily make an entirely different usage wrong or the direct reverse _sinful_. If it be a command of God that Sunday shall be observed after the fashion of the ancient Jews with their Sabbath, we have nothing to say, except that even _then_ we object to its observance being made a matter of legal enactment. No man was ever yet driven to the Almighty by fear of temporal pains and penalties; nor is any worship acceptable to our Creator unless it be a free-will offering of the heart. But when Protestants admit with us that the Mosaic dispensation is past and the type done away with in the fulness of that which it prefigured, we certainly cannot consider the law of the Pentateuch any more binding upon us in this respect than in regard to the rite of circumcision, the usage of polygamy, or the obligation of a brother to marry his deceased brother’s wife. But there is, in the New Testament, no warrant at all for the change of the day, much less any rule for its special observance; and consequently, on Protestant principles, any day in the week—indeed, any one in ten days, a fortnight, or a month—would answer the purposes of religion equally well; and as there is no Scriptural command, the mode of observance is purely of human invention.

We of course do not speak here of the Sunday, or of any one day in seven, employed (apart from religious purposes) solely for the purpose of recruiting the jaded physical energies of him who toils on the other six days in the week. The necessity for a periodical suspension of toil and labor depends on physical laws to which no reference is now made; and as the turmoil of trade and the competition of labor go on increasing, the necessity for the regular recurrence of a day of rest becomes more and more evident. The laboring classes are too numerous and too deeply interested in the preservation of the stated holiday for it ever to die out. In this view of the question—the purely physical one—the mode of observance would be simply a matter of discretion and utility, and would not come within the purview of the civil law at all; though the actual appointment of the day might, for the sake of uniformity and for many other reasons, very properly be considered as pertaining to government. We, however, speak of the day as a divine or an ecclesiastical institution, in which light its observance will depend upon the direct word of God or command of his church; but in no case will the civil law have any right to interfere either by dictum or permission.

But even supposing, for argument’s sake, what we by no means admit—viz., that the Sunday should be observed in accord with the prescriptions of the Pentateuch—we do not see how it follows that innocent and healthful recreation should be denied on that day, either to the young, for whom it is absolutely necessary, or to the middle-aged and the old, to whom it is at least desirable. There is a great and palpable distinction between recreation and labor. The latter is forbidden on the Sabbath in the Decalogue; but does the former stand in the same case? The words are: “_On it thou shalt not do any work._” It does not say: “On it thou shalt take no recreation, nor shalt thou play.” It is one thing to say to the hod-carrier or the navvy that he shall not mount the ladder with the heaped hod or ply the mattock and spade; and it is another and quite a different thing to say to either that he shall not take a walk in the suburbs, go with his family on an aquatic or rural excursion, or visit the “Exhibition buildings” on a Sunday. It is against such superstitious abuses, which had, in course of time, grown up on the authority of the sophistical Rabbins touching the Sabbath, that our Saviour so frequently and pointedly protests; and against the same or similar illiberal practices we now protest.

We Catholics say that the Sunday is like other holidays of obligation, of the same enactment, and on the some footing with them—_i.e._, they are all instituted by command of the church. Now, with the Sunday, as well as with the other church festivals of obligation, comes the duty of hearing Mass and refraining from servile labor; but the law of the church ceases at that point, and “where there is no law there is no transgression.” The Catholic believes the other days ordered by the church to be observed just as binding as Sunday; but it never enters his head to attempt to coerce Protestants either into the same belief or observance. His Protestant friend says to him in effect: “I have a very tender conscience touching the observance of this day. Your cheerfulness interferes with my devotional feelings; your Sunday recreations, walks, visits, and travel scandalize me, and offer a bad example to my rising family. On last Sunday morning yourself and family rode out in the horse-cars to the park; in the afternoon you entertained a houseful of visitors, during which time you, with the flute, accompanied your daughter on the piano. The Sunday previous you took the train for an adjoining city. The Sunday papers are frequently taken at your house. You write, post, receive, and read letters as unconcernedly on the Lord’s day as though it were the middle of the week. When we had the power you would have been _firstly fined_, then _whipped_, and for stubborn persistence _put to death_ for this; but in these degenerate days all I can do is to put every legal and social obstruction in your way that our decaying numbers but ever persistent determination will enable us to do. Alas for the days that are gone!”

Now, with the parents on either side we have little to do. The mind of the Catholic is made up; his conscience is informed from the precepts and instructions of the church; and we have no desire to change his views or practice in the premises. And, in the case of his opponent, there are few tasks so hopelessly wanting in results as that of convincing a man against his will; as that of trying to surmount religious prejudice in the adult. But we put it to fair reason, to common sense, to the community (which has a manifest interest that its members shall be under the influence of some religion, and not utter infidels), to answer: In which of the two families exists the stronger likelihood that the children will grow up stanch and ardent believers in religion? Will any one tell us that it will be in that in which a dark, overshadowing pall, under the name of piety, was made “to press the life from out young hearts”; in which every thoughtless, merry, or exuberant word or act of theirs was represented as sin “_deserving God’s wrath and curse for ever_”; in which no memory of youth connected with religion can be other than sombre, dismal, and remorseful? Or will it be in the Catholic family, where the child is taught, not merely in words, but in fact, that “_my yoke is easy and my burden is light_”; where, as he grows up, religious observance constantly appeals to him as a privilege, not as an infliction; where cheerfulness, mirth, and jollity are by no means considered hostile to, but rather the concomitants of, true religion; and where no day of the week is definitely consecrated to unnatural gloom and false (because enforced, and consequently hypocritical) devotion?

The answer is plain. Statistics of the result, with children brought up under each set of influences, bear us triumphantly out; and, in fine, thankful as we are for the daily and yearly decrease in numbers and influence of those who maintain this rigorous observance of the Sunday, we shall be still better pleased, and it will be a happy day for this and the other English-speaking peoples among whom they ever existed, when the quibbling, narrow-minded, and sophistical principles and practices represented by such persons shall have been entirely stamped out beneath the onward march of tolerance and Christian charity.

[152] Not having had an opportunity of extensive travel in Scotland, we cannot speak of anything but Edinburgh and Glasgow; but on the few Sundays that we passed there, if there was any more specific and noticeable observance of the day than by _more copious drinking_, we failed to see it.

THE ETERNAL YEARS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DIVINE SEQUENCE.”

CONSUMMATION.

We have spoken of the way in which the arch-enemy, the seducer of God’s children, is aping the mysteries of the still hidden future, according as his subtlety and his enmity direct him. But while his rage and cunning are devising new deceits for those who are not enlightened by divine truth, or who have hid their light under a bushel, our attention is called in a special manner to her whose office it is, and ever has been, to crush his head. Whenever and wherever the deceits of men and devils are putting out the light and wrapping the soul of man in darkness, there does the Virgin Mother come more openly and more directly to counteract the fatal influence. It has been reserved for the cold, matter-of-fact, utilitarian last half of the nineteenth century to see awakened in the multitude the simple and romantic faith in pilgrimages and in the childlike, pathetic histories of Mary’s appearances upon earth that lent such charm to the ages of faith. If the enemy of mankind seems to have more power allowed to him in the evil days on which we have fallen, so the Mother of fair love, from whose pure hands the divine odyle streams, is deigning to speak to children and childlike souls, showing herself to be the great channel of special graces, the medium of divine communications, and the sure refuge against Satan’s acted prophecy and pantomime of God’s loving intentions. “We will come to him, and dwell with him”—and Mary is the precursor and the channel now as she was then to his first coming, when he took flesh in her womb. The promise to the individual soul is the promise to the church: and _vice versa_. The revelation of God in the church is also the life of God in the soul—the two are bound up in one. The life of the church is the guarantee of the life of the soul; it is the only sure foundation of such life; and the golden house, the _domus aurea_, of that life is devotion to the divine Mother. For as her presence, her sweet virginal life, was the necessary preliminary to the first coming of Christ, so will the Son of God not appear on his glorious second mission till Mary has come in the hearts of her people as an army with banners; all her prerogatives known and worshipped, all her position, flowing from her rights as the mother of the God-man, acknowledged and understood, and her court of angels following in her mystic footsteps upon earth, even as the bees follow their queen wherever she may choose to alight; and so preceding the second coming of our dearest Lord and ushering in the new glories of the kingdom of God upon earth.

The Holy Ghost could only be sent by Jesus glorified. The sacrifice of the cross needed to be accomplished and the precious blood shed, before the promised Paraclete could come. And thus between the one stupendous event and the other there lies an epoch of forty days, when he had not yet ascended into heaven, and when therefore his risen glory was in a measure incomplete. At the beginning of that dread time, full of the deepest mystery, of which we but imperfectly comprehend the meaning, he was seen first by Mary Magdalene in the garden. And as she fell at his feet with extended hands, he said, “Touch me not.” We have probably all of us at some time meditated sadly on those repelling words.

Time was when she might touch those blessed feet, not with her hands only but with her lips. Does he love her less now that her repentance is complete, and her salvation accomplished? Do not her rapid thoughts go back in one rush to the time when she sat at his feet unrebuked, whiling away the contemplative hours as she listened to his words and heard him say she had chosen “the better part”? Does she not with a pang of wounded love recall the moment when she wiped the precious ointment with her hair from the feet she had bathed with it and with her tears? But now he says, “Touch me not!” Yes, there is a change. But, O loving heart! it is not a change of loss but of gain. It is true there is an interim in which our beloved Lord is shrouded from us in too much glory for our human sense. The cradle-time of his sweet infancy is past, the grace of his youth, the glory of his manhood, and all the bitter-sweet ignominies of his cross. He has passed somewhat beyond our ken. He is risen, but not yet ascended. The first Mass[153] had not then been offered. The bloody sacrifice was over; the Eucharistic Sacrifice had not been celebrated by mere priestly hands, only by his own divine hands on Holy Thursday. Until Mass had once been said, there was something as it were incomplete in the condition of the church. The next touch, the only touch possible for us (save by a special command to St. Thomas and his faltering disciples), was in the Blessed Sacrament.[154] Now we touch him daily, and fear no rebuke. Jesus is ascended, and the Paraclete has come, and is ever coming more and more; and as the Holy Dove sheds the light of his wings upon the church and speaks through her utterance, so the privileges and the status of Mary are more revealed and more developed. We know more of our queen, and we are learning more of her court, and when both have taken their place in the hearts of men and have prepared for the reign of the Holy Ghost, when the angels have accomplished their mission, the far-off glories of which are hardly dawning on us, then will he make us know all that lies hidden in the deep mystery of his second coming, and God and man and angels will be united in the sweet bonds of Jesus, and through the mediation of her who is clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her virgin head.

This is the divine progression, and this is leading to the divine consummation.

* * * * *

Our task is drawing to a close. It has been our endeavor to encircle the whole creation with the chain of faith, and to bind each to all in endless links of the divine love. We have dared to glance back before time into the bosom of eternity. We have beheld time, as it appears to our human ken, in a manner detach itself from eternity, and seem to become an entity—which indeed it is in a certain sense. We have marvelled at its slow-flowing course and its distant results, as compared with our own rapidity of thought and grasp of imagination. And we have seen that time is patient because it is the offspring of eternity, and because it is the mode and vehicle of God’s revelation of himself to us. God is patient because he is almighty and omniscient. For a little space we have strained our endeavors to look upon the flowing stream as God sees it, and not as we break it up into moments and hours. Our motive for doing this has been to realize so far as is possible the continuousness of God’s action with the indivisibility of his being as he is in himself, and to prove that this indivisibility and intrinsic unchangeableness lie at the root of all his manifestations of himself through the _nunc fluens_ of time. Wherever we have fancied a contradiction to exist, or even a disparity, the error has lain in our partial vision and not in any shadow of change in the great God. He meant always what he means now, but mankind could not always equally bear that meaning. Therefore, as pitying his creation, he has condescended in past ages to pour the divine waters of revelation in diverse colored vessels; so that at one time the limpid liquid seemed to us of a different hue from what it assumed subsequently, until at last the waters of life were held in the crystal vases of the church, pure and white as they. We perceive and understand that the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is the same God as our God of Bethlehem and Calvary. And the unity of God’s nature becomes ever more and more obvious to us as we study the characteristics of his government. At no period and in no place has the loving Creator forgotten the work of his own hands. And lest we could not find him, he has adapted the light he poured upon us to the weakness of our sight. In the unity of God and in his unchangeableness we find our own link to the past, and discover how we are the inheritors of former ages and the heirs of the years to come. We have indicated (we could do no more) the great fact that all is because God is; that he has and can have no other end than himself; and that it is exactly in that great truth that lies all our hope and all our salvation. For he is absolute goodness as certainly and as necessarily as he is absolute being. This being so, it is impossible for us to wish anything that he has made not to be. Dreadful as is the thought of hell, we could not wish hell were not—we cannot wish evil to exist. But we find it there, and we are silent because he has permitted it. We hate it, because, though he permits it, he hates it. But we see how it grows out of the free will of men and angels; and that, as all merit lies in deliberate choice, there could be no choice if virtue were a necessity. Evil is not, like good, an original and universal principle. It is the negation of that; and required, to give it an actual existence, the free power of deliberate selection, like that of the devils when they fell. We see as we read the history of the world, in the light thrown by the knowledge of God, that evil works greater good. And as we can see this in part, we believe that it exists in the whole, though our perception is limited. We know that good must triumph in the end. If we thought otherwise, we should make the devil stronger than God, and the scheme of redemption a comparative failure.

As we enumerate all these things, what is the result we arrive at except one of illimitable joy and confidence—exultation beyond all expression in the might and majesty of our God—a hopefulness that exceeds language—a courage too large for a narrow heart, and a boundless, passionate yearning towards all living souls, that they may learn how great a God is our God, and how good and grand a thing it is to be alive and to serve him?

We can only measure life with any accuracy by the amount of thought which has filled it—that is, by the quantity of our intellectual and spiritual powers which we have been able to bring to the small aperture in the camera obscura by which to contemplate the ever-flowing eternity that lies beyond, and cut it up into the sections we call time.

Another example will show us how plastic is the nature of time. Take the life of an animal. We are inclined to give the largest possible and reasonable importance to the brute creation. It is an open question in which we see great seeds of future development, all tending to increased glory to the Creator and to further elucidation of creative love. Nevertheless it is obvious that brutes perceive only, or chiefly, by moments. There is, as compared with ourselves, little or no sequence in their perceptions. There is no cumulative knowledge. They are without deliberate reflection, even where they are not without perceptions of relations and circumstances, past or future. Consequently, they are more rigorously subjected to time than ourselves. Therefore, when we deprive an animal of life we deprive him of a remainder of time that is equal to little more than no time, in proportion to the degree in which his power of filling time with perception is less than our own.[155] All we have said tends to prove that time has in itself only a relative existence; it is a form or phase of our own being.[156] It is an aspect of eternity; the aspect which is consistent with our present condition.

From the way in which we have seen that God has made use of different races to work for the establishment and development of his church, we have opened a glorious vista of hope in the future, and we have rejoiced over the work to be done, and the laborers who at the eleventh hour shall be called into the vineyard, until even the fragments that remain shall be gathered up, so that nothing may be lost. We have dared to maintain, against all those who cavil at the evil days on which we have fallen, that Christianity has infiltrated its influence in regions where it is blasphemed, or, as in the past Roman Empire, where it was denied. We have endeavored to impress on our readers the importance, and in a certain sense the sacredness, of matter, as the vehicle of God’s demonstration of himself. For, as Fénelon says, “God has established the general laws of nature (which involve all the laws of matter) to hide under the veil of the regulated and uniform course of nature his perpetual operation from the eyes of proud and corrupt men, while on the other hand he gives to pure and docile souls something which they may admire in all his works.” In proportion as we honor God’s laws, so should we honor the means of their manifestation, the substance through and in which they work, and without which they would fall back into the abstract and have no existence outside God himself. We say in proportion, because the manifestation is second to the principle manifested, and the _modus operandi_ is inferior to him who employs it. We have as much difficulty in conceiving of God apart from his operations as we have in realizing eternity apart from time. And therefore is all honor due to the vast creation whereby we see the evidence of things not seen, and everything becomes to us “holy to the Lord.” It is for this reason that the true and intelligent love of nature is essentially the offspring of the Christian faith. The ancients cannot be said to have had it in any degree beyond a remote possibility in their intellectual nature. To them nature was a weird enchantress, hiding her terrible secrets with a jealous care. The silence and solitude of the forests and the mountains were full of a sense of horror. The separate trees held a lamenting and imprisoned spirit; the gay, sparkling streams were a transmuted nymph, which, like the perfumed shrubs and flowers, told some tale of the anger of the gods and their swift revenge. All that was inanimate inspired sadness. And when their pastoral tales rose into cheerfulness, it was that the lowing herds and bleating sheep formed a part. The sounds and motion of at least animal life were essential. The solitudes of nature were simply awful and terrific; for nature was then only a mystery to unredeemed humanity. She held deep secrets in her bosom, but the curse had set its seal upon them all, and she waited in long mournful silence for the hour when the human feet of the Creator should press her varied fields, and by his thrilling touch break the iron bars of her captivity, and teach her to tell of him in the whispered music of her thousand voices. In truth, her secrets were his, nor dared she break silence until he had come to set free the mystery of love for which she was created and instituted. But when Love himself had walked the earth, and mingled his tears—ay, and his precious blood—with the dews of his own creation, then the dark melancholy of nature grew into sweet pathos, and her solitudes were filled with secrets of his presence.

But what was then hidden from the pagan world could hardly be so to the first father of our race, he who out of the vast stores of his infused science named all created beings. When Adam saw the corn growing bright in thick array, and the vine bending down with purple fruit, surely he understood, as in a prophecy, the great symbol of the bread of life and of the Holy Eucharist. The body and blood of the Incarnate God, albeit unbroken and unshed, must have been present to his ardent expectation as he beheld their antitype in the garden of Paradise. The rose with her mystic bosom deep enfolded must ever have awakened some passing thought of the _Rosa mystica_. And when to sad Eve, after her exile beyond the gates guarded by the flaming sword of the cherubim, the rose appeared bearing thorns among her five or seven leaved foliage, she guessed at the sacred crown and the divine wounds of the God-man, and at the sevenfold desolation of the mother who bore him. And what to us are the bright autumn hedgerow leaves dabbed with blood, not red now but tawny? Are they not tokens that he has trod that way and left the traces of his past glorious passion—past, because that blood was shed once for all, but still and for ever remaining; while the scarlet poppy takes up the theme, and in every corn-field, on barren tracks, and meeting the way-worn traveller by the road’s dusty side, reminds him that the sacrifice is renewed hour by hour the wide world over, fresh and life-giving as ever? Can the rich woodlands fail to bring before us the thought of him who gathered from the forests of his own creation the wood for his own cross? Can we sit beneath the dappled sunshine of the flickering boughs without remembering how it dared to lay its quick vibrating touch upon his sacred head, as he walked amid the olive groves of Gethsemane, but withdrew itself, and gave place to the cold moon before the scene of his great agony?

Surely these shadows are full of uncreated light; and from time to time the church retrims her lamps of dogmatic theology, and each time the light streams further down into the still, dim, uncertain regions of natural science, another precious secret is revealed, another ancient doubt dispelled; and matter and natural laws prove themselves each more and more to be the depositories of divine truth and the faithful creatures of the omnipresent Creator.

While acknowledging the force of law, we have denied that law can have an independent existence apart from a self-existing, self-conscious lawgiver, of whom it is the exponent. We have asserted the same as regards force, which is but another name for law, or, rather, which is law _in posse_. And we have stated that as science proves the absence of all direct contact in the material world, the world of atoms, so the only real contact is that of spirit on matter, of the divine Creator on his own creation. For he is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. All forces, all active powers, emanate from God. They are the evidences to us of his existence. They could as little exist without him as a shadow can exist without light. They are one in their nature, though they are diverse in their effects, because they are God’s constant _touch_ on his own creation. He exists formally in all space and beyond all space. And everywhere he is the same: the immutable and absolute _Ens_. In his touch on his creation he gives rise to the active forces which virtually declare his being, and which are extended throughout space, but under a million varied degrees of being and a million varied forms. They are virtually everywhere equally. But their manifestation in mind and degree is as diverse as all that exists in the vast cosmos, inside and outside of which God is, infinite and entire.

We have not enlarged upon this theme as we might have done. We have only pointed out to our readers how God’s touch on his creation is the only absolute contact that exists, and that science goes to prove the absence of all other, that is, of all material contact. We have abstained from trying to demonstrate how this truth sweeps away a hundred doubts respecting God’s ways towards man, and a thousand difficulties that might prove stumbling-blocks to our faith. We have desired no more than to put the thought, nay, we might say the fact, before them, and leave them to work out all its corollaries in love and devotion. We are not writing for sceptics but for those who believe, and would fain believe yet more surely, giving a reason for the faith that is in them, and dwelling in prayer on thoughts which reveal more of God’s character to the soul. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. That is, in our measure and degree, we are to aim at a faint reflection of the harmony, the proportion, the justice of God. To do this, and to aim at doing it, we need to form in our own minds an accurate though but a limited view of the character of God. And to effect this, we must as it were look at his character all round—for which purpose the past, the present, and the future are all-important to us; and we have to view him as he reveals himself to us in his creation, in his government, and in his promises. We have ventured to maintain that the whole of his creation is with a view to his Incarnation; that the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity is enhanced by his glorious passion and most precious death working our redemption; that it is glorified by his resurrection and ascension; and only completed in his sacramental presence; that as this sacramental presence is the one great fact virtually enclosing in itself all the others, as it is the coping-stone of the great mystery of the Incarnation, its lowest depth and greatest height, so is it the link that rivets the creation to the God-man, and the keystone to all the science of matter and dynamic force. For it is the divine epitome of all the laws that govern both, the reason of their being, and the last exponent of their rootedness in God. It completes the circle within whose bounds lies the entire cosmos as a globe environed by the serpent. It is the golden ring with which the divine Spouse has wedded himself to his church and to all the world, if they but know it. Words fail us. We cannot say enough; for these are thoughts too deep for words, and which seem to be rather darkened than expressed by language. And, like all that is greatest, they come to us from that which seems most simple and most hidden of all—a silken-curtained Tabernacle; and behind the little closed door lies all; every secret has its solution within the round white limits of the Host, for that Host is the great ultimatum of the creation, and the absolute consummation of God’s giving himself to man, while the latter is in the condition of viator.

We have entreated our readers not to be deluded by the dimness of the present times, but by prayer and solitary thought to strain their spiritual vision to behold the brightness of the future which is coming upon us like the rays of the sun behind a mist; the reign of the Holy Ghost—the enlargement of the church’s border, and the spreading of the cords of her tent; the devotion to the Mother of God taking root in an honorable people; and thus, through the mediation of her who is the first among all created beings, bringing the whole outer world nearer to the spiritual world. This, and the future mission, may be a very distant one, of her messengers the angels, are all certain because they are written, and even now the signs of the times indicate their advent. In whatever form they may come, whatever may be the details filling up the wonderful picture of the future, whatever, in short, may be the literal working-out of the wonderful promises of the Gospel, one thing at least is certain: they mean peace to men of good-will. We may be quite unable to define or explain them; we are waiting for the hour when the church shall teach us more. But we cannot exaggerate their importance, nor can we deny that our blessed Lord has left a rebuke on those who make no attempt to discern the signs of the times. There are souls among his special servants who are the men of the future. They are those who are called to stand on the watch-towers of prayer, and to hear the cry, “Watchman, what of the night?”

The time of figs was not yet. Nevertheless, he in his eternal justice cursed the fig-tree that yielded him no fruit, when he deigned to look up among the broad, scented leaves of its knotted branches. There are souls who are called to bear fruit out of season as well as in season, and woe to them if they fail in their higher and exceptional spiritual vocation. They are to be beforehand with time; they are to be, though in a silent, hidden way, the spiritual heralds of the future, the harbingers of God’s coming spring, the pioneers of prayer. They are the human messengers that are to prepare his way before him, in those never-ceasing conquests which multiply in proportion as our hearts are ready to receive him. They are to live, as all the great saints have done, in advance of their age. St. Francis was centuries before his time in the refinements of his exquisitely spiritualized nature; St. Vincent of Paul was the same in the creations of his charity; and St. Francis of Sales like St. Philip Neri in the blending of deep piety with the exigencies of modern life. The nearer we approach to the consummation, the more numerous will become the watchers of the night, the souls that are looking out for a new dawn, and who meanwhile are leading an inner life in advance of the present. God alone can know them, and those on whom he has bestowed the gift, though but partially, of the discernment of spirits. To others they will appear as men walking in a dream, visionary and unpractical. It matters not to them. Even here they have in a measure their great reward, for they can say, with their divine Master, “I have meat to eat which you know not.”

We are often tempted to complain that we have fallen upon evil times. The past seems to us to have been more full of heroism, the future we believe will be richer in knowledge. We have slid into a period of prosaic piety mingled with many doubts. Without pausing to argue how much of this is false, we would remark that the present is an epoch which may yield a larger amount of merit to those who know how to profit by it than perhaps any other—we may make a rich harvest of faith and hope. And we must bear in mind that both these are virtues that will ultimately be swallowed up in the greater and crowning virtue of perfect charity. When we see, there will be an end of faith; when we know, hope will expire in certainty. “There remain now faith, hope, and charity; but the greatest of these is charity.” In proportion to the extension of our knowledge, the area of our blind faith is diminished. “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” There is a special grace attending these twilight days, when a larger demand is made upon our faith. The light will gradually increase unto the perfect day—not only the real absolute perfect day of heaven, but in a measure here upon earth. The merit of faith will be less, when the angels are obviously carrying out their mission upon earth, than it is now, when the good lies so hidden, and the evil is so rampant and open. We are foolish not more truly to value the advantages of our own time, and to rejoice that we are called upon to have a greater and a stronger faith than may be possible in those who will, as it were, put their hand into the wounded side where beats the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Whatever has an appearance of discouragement about it is in fact a fresh demand from God upon our larger faith and deeper trust. It is as if he said to us, “You are my friends, and therefore I can count upon you.” We should make haste to lay up a larger harvest of meritorious faith from every doubt that falls across our path and every cloud that veils the sunshine, and by this very act we shall hasten the dawn and bring on the joyous fruition of our prayer. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”—for surely this prayer is intended to be granted in a far greater degree than anything the world has ever seen from the creation to the present hour. Remember who taught us that prayer; and remember the centuries that it has been breathed by all the church of God from infancy to age. It is not a poetic phrase. It is not a hyperbole. It is God’s word, expressive of God’s will and God’s intention; and, therefore, has he made it the universal petition of all his children. It is the epitome of all he demands in every separate soul, until the many units have become a large multitude of the faithful, greater than any man can number.

It is the strenuousness of our faith which will give a greater distinctness, a more delineated and chiselled clearness, to our convictions, and even to our opinions. At present they hang loose on too many of us, and flap about in the high wind of the world’s contempt and impudent indifference, blinding our sight and hindering our steps. A firmer, steadier faith will gather tight across our bosom all our outstanding notions and ideas, bringing them into subjection to the faith which teaches us to see all things as God sees them—that is, according to our degree, but in the same light that he sees them, which is the light of eternity and of his own being. He has bidden us open our mouth wide that he may fill it. Can, we, then hope too largely or too earnestly? Can we assign any limits to the grace of sanctification in its continuous progression, or to the advance of love in the ever-enduring reign of the Holy Ghost? The God towards whom we are being so sweetly drawn is infinite, and though each individual must reach his own appointed measure and degree, yet who can dare put a limit even in thought to the plenitude of that future? But for our great and exceeding hope, how barren would our present life appear! Like Rachel, the church cries incessantly to her Lord, “Give me children, or I die.” Let us repeat the prayer, and re-echo in every act of our lives the passionate desire for the spread of truth and the increase of light; for it is hardly less difficult to guess at the beautiful and glorious future which God reserves for his cherished creations—the garment that he has woven for his only-begotten Son—than it is to form an opinion of the possible glorious future of some souls as compared with others. And is this all? Have we by any unguarded expression left on our reader’s mind a notion that we are anticipating the perfectibility of mankind upon earth, the absence of evil, and a sort of pious utopia, as the sum and substance of our expectations—a deifying of the system of nature, a glorification in some distant future of all the natural laws, as ultimate and final, and which, because of the beauty of creation, are to content us and be in some form or other our higher destiny? Not so. The end is not in that, neither is it here. Were Satan bound now, as one day he will be, we still should as now carry about with us the concupiscence which has tainted the nature of every human being, save only the Mother of God. Alas! we need no devil to prompt us to sin, for we carry an enemy within us. Even mortal sin can be committed without his assistance; and we are but too apt to paint him blacker by thrusting upon him a responsibility which is too often all our own. We believe in no absolutely sinless existence this side the gates of death, except that of the God-man and his immaculate Mother. But this we do believe, that “wisdom is justified by her children,”[157] and we venture to anticipate that all that is holy, beautiful, and fitting in nature will shine with a renewed glory upon earth as the dawn grows to the perfect day, before the temporal gives place to the eternal, and the Son of Man shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father. “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”[158] We have borne the image of the earthly, we must also bear the image of the heavenly—when God shall be all in all, when we shall have ascended by the ladder of the sacred humanity to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, when we shall look on the Triune God and be satisfied. Before the immensity of that thought there falls a veil of light more impenetrable than the thickest darkness. We cease to think. Our whole being becomes as it were detached from our human consciousness, and for one moment, one awful, never-to-be-forgotten moment, we hang over the abyss which is the eternity and the infinity of God. Towards that we yearn, for it is our last end. Even the immaculate heart of Mary; even the unutterable endearments of the sacred humanity; even that which in its mystery and its hiddenness is the nearest approach to the undivided thought of God—the Blessed Eucharist—become to us but parts of a whole which must be ours, if we are to be content. The cosmos rolls away from our sight like a scorched parchment before that living heat. The history of Bethlehem and Calvary are manifestations limited in themselves, and indicative of more. The Blessed Paraclete, whose personality we perhaps sometimes find it hard to individualize (though we do not say with the Ephesian disciples that “we have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost”), becomes in our thoughts a more intense and absolute idea, less vague than in the past, and how inscrutably attractive! We have reached the thought of the Holy Ghost through Jesus. And now we seem to sink into the bosom of the Father through the Holy Ghost; and, in a way too deep for words, to be conscious of ourselves only through our perception of the great God, and to have lost everything save the immensity and the unity, the eternal being and the eternal love, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—the three Persons we have dimly known on earth; and the one God, whom we shall only fully know in heaven, when we shall have entered on the eternal years.

THE END.

[153] By this is meant the first Mass celebrated by a mere man.

[154] With ever-yearning love he calls us in the dear Sacrament of the Altar and before the doors of his tabernacle that we may touch not only his sacred feet as Mary Magdalene pressed them to her lips, but his whole self, his humanity and his divinity in one.

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

[156] Time is the measure of successive existence in created and finite beings. As a finite spirit cannot escape from this limit of successive existence, any more than a body can escape from the limit of locality and finite movement in space, it is evident that this statement is not correct in a literal and strictly metaphysical sense. Eternal existence is the entire possession of life which is illimitable in such a perfect manner that all succession in duration is excluded. It is possible only in God, who is alone most pure and perfect act, and therefore is at once all he can be, without change or movement. The created spirit must ever live by a perpetual movement or increase in its duration, because it is on every side finite. It is impossible, therefore, that time should cease while creatures continue to exist.—ED. C. W.

[157] Matt. xi. 19.

[158] 1 Cor. xv.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE GLORIES OF THE SACRED HEART. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1876. [Republished by special permission of his Eminence.]

There are many excellent works on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The new one whose title is given above is not a mere repetition in a new form of the substance of any of these preceding treatises. It is different from all of them, and quite peculiar in its scope, as well as in its style, as might be expected from its eminent author. Its basis is strictly theological. With his usual and characteristic accuracy of doctrine and lucidity of style, the cardinal makes an exposition of the mystery of the Incarnation and its consequences, especially in respect to the deification and adoration of the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ. The special _cultus_ of the Sacred Heart is explained in its relation to the deified humanity, to the Blessed Sacrament, to the sanctification of men, and to the eternal glory of the elect. This is a book to enlighten the mind of a sincere and devout reader, and, through the illumination of the understanding, to awaken a solid, rational, and ardent devotion.

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We have received the following books, but in consequence of the unusually crowded state of our columns must defer notice of them until later.

TERRA INCOGNITA; OR, THE CONVENTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. By John Nicholas Murphy. Popular Edition. London: Burns & Oates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

SOUVENIRS OF NOTRE DAME: A Collection of Poems and Dramas. By Mrs. Mary T. Monroe. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

JULIAN THE APOSTATE, AND THE DUKE OF MERCIA: Historical Dramas. By the late Sir Aubrey de Vere. London: Pickering.

MARGARET ROPER; OR, THE CHANCELLOR AND HIS DAUGHTER. By Agnes M. Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

REAL LIFE. By Mathilde Froment. Translated from the French by Miss Newlin. Kelly, Piet & Co.

THE WISE NUN OF EASTONMERE, and other Tales. By Miss Taylor. Kelly, Piet & Co.

SAINT ELIZABETH, THE LILY OF PORTUGAL; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE MATRON OF ISRAEL; SAINT ELIZABETH, THE QUEEN OF HUNGARY. By the author of “Life in the Cloister.” Kelly, Piet & Co.

MEDITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR A RETREAT OF ONE DAY IN EACH MONTH. Kelly, Piet & Co.

BERTHA: A Historical Romance. By Conrad von Bolanden. Translated by S. B. A. Harper. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

THE NEW MONTH OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS. From the original French. B. S. P. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham’s Son.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. A Lecture delivered at Leeds, England. By Cardinal Wiseman. St. Louis: Patrick Fox.

LITTLE CATECHISM OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF. New York: Benziger Bros.

SPIRITUALISM AND NERVOUS DERANGEMENT. By William A. Hammond, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF IMMORTALITY. By Antoinette Brown Blackwell. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

CLAREL: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. By Herman Melville. Two vols. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

THE FALL OF THE STUARTS AND WESTERN EUROPE. By the Rev. E. Hale, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By Mandell Creighton, M.A. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

THE LIFE, LETTERS, AND TABLE-TALK OF BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

POEMS. By Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts Bros.

REVOLUTIONARY TIMES. By Edward Abbott. Roberts Bros.

ACHSAH: A New England Study. By Rev. Peter Pennot. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

A QUESTION OF HONOR. By Christian Reid. New York: Appleton & Co.

SPIRIT INVOCATIONS. Compiled by Allen Putnam, M.A. Boston: Colby & Rich.

* * * * *

In the next number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD will be begun a new serial entitled “Six Sunny Months,” by the author of _The House of Yorke, Grapes and Thorns_, etc.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 137.—AUGUST, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.

THE NEXT PHASE OF CATHOLICITY IN THE UNITED STATES.

The history of the universal church, replete as it is with miraculous conversions and great moral revolutions, presents no parallel to the growth and spread of the Catholic faith in this republic; and if we be allowed to forecast the future by the light of the past, we may without presumption predict for Catholicity a career of usefulness and glory, an influence far-reaching and all-pervading, on American soil, hitherto unequalled, even in the most triumphant days of our holy and venerable mother.

In the early ages of Christianity whole tribes and nations were won over bodily to the Gospel, not alone by the superhuman efforts of a comparatively small number of apostolic men, but incidentally by the attractions of the purer and higher order of civilization which everywhere followed their footsteps and resulted naturally from their teachings. The primitive missionaries were reformers of manners and governments, advocates of mercy and equity, promoters of peace, industry, and education, as well as expounders of divine law. They indeed realized the fabled power of Orpheus, and tamed the brute passions of paganism by the harmony of their lives and the melody of their doctrines.

Far different have been the circumstances which surrounded the first permanent introduction of Catholicity into what is now the United States. Though we can dwell with commendable pride on the devotion and self-sacrifice which characterized the Spanish and French Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits in their arduous labors among the aborigines; and recall with deep gratitude the beneficent and indefatigable exertions of the zealous pioneers of our present hierarchy and priesthood, we cannot help feeling that we have had no national inheritance in the merits of those extraordinary men of the Old World, those confessors and martyrs, whose names shine forth with such resplendent lustre in the calendar of the saints of God.

We look in vain, also, for any great name, distinguished for political power or intellectual supremacy, among the humble immigrants who first raised the standard of the cross in the hostile atmosphere of colonial Protestantism. As in the crumbling yet still luxurious Roman Empire, the foundations of our infant church were laid on what, in a worldly sense, may be called the lowest class in the social scale, the poor, the simple, the neglected and despised. Wealth, fashion, and self-interest were opposed to it. A people shrewd, intelligent, and in their own way religious, were in possession of the country, and had neither the will nor the disposition to yield one jot to the professors of a faith which they had been taught to regard as debasing and idolatrous. Only a hundred years ago the Catholics of the United Colonies consisted of a few isolated groups, principally in Maryland and Pennsylvania, without influence, authority, or legal recognition. In the aggregate they counted about one in every thousand of the population, and, save some descendants of the original Maryland settlers, and a few private gentlemen who afterwards rose to eminence in the Revolutionary War, they were alike devoid of wealth and social standing.

Still, this very obscurity was their safeguard and defence. Though soon declared free by the fundamental law of the new confederacy, public opinion, or rather popular prejudice, was against them, and for many years after the achievement of our independence their numbers increased with more steadiness than rapidity. Recruits came from all quarters. Attracted by the guarantees presented by the Constitution, Catholics of various nationalities hastened to place themselves under its protecting ægis. The hurricane of revolution which swept over France and the greater part of Europe, and reached even the West Indies, drove many pious priests and exemplary laymen to our shores. On the north the French Canadian crossed the frontier, while as our southern boundaries were enlarged so as to embrace the valley of the Lower Mississippi, the inhabitants of that large region, who were nearly all of one faith, helped materially to swell the Catholic population of the Union. At that period Ireland had not begun to pour in her myriads, but a small, steady stream of emigrants was setting in from other ports as soon as it was ascertained that the new nation of the west had discarded the penal code of England when it had thrown off her authority.

In 1810 the Catholics within the limits of the United States were estimated at upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand, and the clergy numbered eighty, or double the number reported in 1800. Twenty years afterwards the laity had increased to 450,000 and the clergy to 232. The hierarchy, which only dated from 1789, at this time reckoned thirteen bishops.

From 1830 may be dated the extraordinary growth in numbers, influence, and activity of the Catholic Church in this country. The tide of European immigration, which has flowed on with undiminished volume till within a year or two, then fairly began. Between that year and 1840 over 300,000 arrivals were reported from Ireland, 58,000 from France, Spain, and other Catholic countries, and 150,000 from Germany, a strong minority of whom may also be credited to the church. All these accessions, added to the native-born and already adopted element, brought the Catholic strength in the latter year to over one million, and swelled the ranks of the priesthood to 482, or one for every 2,000 souls.

Satisfactory as were these results, the next decade was destined to witness an advance much more magnificent as to numerical strength, and infinitely more salutary when we reflect on the quarter from which some of that strength was drawn.

The Oxford movement, as it was called, had already spread consternation among the Anglicans. Many of the ablest and most erudite scholars of Oxford University, wearied and dissatisfied with the contradictions and pretensions of English Protestantism, had sought peace and rest in the bosom of the church. Their writings and example produced a profound sensation wherever the English language was spoken, and nowhere a more decided one than in this country. Men who had formerly exhibited nothing but contempt or indifference for Catholicity, and some even who had displayed a marked hostility to the faith, eagerly read the works of such thinkers as Newman, and, as a consequence, guided by Providence, abandoned their favorite heretical notions and became reconciled to the church. This spirit of investigation and submission pervaded all classes, particularly the more studious, conscientious, and influential. Judges, journalists, artists, authors, physicians, ministers, and doctors of divinity openly declared their adhesion to the Catholic faith, and arrayed themselves beside the contemned and obscure Irish immigrant and his children. Many of the ablest publicists of to-day, not a few of the most energetic of the clergy, and at least one illustrious member of the hierarchy are the fruits of this sympathetic movement which had its origin in the cloisters of the once Catholic university.

Another cause which helped to swell the Catholic census about the same time was the annexation of Texas, which eventually led to the acquisition of New Mexico and California. The population of those Territories could have scarcely numbered less than two hundred thousand, nearly all of whom were Catholics. By a strange coincidence the sons of the Puritans, who claimed the land and the fulness thereof as theirs, were brought into the same fold and under the same jurisdiction simultaneously with the native Mexican, whose ancestors were Catholics before the keel of the _Mayflower_ was laid.

German immigration, also, had assumed large proportions. From 1840 to 1850 the arrivals were 440,000, of whom it may be safely said one-fourth, or 110,000, were Catholics. This stalwart element sought what was then considered the far West-Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Territories—where to-day we find them and their descendants among the most devoted children of the church.

But all these influences combined did not equal in effect that produced by the tremendous exodus of the Irish people—a spontaneous movement of population unexampled in modern times. Though immigration from Ireland had steadily increased from the beginning of the century, it was only during the latter half of the decade of 1840-50 that it assumed its phenomenal proportions. Notwithstanding its political servitude, that remarkable island in 1845 presented the spectacle of a population as happy, moral, and law-abiding as any in Christendom. Her people had increased from year to year in a ratio unknown to less virtuous and more pampered lands. The voice of her great leader could at any time call together hundreds of thousands of her enthusiastic sons to listen to the story of their wrongs or to descant on the near approach of legislative independence, and dismiss them to their homes with the promptitude of a general and the authority of a parent. Father Mathew, of blessed memory, had exorcised the demon of intemperance, and counted his followers by millions. Agrarian crime and faction fights, those twin children of misgovernment, were almost unknown, and the soil, as if in unison with the general spirit of peace and harmony, never put forth such an abundance of agricultural wealth. In one night, it may be said, a blight came over all those fond hopes and bright anticipations. The food upon which three-fourths of the people mainly subsisted was destroyed, and Famine, gaunt and lean, suddenly usurped the place of generous abundance.

The destruction of the potato crop of Ireland in 1846-7-8 was undoubtedly the act of an inscrutable Providence; the misery, suffering, and wholesale sacrifice of human life which followed were the work of man. At the worst times of the famine there was always more than enough cattle and grain in the country to feed the entire population. Under a wise or just government a sufficiency of these would have been retained to supply the primary wants of the people; as it was, they were exported and sold in foreign markets to satisfy that most insensate and insatiable of all human beings, the Irish landlord.

Appalled by the suddenness and extent of the calamity, the peasantry at first stood mute, and before assistance could reach them many hundreds had actually lain down and died of starvation. Then, when public and private charity was exhausted; when pestilence was superadded to want, and all earthly succor seemed to have failed; when nothing but death or the poorhouse threatened even the best of the middle class, the people, with, it would appear, one accord, resolved to give up home and kindred, rushed like a broken and routed army to the nearest sea-ports, and abandoned a country apparently doomed to destruction. Many crossed to England and Scotland, others fled even to the Antipodes, but the great mass looked to the United States as their haven of refuge. Thenceforth every day witnessed the arrival of crowded immigrant ships in our harbors, while the streets of our large cities were literally thronged with swarms of strange and emaciated figures. From 1840 to 1850 over one million Irish immigrants arrived in the United States, one-fourth of whom landed at New York during the last three years of that period.

Never were a people less prepared to encounter the difficulties and dangers which necessarily beset strangers coming into a strange land and among a community so different from themselves in manners, habits, and methods of living. Unlike the Germans and other Europeans, who had had leisure and means to organize emigration, the Irish of that memorable epoch acted without concert and without forethought. They had fled precipitately from worse than death, and brought with them little save the imperishable jewel of their faith. Fortunately, this proved to be for them even better than worldly store; it was their bond of unity and best solace in the hour of trial and disappointment which awaits most of those who come among us with exaggerated ideas of the wealth and resources of this country. Numbers of those helpless strangers paused upon the threshold of their new home, and helped materially to swell the already overcrowded population of the large towns and cities; but very many, the majority perhaps, sought the manufacturing villages of New England, the mineral regions of Pennsylvania, and the Western prairies.

Then began in earnest the labors of the resident priesthood, which, though reinforced by numbers of their brethren from abroad, were still hardly equal to the herculean task of providing for the spiritual wants of so vast a mass of people scattered in every direction. Some means, however, had to be found to reach and minister to those faithful though helpless outcasts; some roof under which the holy sacrifice of the Mass might be occasionally offered up and the essential sacraments of the church administered. The churches already built scarcely sufficed for the Catholics settled in the country, yet here was a new congregation arriving in every ship. In the large centres of population the difficulty was not so great; for with the increase of priests the number of Masses said in each church was multiplied, while the sick and the penitent seldom went unattended or unshriven. In the smaller towns and remote settlements the case was far different. Private houses, “shanties,” barns, ball-rooms, court-houses, lecture-halls, markets, and even sectarian meeting-houses were brought into requisition. Yet, with all these appliances, there were hundreds of small, isolated congregations who seldom were enabled to hear Mass oftener than once a month, and in many cases less often, one priest having to attend four or five such missions in rotation.

But the clergy had other and scarcely less sacred duties to perform. Such heterogeneous masses of humanity huddled together for weeks in the foul holds of rotten emigrant vessels, where was germinated the seeds of disease sown by famine and pestilence, could not but bring infection to our shores. From Gros Isle in the St. Lawrence, and along the Atlantic seaboard to New Orleans, the deadly ship-fever polluted the atmosphere, and hundreds who, flying from starvation, had braved the dangers of the ocean, found that they had endured those hardships only to die within sight of the promised land. One prelate and several heroic priests fell victims to the dire pestilence, but others were found equally zealous, not only to soothe the last moments of the dying with the consolations of religion, but to comfort and care for the helpless survivors.

At the beginning of the second half of the century we find the Catholic population of the country estimated at two and a quarter millions, the clergy at eighteen hundred, or one to every thirteen hundred of the laity, while the number of dioceses had increased to thirty-three.

Had immigration entirely ceased at that time, and the growth of the Catholic population been limited to its natural increase, the labors of the priesthood in ministering to the spiritual wants of so large and scattered a body would have more than taxed the energies of a less devoted class of men; while the pecuniary resources of the laity, always so generously expended in the building of churches and asylums, could have to a certain extent borne the unusual draft on their means which the exigencies of the times demanded. But it did not cease. On the contrary, it continued for many years with augmented volume. The causes which had impelled such vast multitudes to renounce home and country for ever were still active. From 1850 to 1860 the immigration from Europe was reported as follows:

From Germany, 950,000; ¼ Catholic, 237,000[159] From France and other Catholic countries, 105,000; ¾ Catholic, 78,750 From Ireland, 1,088,000; 9/10 Catholic, 979,200 --------- Total in ten years, 1,294,950

Thus another million and a quarter were added to the church in America, making a grand total at the end of this decade of four and a half millions of souls under the charge of 2,235 priests, or one for every 2,000 persons. Thus we see that, though the priesthood had received an accession of 435 members in ten years, the labors of each individual had been almost doubled.

Incredible as these figures may seem, the next decade showed little diminution in amount. From 1860 to 1870 the Catholic immigration, calculating on the above basis, may be set down as follows:

From Germany, 268,000 “ France, etc., 51,000 “ Ireland, 841,000 -------- Total in ten years, 1,160,000

If to this reinforcement be added those who have come among us since 1870, we find that the past fifteen years have increased the Catholic census by about one and a half millions from abroad, and materially helped to bring it up to what, on the best authority, it is said to be in this year of grace, 1876—seven millions, or about one-sixth of the entire population.

Fortunately for the interests of religion, the increase in the number of priests kept pace with the wonderful augmentation of the laity. In 1785 there was one priest to every 1,000 laymen; in 1808, one to every 1,500; in 1830, one to every 1,900; in 1840, one to 2,000; 1850, one to 1,200; 1860, one to 2,000; and in 1875, one to every 1,300, or 5,074 priests of all ranks.

Yet, numerous as had been the accessions to the priesthood in those years, the duties and responsibilities of the clerical order increased in greater proportion. The millions of strangers who had sought homes among us, while they preserved their faith and brought with them the grand moral lessons learned in the Old World, could not bring their churches, schools, and asylums. These had to be provided here, and the American priest thus became from necessity a builder and a financier, as well as a teacher and instructor of his people. When the abnormal Irish immigration began in 1847, we had but 812 churches, several of which were small frame buildings, hastily constructed and totally inadequate to the wants even of those who erected them. Many of those have since been pulled down, reconstructed, or rebuilt, and replaced by substantial brick or stone edifices. This in itself was a work of considerable merit; but when we reflect that since then no less than four thousand three hundred new churches have been added to this number, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the work performed in so short a space of time. Nor are those modern buildings generally of that rude and fragile class which were so common fifty years ago, but, on the contrary, most of them are excellent specimens of solid masonry and architectural skill. The noble cathedrals especially which adorn Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Boston, and other sees, are models of design, durability, and grandeur of which any country or age might be proud. The same may be said, but with greater emphasis, of the Cathedral of St. Patrick now nearly completed in New York—that grand epic in marble, from the tall spire of which the glittering emblem of our salvation is destined at no far distant day to shine down upon a million faithful followers of the cross.

Thus it may be well said that the past quarter of a century was the era of church-building as well as of increase. But the vast energy so displayed was not employed solely in one direction. While thousands of temples have arisen to the honor and glory of God, his afflicted creatures, the sick, unfortunate, and helpless; the foundling infant and decrepit grandsire; the orphan bereft of its natural protectors, and the worse than orphaned—the pariah of her sex—all have been cared for, fed, clothed, consoled, and housed. Eighty-seven hospitals and two hundred and twenty asylums of various kinds attest the practical charity and active benevolence of the Catholics of America.

It was formerly said that the Catholic Church could not prosper under a free government; that it needed the help of kingcraft and despotic laws to enforce its decrees and sustain its authority. We have proved the fallacy of this calumny pretty thoroughly—so conclusively, indeed, as to excite real or pretended alarm among bigots of all sects and of no sect at all. No people are more at home and thrive better in all respects in this land of liberty than Catholics.

It has also been asserted that we are the enemies of enlightenment. Our hundreds of convents and academies, and thousands of parochial schools, might be considered a sufficient answer to this falsehood. But, in the providence of God, the time has come when we are called upon to take a further step and demonstrate that in the domain of the highest intellectual studies we are a match for the best of our opponents.

We have no means of ascertaining the exact number of schoolhouses which have been built during this period; probably one thousand would not be too high an estimate, and we are inclined to think that there are even more. In the large cities most of the churches have a building for educational purposes attached; in the rural districts the basement is generally used. There are also a number of what are called charity schools, generally under the charge of some of the teaching orders, of which New York alone boasts twenty-four, erected at a cost of four million dollars. There are six hundred and forty academies and select schools for females, with an average attendance of sixty thousand pupils, for whose accommodation, as well as for the nuns and sisters who watch over them, an equal number of buildings, some very extensive and costly, have been provided.

Though our seminaries and colleges do not show a proportionate ratio of increase, either in numbers or attendance, the result, if taken by itself, is highly satisfactory. In the last century only two of them existed in the United States; up to 1850 ten more were added; in 1874 we had eighteen theological seminaries, attended by 1,375 students, and sixty-eight colleges with over ten thousand pupils and about six hundred professors and teachers.

With all this it must be confessed that, as far as human knowledge is concerned, the Catholics of the United States are as a body behind their non-Catholic fellow-citizens. We acknowledge this inferiority, and can satisfactorily account for it. Under the peculiar difficulties of our position it became a matter of primary necessity that our co-religionists should first have churches wherein to worship God, asylums and hospitals to shelter and succor the weak and afflicted, and free schools for the training of the children of the poor, whose faith and morals were endangered by the plan of instruction pursued in the schools of the state. But now that all these wants have been supplied as far as practicable, and that we may safely confide to posterity the task of completing the work already so far advanced, our next duty plainly is to provide for the generation growing up around us facilities for a higher and more thorough system of education than has yet been attempted in our colleges and academies, equal in all respects, if not superior, to that so liberally afforded by the sectarian and secular seats of learning which so plentifully besprinkle the land.

Remembering what has been already wrought by the zeal and unswerving perseverance of the Catholic body in other directions in the past, we should look forward with undiminished courage and confidence to the future. If with a disorganized, unsettled people like ours, generally poor in the world’s goods, and with never-ending personal demands on their limited resources, we have been able to build and maintain so many churches, institutions, convents, and schools in so short a time, what may not be expected from the same class, now that they are regularly domiciled, and a portion, at least, of the wealth that ever rewards industry and application is fast becoming theirs?

What is wanted in the first instance, in order to give tone and direction to the young Catholic mind, is a Catholic national university, one on a scale comprehensive enough to include the study of all branches of secular knowledge—law, physics, medicine, languages, art, science, literature, and political economy. Such an institution, properly founded and conducted, would find no lack of public patronage. We are satisfied that American parents, whether the descendants of the old Catholic settlers or those who have embraced the faith in later years, instead of sending their sons to Yale or Harvard, to France or Germany, would much prefer to have them educated at home in a university where their religion would be neither a scoff nor an obstacle in the way of their preferment, and where they would grow up American citizens, in fact as well as in name. The German element, also, which constitutes so large a portion of the Catholics of the West, would find in it an adequate substitute for those celebrated homes of learning they left behind in Fatherland, and, under its fostering care, would continue to develop that spirit of profound thought and critical investigation so characteristic of the Teutonic genius.

But the Irish and their descendants, who will long continue to form the majority of the Catholic population of this republic, would derive most benefit from such an establishment. That subtle Celtic intellect, so acute yet so versatile; fully capable of grappling with the most difficult problems of human existence and social responsibility, yet so replete with poetry, romance, and enthusiasm; so long repressed, yet never dimmed, would, we feel assured, spring into life and activity beyond the conception of most men, were such an opportunity presented. In the three centuries following the conversion of the Irish their schools were unsurpassed throughout Christendom in extent, numbers, and attendance. The whole island, in fact, seemed to be turned into one vast reservoir of learning, from which flowed perennial streams of Christian knowledge over the then sterile wastes of semi-civilized Europe. The number of missionaries and teachers which Ireland produced in that most brilliant epoch of her history is almost incredible, and her zeal and energy in the dissemination of Catholic doctrine, even in the most remote parts of the Continent, became proverbial.

Civil wars, long, bloody, and desolating, destroyed her institutions and scattered her libraries, while penal laws of preternatural ingenuity and cruelty completed the work of desolation by denying her even the commonest rudiments of instruction. But as she kept the faith pure and undefiled throughout the long night of slavery, so she has preserved the moral tone and vigor of thought which ever follow a strict observance of the divine code. One generation alone, removed from the barriers and devices of the oppressor, has been enough to show that, in mind as well as in body, the Irish race is at least the equal of even the most favored nations of the globe. In the strength of pure religious conviction lies the greatness of a people.

Perhaps now is the most fitting time for the beginning of a work such as we have endeavored briefly to intimate. From all appearances the flood of immigration which, for twenty or thirty years, has flowed so steadily yet strongly, is fast receding into its former narrow channels. We shall have still, we trust, many foreign Catholics coming among us each year to help to develop the resources of our immense country, and to find peace and freedom under our Constitution; but we need not expect, during this century at least, such an influx as was precipitated upon us by the dreadful Irish famine. The Catholic population henceforth will present a more stable and homogeneous character, and will have more leisure to devote a portion of its wealth and energy to purposes other than erecting buildings and providing for the necessities of homeless and churchless millions. Churches and charitable institutions will, of course, continue to be built to meet the wants of our ever-increasing numbers, but their augmentation, being the result of a normal growth, will be more gradual and natural. We will, in other words, have more time to devote to education and the cultivation of the refinements and accomplishments of life, without in any wise neglecting the primary duties of Christians.

We have had our epochs of immigration and church-building, of extraordinary growth in popular education and incredible effort to supply the wants of the poor and friendless. We are now entering upon an era of mental culture, higher, more elaborate, and more general in its application than it was possible, or even desirable, to initiate amid the distractions and occupations of the busy past. But, ardent as is our desire to see such an important step taken in a direction which we feel would lead to certain success, we only look on it as a means to definite and ennobling ends, and not as the end itself. Mere mental training, dissociated from moral tuition and habits of manly thought and action, would be worse than useless; it would be dangerous alike to the student, to society, and to the cause of morality and religion. To develop the intellect merely at the expense of those greater attributes of the soul in the proper cultivation of which consists the real ostensible difference between man and the brute creation, would be to multiply infinitely the number of educated imbeciles of which the world has already too many.

It cannot be denied that the object of all education ought to be truth, a knowledge of God and of his works, that in the study of them we may learn to love and worship his holy name. Though the custodians of the divine gift of Pentecost are few, as children of the church we may all become sharers in the ineffable benefaction conferred on the apostles. Truth is one and indivisible, It is found not only in the doctrines and discipline of the church, but in every department of life—in every pursuit, study, and calling incidental to the existence of accountable beings. The nearer we come to the apprehension of this truth, the more we are disposed to seek and treasure it when found, no matter in what sphere of life our lot may be cast.

Unfortunately for religion and civilization, the last three centuries have been remarkable more for confusion of ideas on this important subject, and utter perversion of the natural laws, than any other period in the whole Christian era. The war engendered by the Protestant Reformation, the atheistic philosophy of the Encyclopedists, the destructive dogmas of the secret societies, and, in our own day, the gross materialism of the new school of scientists, have so clouded and bewildered, so perverted and debased, the human understanding that the world has come to look upon mere brilliancy of diction, novelty of opinion, and audacity of assertion as the highest evidences of intellectual superiority. Modern Europe, from end to end, is the victim of this lamentable delusion, and our own otherwise favored country is rapidly falling under its malign influence. Shall this foul plague be allowed to enshroud us all, and blight with its deadly breath the future of our young republic?

If such is to be the case, we may read our fate in the past decadence of the most enlightened nations of the Old World. From the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation they have gone steadily, almost blindly downwards, until, as to-day we see, they have ended in blank infidelity. The favored intellectual lights of the last three centuries in Protestant Europe have been men without faith and without conscience, who, with the help of Protestant governments, have sapped and undermined and utterly destroyed even the remnants of the faith in Christianity and a divine Creator of this world that still lingered here and there about the old homes of Christian learning; and literature may be said to have been given over to the service of the enemies of Christ and of his church.

If we contemplate the condition of modern art, we witness degeneracy almost as lamentable. Men wonder that no great sculptors and painters have arisen since the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish schools of the middle ages ceased to exist. Since then we have had artists who draw as well as, and who understood anatomy better than, the best of the old masters; but the inspiration, the spirit that made the figure on the canvas seem to live, is wanting.

The best of our modern painters are but copyists of nature, of landscape, man, or animals. They display no creative power; they are incapable of producing anything original, anything like the least of those historic pieces, those almost superhuman groups, which illustrate in a thousand varieties the incidents in the earthly career of our Redeemer and his holy Mother. Why? Because the mind must first be able to conceive in all its integrity and beauty what the hand is designed to execute. No matter how exact the eye or how deft the touch, if the imagination be not purified by religion and guided by truth, it is vain to attempt to represent on canvas or in marble pure, exalted types of excellence of which we are incapable of forming within ourselves more than an indefinite conception.

It is thus that the Reformers in England, Germany, and the north of Europe, and the Revolutionists in France and the southern part of the Continent, conspired to paralyze, what they could not wholly annihilate, that splendid fabric of Christian thought and genius reared by the church after many centuries of toil and anxiety. In this hemisphere we have suffered from the same malign causes, but our affection is more accidental and sympathetic than chronic. There is nothing in the mental condition of this new and cosmopolitan people to discourage or repel the efforts of those who would earnestly strive after a higher, purer, and more Christian mental development. But such efforts, to be successful, must be made within the bosom of the church. The Protestant sects are incapable of any combined movement in that direction; for they have neither unity of action or thought, nor a common standard by which to measure mental excellence and moral soundness. Clearly the change must originate in the Catholic body.

When we assert this we are well aware of the magnitude of the work to be accomplished and the apparent paucity of the laborers to execute it. But our confidence in the future is sustained by experience. Whoever would have said at the beginning of this century that this hundredth year of our independence would find the Catholics of the United States counted by millions, and their priests, churches, and schools by thousands, would have been looked upon as a dreamer or a rash enthusiast. Who shall say what the beginning of the next century may not be destined to usher in?

As the church is the divinely-commissioned teacher of the world, we desire to see our young Catholic men, the flower of her children, whether they be destined for the liberal professions or otherwise, sent forth into society armed at all points, prepared not only to sustain and defend the faith that is in them, but to demonstrate in their own persons and by their individual conduct how infinitely superior is secular knowledge even when based on eternal truth, to the vague theories and absurd speculations of those who foolishly seek to fathom the designs and comprehend the laws of God while denying the very existence of the Creator of all things.

Any system of education which falls short of this would be worse than none at all. To confer a degree on a student, and allow him to enter the world with the _éclat_ of a university course to give his opinions a certain intellectual character, without qualifying him to uphold the honor of his _Alma Mater_ and the integrity of his creed, would of course be an act of egregious folly. As well might we uniform a soldier and send him into action without arms, or entrust our lives and liberties to the keeping of a statesman of whose loyalty and fidelity we were not fully assured.

Years ago it was confidently asserted by a prominent dissenting minister of this city that the United States would eventually become the battle-field upon which the contest for permanent supremacy between Protestantism and Catholicity would be waged. We agreed with his views then, and everything that has happened in the religious world since confirms the sagacity of the remark. We desire nothing better than that this struggle, if it have to come, shall take place here, where both parties are equally free and well matched, though each has peculiar advantages not enjoyed by the other. The sects, on their side, have numbers, wealth, social position, political influence, and possession not only of the public schools and institutions of the state, but of all the old colleges and universities. On the other hand, the church in America has all the energy, hopefulness, and enthusiasm of youth united to the mature judgment of advanced years; thorough unanimity; and, above and beyond all, a creed and a doctrine founded on eternal truth, fortified by tradition, upheld by divine assistance, and guarded by an infallible authority. The impending conflict will not be one of arms nor of words, but of works and brains; and as the superiority of our opponents is material, not spiritual, it is not difficult to foresee to which side victory would incline.

Since rebellion against God’s law first raised its crest at Worms in 1521, the church has never had so favorable an opportunity of exposing the hollowness, rottenness, and insincerity of the leaders of dissent in all its forms as that presented in this country and generation. In older nations where Protestantism still flourishes it is as the mere tool of the state, the plaything of royalty, without the support of which it could not subsist. Supposing the British Parliament, in the plenitude of its power, should disestablish the Anglican Church, confiscate its property, and imprison its prelates, as Bismarck has done to the Catholics of Germany; how long would that luxurious Establishment remain in existence? The same may be said of Lutheranism in Prussia and Calvinism in other parts of Europe. They are of the earth, earthy, and require the aid of the temporal arm to protect them against their more logical though more destructive offshoots, the free-thinkers and revolutionists. Here, on the contrary, though the sects have through their politico-religious combinations an undue influence in public affairs, they have no appreciable direct state patronage, and must stand or fall by their own merits.

Now, it is well known and pretty generally acknowledged that sooner or later the Catholic Church has always suffered from its connection with the state, even when the alliance seemed to be more than favorable to her. From the very nature of her organization she cannot long be made an instrument of despotism or of selfish ambition. In non-Catholic countries she has generally been persecuted and proscribed: in others she has been as often the victim of impertinent interference and injudicious patronage on the part of temporal rulers. In none has she been free to carry out her divine mission; and, sad to relate but true nevertheless, on all the broad and fair earth the only spot where the church of Christ may be said to be unshackled and disenthralled is this young republic of the West.

This fact is in itself a great gain for us in view of the opposition we may expect in the time to come; but there are others which, though less apparent, are well worthy of consideration. Few persons who have not devoted special attention to the matter can form an estimate of the radical change which has been taking place, gradually but surely, in the American mind regarding Catholicity. Fifty years ago there were hundreds of towns and villages where the professors of our faith, few and obscure, were looked upon with downright contempt, while a Catholic priest, because unknown, was regarded as little less than a monster of iniquity. This gross prejudice, the result more of ignorance than badness of heart, was stimulated and fostered by local ministers and itinerant preachers, who, having neither fixed principles in religion nor definite notions of right and wrong upon which to descant, have been too much in the habit of entertaining their hearers with denunciations of the church and her priesthood. In nearly all those places where formerly so little was known about our faith are now to be found substantial churches, large and respectable congregations, zealous and respected priests, and perhaps one or more educational and charitable institutions.

The rural American, who, with all his deficiencies, is usually a fair-minded and reflective man, being thus brought face to face with the things he had been taught to loath, begins to feel the mists of prejudice lifted from his judgment, and ends by respecting the devotion and unaffected piety of those he lately contemned. Many other causes have likewise contributed to this desirable revolution in popular feeling, such as the annual visit of so many of our wealthy and influential citizens to Europe, where the ancient splendor of the church may be seen in all its perfection; while the conduct of the dissenting ministers, their perpetual quarrels among themselves, and the open disregard shown by them in so many instances for public decency, have disgusted many of their most attached followers, and set them groping after truth and spiritual rest in the direction of the church.

It may now be justly said that bigotry of the former malignant type which affected all classes can at present only be found among the lowest and most ignorant, and that Protestants of a higher grade in society, convinced of their errors, have gracefully abandoned them. So far have they advanced in charity that they are now willing to admit that Catholics may be good citizens, agreeable neighbors, and honest dealers; but still they cannot be persuaded but that mentally, if not morally, they are inferior in natural capacity and acquired information to their own co-religionists. There only remains one thing more to be done to make persons who think thus sincere friends and possible allies, and that is to demonstrate to their satisfaction that there is nothing in the teachings or practices of our religion tending to dwarf the intellect or weaken the understanding; but, on the contrary, that the more closely we assimilate human knowledge to the revealed law of God as expounded by the church, and the more we are governed by the rules which she has laid down for our mental conduct, the better qualified we become to stand in the front rank of the highest social and intellectual movements of the age. This accomplished, as we fondly hope it soon will be, the future destiny of our half-converted brethren lies in the hands of a power superior to that of man.

Every indication of the popular desire for such an educational establishment as we have foreshadowed points out the present as the most propitious time for its foundation. By and by it may be too late. The national character of our people, though not yet definitely formed, is fast crystallizing, and whatever impress is made on it now will be defined and permanent. We do not aim to distort or subdue the intellect of our young men, but to captivate and to cultivate it by holding up for its ambition the noblest of careers—the pursuit of virtue and the study of the great truths of religion and of nature. We would make, if we could, the Catholic laymen of the next generation, each in his own sphere, leaders in a new crusade against error, not through the use of force or legal compulsion, but by the greater purity of their lives and the superiority of their genius.

Herein lies the great future of the Catholic layman. Never before did such a career open before him. His sires of past ages met the infidel with sword and spear and the weapons of the flesh, and beat him back from the then hallowed soil of Christendom. To-day he faces a subtler, fiercer, and more resolute infidel than the Turk. As the flower of the Turkish hordes was composed of the janissaries, the perverted children of Christian parents, so to-day the standard-bearers of infidelity are the lost children of the cross. The weapons with which this new crusade is to be fought out are the moral and intellectual forces. Every portion of the civilized world is a battle-field. All must not be left to the pulpit, the confessional, the priest. The layman moves where the priest never penetrates, where the confessional is unknown, the pulpit mocked. Let him bear his faith with him, and its influence will tell. Let his wit be keener, his temper cooler, his knowledge wider and deeper than that of his foe, and infidelity, that brawls to-day with braggart tongue, will soon learn, if not to repent, at least to dread an encounter where there can be no doubt as to the issue.

We cannot have a healthy Catholic literature and a correct standard of public taste without lay aid any more than we can fill our colleges, schools of art and science, conservatories and gymnasiums, without such cordial assistance. Catholic laymen have to a great extent the destiny of their children and of the church in America in their keeping; and as their responsibility is heavy, so will be their reward or condemnation signal, according as they use or abuse the trust reposed in them by an all-wise Providence.

So far they have shown every indication of a willingness to make all possible sacrifices for the education of their children, and a reasonable desire to encourage Catholic literature, much more so than those can appreciate who do not know our country and the peculiar difficulties we have had to overcome. Some of our foreign contemporaries, in England especially, are in the habit once in a while of drawing pleasing distinctions between the state of Catholic literature abroad and in this country. In this comparison we naturally appear to no very great advantage. We are frequently reminded of the lamentable condition of things that compels us to draw on foreign sources for our literary stores, while it is hinted that it is almost time we looked to ourselves for intellectual support. All this, of course, we take placidly enough, while thoroughly understanding the spirit that gives rise to it. We are proud to concede the superiority of the great body of English and other Catholic writers who have done such service to the church and conferred such honor on the Catholic name. Still, we do not feel so utterly hopeless of future success in this line, nor even despondent as to the degree of success to which we have already attained. And considering the means at our disposal, glancing back at the century behind us and its fruits, the 25,000 swelled to 7,000,000, the solitary bishop to a great hierarchy, the few scattered priests to a valiant army, the little out-of-the-way chapels to a multitude of massive churches and towering cathedrals, the communities of religious of both sexes, the asylums for the waifs and strays, the deserted and sorrowing, the maimed, the halt, and the blind of the world—glancing at all this, we are in a fair position to say to literary critics: Gentlemen, thus far our hands have been pretty full. We grant you all the culture you please; may it increase a hundred-fold! We have not had much time to sit down and study. From the beginning we have been in the thick of a fierce fight. Peace is at last coming; the smoke of battle is clearing away; the heavens are opening and smiling above us. Our dead are buried; our wounded are gathered in; the prisoners taken from us are being sullenly but surely returned; our frontier is guarded and respected. Now we turn to the arts of peace. All that has been accomplished thus far has been done without any abundance of fine writing. This has been mainly the work of our faithful Catholic laity under the guidance of a loyal clergy and episcopacy. To that same laity we look for greater triumphs to come.

As a people we have no long line of princes and statesmen to defend, no schism to apologize for, no national outrages against God’s church to explain away or palliate. We have every confidence in the Catholics of this country to accomplish, under Providence, whatever they undertake for the benefit of religion and the spread of Christian enlightenment. The future of America is for us. While the professors of the sectarian creeds, in their efforts to force on the public and on each other their peculiar views, have reached their climax and are descending into the depths of nihilism and refined paganism, the church in this republic enjoys the pristine vigor of youth and an unexampled unanimity both in spirit and in action. In her organization there is a vast amount of latent force yet undeveloped, a mine of intellectual wealth that awaits but the master hand of the explorer to bring it to the surface. Great indeed will be the reward, high the fame, of him who will help us to utilize this unsuspected and unused treasure.

[159] The figures showing the gross immigration are taken from official returns, mainly from the _Reports of the Bureau of Statistics on the Commerce and Navigation of the U.S._; the _Reports of the Commissioners of Emigration_, New York; and _Thom’s Irish Almanac and Official Directory_, Dublin. The approximate number of Catholics is our own calculation. Though the population of Germany is more than one-third Catholic, we consider it safer to set down the proportion of Catholic emigrants from that country at one-fourth of the whole. When the famine began in Ireland, ninety-two per cent. of the population was Catholic; and as it was from this portion that our immigration has since been principally drawn, ninety per cent. is not considered too much to credit to Catholicity.

THE LIFE AND WORK OF MADAME BARAT.[160]

Madeleine-Louise-Sophie Barat was born on the 12th of December, 1779, in the little village of Joigny, in Burgundy. Her father was a cooper and the owner of a small vineyard, a very worthy and sensible man and an excellent Christian. Her mother was remarkably intelligent and quite well educated, far superior in personal character to her humble station, very religious, and endowed with an exquisite sensibility of temperament, controlled by a solid virtue which made her worthy to be the mother of two such children as her son Louis and her daughter Sophie. The birth of Sophie, who was the youngest of her three children, was hastened, and her own life endangered, by the fright which she suffered from a fire very near her house during the night of the 12th of December. The little Sophie was so frail and feeble at her birth that her baptism was hurried as much as possible, and the tenure of her life was very fragile during infancy. As a child she was diminutive and delicate, but precocious, quick-witted, and very playful. The parish priest used to put her upon a stool at catechism, that the little fairy might be better seen and heard; and at her first communion she was rejected by the vicar as too small to know what she was about to do, but triumphantly vindicated in a thorough examination by _M. le Curé_, and allowed to receive the most Holy Sacrament. She was then ten years old, and it was the dreadful year 1789. Until this time she had been her mother’s constant companion in the vineyard, occupied with light work and play, and learning by intuition, without much effort of study. At this time her brother Louis, an ecclesiastical student eleven years older than herself, was obliged to remain at home for a time, and, being very much struck with the noble and charming qualities which he discerned in his little sister, he devoted himself with singular veneration, assiduity, and tenderness to the work of her education. This episode in the history of two great servants of God, one of whom was an apostle, the other the St. Teresa of her century, is unique in its beauty.

The vocation of the sister dated from her infancy, and was announced in prophetic dreams, which she related with childish _naïveté_ like the little Joseph, foretelling that she was destined to be a great queen. When Sophie was eight years old, Suzanne Geoffroy—who was then twenty-six, and who entered the Society of the Sacred Heart twenty-one years afterwards, in which she held the offices of superior at Niort and Lyons, and of assistant general—was seeking her vocation. Her director told her to wait for the institution of a new order whose future foundress was still occupied in taking care of her dolls.

Louis Barat divined obscurely the extraordinary designs of Almighty God in regard to his little sister, and, faithful to the divine impulse, he made the education and formation of her mind and character the principal work of the next ten years of his life—a work certainly the best and most advantageous to the church of all the good works of a career full of apostolic labors. He was a poet, a mathematician, well versed in several languages and in natural science, very kind and loving to his little sister, but inflexibly strict in his discipline, and in some things too severe, especially in his spiritual direction. In a small attic chamber of his father’s cottage he established the novitiate and school composed of little Sophie Barat as novice and scholar, with brother Louis as the master. The preparatory studies were soon absolved by his apt pupil, and succeeded by a course of higher instruction, embracing Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish. Sophie was particularly enchanted with Virgil, and even able to translate and appreciate Homer. The mother grumbled at this seemingly useless education, but the uneducated father was delighted, and the will of Louis made the law for the household. During seventeen months he was in the prisons of Paris, saved from the guillotine only by the connivance of his former schoolmaster, who was a clerk in the prison department, and released by the fall of Robespierre. Sophie went on bravely by herself during this time, and continued her life of study and prayer in the attic, consoling her father and mother, who idolized her, during those dreadful days, and persevered in the same course after her brother’s release and ordination, under his direction, until she was sixteen. At this period her brother, who had taken up his abode in Paris, determined to take his sister to live with himself and complete her education. Father, mother, and daughter alike resisted this determination, until the stronger will of the young priest overcame, with some delay and difficulty, their opposition, and the weeping little Sophie was carried off in the coach to Paris, to live in the humble house of Father Louis, and, in conjunction with her domestic labors, to study the sciences, the Holy Scriptures in the Latin Vulgate, and the fathers and doctors of the church. She had several companions, and the little group was thus formed and trained, not only in knowledge but in the most austere religious virtues and practices, under the hand of their kind but stern master, for more than four years. During the vintage Sophie was allowed to take a short vacation at home, of which she availed herself gladly; for she was still a gay and playful girl, submitting with cheerful courage to her brother’s severe discipline, yet not without a conflict or without some secret tears. She was a timid little creature, and the injudicious severity of her brother’s direction made her scrupulous. Often she was afraid to receive communion; but she was obedient, and when her brother would call her from the altar of their little chapel, saying, “Come here, Sophie, and receive communion,” she would go up trembling and do as she was bidden. Her great desire was to become a lay sister among the Carmelites, and her companions were also waiting the opportunity to enter some religious order. Father Barat did not doubt her religious vocation, but he wanted to find out more precisely how it could be fulfilled. Her divine Spouse was himself preparing her for the exalted destination of a foundress and spiritual mother in his church; and when she had attained her twentieth year, this vocation was made known to her and accepted with a docility like that of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the angel’s message.

The history of the origin of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus requires us to go back some years and relate some events which prepared the way for it. Four young priests, Léonor and Xavier de Tournély, Pierre Charles Leblanc, and Charles de Broglie, had formed a society under the name of the Sacred Heart, intended as a nucleus for the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus. The superior was Father Léonor de Tournély, a young man of angelic sanctity, and a favorite pupil of the saintly Sulpician, M. l’Abbé Emery. This young priest received an inspiration to form a congregation of women specially devoted to the propagation of the devotion of the Sacred Heart and the higher education of girls. The first woman selected by him as the foundress of the new society was the Princess de Condé, under whom a small community was formed at Vienna, but soon dispersed by the departure of the princess to join the Trappistines. Soon after Father de Tournély died, having scarcely attained his thirtieth year, leaving in his last moments the care of carrying out his project to Father Varin. Joseph Varin d’Ainville was a young man of good family, who, after passing some time in a seminary, had left it to join the army of the Prince de Condé, with whom he made several campaigns. He had been won back to his first vocation through the prayers of his mother, offered for this purpose on the eve of ascending the scaffold at Paris, and the influence of his former companions, the four young fathers of the Sacred Heart above named. On the very day of the prayer offered by his heroic mother he was determined to return back to the ecclesiastical life on receiving communion at Vanloo, in Belgium, when he had met his four saintly friends, whose society he immediately joined. Having been elected superior of the society after the death of Father de Tournély in 1797, Father Varin was persuaded to merge it in another society formed by a certain Father Passanari under the title of the Fathers of the Holy Faith, which was also intended as a nucleus for the revival of the Order of Jesuits. The Archduchess Maria Anna, sister of the Emperor of Germany, was selected to form in Rome, under the direction of Father Passanari, a society of religious women according to the plan of De Tournély, and she went there for that purpose, accompanied by two of her maids of honor, Leopoldina and Louisa Naudet. Early in the year 1800 Father Varin returned to Paris with some companions, and Father Barat was received into his society. In this way he became acquainted with Sophie, and her direction was confided to him, to her great spiritual solace and advantage; for he guided her with suavity and prudence in a way which gave her heart liberty to expand, and infused into it that generosity and confidence which became the characteristic traits of her piety, and were transmitted as a precious legacy by her to her daughters in religion. As soon as Father Varin had learned the secrets of the interior life of his precious disciple, and had determined her vocation to the same work which had been already begun in Rome by the three ladies above mentioned, three others were admitted to share with her in the formation of the little Society of the Sacred Heart. One of these was Mlle. Octavie Bailly, another was Mlle. Loquet, the third was a pious servant-girl named Marguérite, who became the first lay sister of the society. On the 21st of November, the Feast of Our Lady’s Presentation, the little chapel was decorated in a modest and simple way. Father Varin said Mass. After the Elevation the four aspirants pronounced the act of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and afterwards they received communion.

This was the true inauguration of the Society of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, for the attempt made at Rome by the archduchess proved a failure; the intriguing, ambitious character of Father Passanari was detected, and Father Varin renounced all connection with him and his projects. These events occurred, however, at a later period, and for some time yet to come the little community in France remained affiliated to the mother-house in Rome.

The first house of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the one which has always been called the cradle of the society, was founded at Amiens one year after the consecration of the postulants in the little chapel of the Rue Touraine. A college was established in that city by the Fathers of the Holy Faith, and a visit which Father Varin made there early in the year 1801, for the purpose of giving a mission and preparing for the opening of the college, led to an arrangement with some zealous priests and pious ladies of Amiens for transferring a small school of young ladies to the care of Sophie Barat and her companions. Two of these ladies of Amiens, Mlle. Geneviève Deshayes and Mlle. Henriette Grosier, joined the community, of which Mlle. Loquet was appointed the superior. This lady proved to be entirely unfit for her position, and after some months returned to her former useful and pious life in Paris. Mlle. Bailly, after waiting for a considerable time to test her vocation, at length followed her first attraction and left her dear friend Sophie for the Carmelites. Sophie Barat, with the consent of her companions, was appointed by Father Varin to the office of superior, much to her own surprise and terror, for she was the youngest and the most humble of her sisters; and from this moment until her death, in the year 1865, she continued to be the Reverend Mother of the Society of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, through all its periods of successive development and extension. It was on the 21st of December, 1802, soon after her twenty-third birthday, that she was definitively placed in this her true position, for which divine Providence had so wonderfully prepared her. She had been admitted to make the simple vows of religion on the 7th of June preceding, in company with Madame Deshayes. The community and school increased and prospered, and on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, Sept. 29, 1804, they were installed in their permanent residence, one of the former houses of the Oratory of Cardinal de Berulle. The community at this date comprised twelve members, including postulants. Their names were Madeleine-Sophie Barat, Geneviève Deshayes, Henriette Grosier, Rosalie-Marguérite Debrosse, Marie du Terrail, Catharine-Emilie de Charbonnel, Adèle Bardot, Felicité Desmarquest, Henriette Ducis, Thérèse Duchâtel, Madame Baudemont, and Madame Coppina. The two last-mentioned ladies afterwards brought the society into a crisis of the gravest peril, and finally withdrew from it, as we shall see later. Of the others, Mesdames Deshayes, Grosier, de Charbonnel, Desmarquest, and Ducis were among the most eminent and efficient of the first set of co-workers with the holy foundress herself in the formation and government of the society and its great schools and novitiates. The final rupture with Father Passanari had already been effected, and Madame Barat was therefore the sole head of the society, under the direction of Father Varin. Twelve years elapsed before the constitutions of the society were drawn up and adopted, and during this period the first foundations were made, a most dangerous and well-nigh fatal crisis was safely passed, the spirit and methods of the new institute were definitely formed; thus laying the basis for the subsequent increase and perfection of the vast edifice of religion and instruction whose corner-stone was laid by the humble and gracious little maiden of Joigny in the depths of her own pure and capacious heart. St. John of the Cross says that “God bestows on the founder such gifts and graces as shall be proportionate to the succession of the order, as the first fruits of the Spirit.” The whole subsequent history of the Society of the Sacred Heart shows that this was fulfilled in the person of Sophie Barat. After the second foundation had been made in an old convent of the Visitation at Grenoble, Madame Baudemont was made superior at Amiens, and the first council was held for the election of a superior-general. Madame Barat was elected by a bare majority of one; for a party had already been formed under sinister influences which was working against her and in opposition to Father Varin, and seeking to change altogether the spirit of the new institute. From this time until the year 1816 Madame Barat was merely a superior in name and by courtesy at Amiens, and she was chiefly employed in founding new houses, forming the young communities, and acquiring sanctity by the exercise of patience and humility. The new foundations were at Poitiers, Cuignières, Niort, and Dooresele near Ghent; and of course the society received a great number of new subjects, some of whom became its most distinguished members—as, for instance, Madame Duchesne, the pioneer of the mission to America, Madame de Gramont d’Aster and her two daughters, Madame Thérèse Maillucheau, Madame Bigeu, Madame Prévost, Madame Giraud, and the angelic counterpart of St. Aloysius, Madame Aloysia Jouve. We must not pass over in silence the benediction given on two occasions by the august pontiff Pius VII. to Madame Barat and her daughters. At Lyons she had a long conversation with him, in which she explained to his great satisfaction the nature and objects of her holy work, and she also received from his hands Holy Communion. At Grenoble all the community and pupils received his benediction, and of these pupils eleven, upon whose heads his trembling hands were observed to rest with a certain special insistance, received the grace of a religious vocation. Another incident which deserves mention is the last visit of Madame Barat to her father. The strict rules of a later period not having been as yet enacted, she never failed, when passing near Joigny on her visitations, to stay for a short time with her parents, often taking with her some of the ladies of her society who were of noble or wealthy families, that she might testify before them how much she honored and loved the father and mother to whom she owed so great a debt of gratitude. On her annual _fête_ she used to send them the bouquets which were presented to her. During her father’s last illness she came expressly to see and assist him in preparing for death, and, though obliged to bid him adieu before he had departed this life, she left him consoled and fortified by her last acts of filial affection, and he peacefully expired soon after her departure from Joigny, on the 25th of June 1809.

At the first council the spirit of disunion already alluded to prevented Father Varin and Madame Barat from undertaking the work of preparing constitutions for the society. A brief and simple programme of a rule was drawn up and approved by the bishops under whose jurisdiction the houses were placed, and Madame Barat became herself the living rule and model, on which her subjects and novices were formed. Father Varin had resigned his office of superior when Madame Barat was formally elected by the council of professed members their superior-general. Another ecclesiastic of very different spirit, who was the confessor of the community and the school at Amiens, M. l’Abbé de St. Estéve, was ambitious of the honor and influence which justly belonged to Father Varin. He obtained a complete dominion at Amiens by means of Madame de Baudemont, a former Clarissine, who was gained over by his adroit flattery and artful encouragement of the love of sway and pre-eminence which her commanding talents, her former conventual experience, and her mature age, together with the advantage of her position as local superior, entrusted to her against Father Varin’s advice, gave a too favorable opportunity of development. M. de St. Estéve arrogated to himself the title of founder of the society, and planned an entire reconstitution of the same under the bizarre title of _Apostolines_, and with a set of rules which would have made an essential alteration of the institute established by Father Varin. All the other houses besides Amiens were in dismay and alarm. Madame Penaranda, a lady of Spanish extraction, descended from the family of St. Francis Borgia, who was superior at Ghent, separated her house from the society by the authority of the bishop of the diocese. She returned, however, some years later, with seventeen of her companions, to the Society of the Sacred Heart.

In the meantime the Society of Jesus had been re-established and the Society of the Fathers of the Holy Faith was dissolved, most of its members entering the Jesuit Order as novices. Father de Clorivière was provincial in France, and Madame Barat, encouraged by the advice and sympathy of wise and holy men, waited patiently and meekly for the time of her liberation from the schemes of a plausible and designing enemy who had crept under a false guise into her fold. This was accomplished through a most singular act of criminal and audacious folly on the part of M. de St. Estéve. Having gone to Rome as secretary to the French Legation, in order to further his intrigue by false representations at the Papal Court, he was led by his insane ambition, in default of any other means of success, to forge a letter from the provincial of the Jesuits of Italy to Madame Barat, instructing her to submit herself to the new arrangements of M. de St. Estéve, which he declared had been approved by the Holy See. In this crisis Madame Barat submitted with perfect obedience to what she supposed was an order from the supreme authority in the church, and counselled her daughters to imitate her example. Very soon the imposture was discovered. Mesdames de Baudemont, de Sambucy, and Coppina left the society and went to join another in Rome, and the rest of the disaffected members of the community at Amiens, although not immediately pacified, made no serious opposition to Madame Barat, and not long after were so completely reconciled to her that all trace of disunion vanished. There being now no obstacle in the way of forming the constitutions, a council was summoned to meet in Paris, at a suitable place provided by Madame de Gramont d’Aster, and its issue was most successful. It assembled on the Feast of All Saints, 1815, and in the chapel which was used for the occasion was placed the statue of Our Lady before which St. Francis de Sales, when a young student, had been delivered from the terrible temptation to despair which is related in his biography. It was composed of the Reverend Mothers Barat, Desmarquest, Deshayes, Bigeu, Duchesne, Geoffroy, Giraud, Girard, and Eugénie de Gramont. Father de Clorivière presided over it, and Fathers Varin and Druilhet, previously appointed by him to draw up the constitutions, were present to read, explain, and propose them to the discussion and vote of the council. The whole work was completed in six weeks. The Reverend Mothers Bigeu, de Charbonnel, Grosier, Desmarquest, Geoffroy, and Eugénie de Gramont were elected as the six members of the permanent council of the superior-general, arrangements were made for establishing a general novitiate in Paris, the society was placed under the government of the Archbishop of Rheims as ecclesiastical superior, who delegated his functions to the Abbé Pereau, a solemn ceremony closed the sessions on the 16th of December, and early in January the reverend mothers returned to their respective residences. The constitutions were received with unanimous contentment in all the houses, including Amiens, approved by the bishops in whose dioceses these houses existed, and, finally, a letter of congratulation, expressed in the most kind and paternal terms, was received from his Holiness Pope Pius VII. From this period the authority of Madame Barat was fully established and recognized, harmony and peace reigned within the society, and a new era of extension began which has continued to the present time. The society with its constitutions was solemnly approved by Leo XII. in a brief dated December 22, 1826, which was received at Paris in February, 1827, during a session of the council. By the authority of the Holy See an additional vow of stability was prescribed for the professed, and the dispensation from this vow reserved to the pope. The rules were made more strict in several respects, and a cardinal protector was substituted for the ecclesiastical superior. The royal approbation for France was at this time also solicited, and granted by Charles X., then reigning. In 1839 another effort was made to give a still greater perfection to the statutes and to provide for the more efficacious government of the institute, now become too great for the immediate government of the superior-general, by a division into provinces under provincial superiors.

At this time the society passed through another dangerous crisis, and for four years was in a disturbed state which gave great anxiety to the Rev. Mother Barat, diminished seriously her influence over her subjects, and even occasioned a menace of suppression in France to be intimated by the government. The cause of this trouble was an effort made by a number of persons both within and without the society to transfer the residence of the superior-general to Rome, and to modify the rules in a way to make the society as far as possible a complete counterpart of the Society of Jesus. In 1843 this difficulty was finally settled by the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, who annulled all the acts and decrees which had been passed in the councils of the society looking towards innovation, and determined that the residence of the superior-general should not be removed from France. Happily, not a house, or even a single member, was separated from the society by this disturbance, and when it passed by the venerable and holy foundress was more revered and loved than ever before, and her gentle but strong sway over the vast family which she governed was confirmed for ever, never again to suffer diminution. Some of the proposed changes were, however, absolutely necessary for the order and well-being of the society, and were provided for in the year 1850 by Pius IX., who decreed the establishment of provinces under the name of vicariates, each one to be governed by the superior of its mother-house with the rank and title of superior-vicar, subject to the supreme authority of the superior-general. At the close of Madame Barat’s administration, which ended only with her life, on Ascension Thursday, 1865, there were fifteen vicariates. Since then the number has been increased. There are three in the United States, one in British America, one in Spanish America; and in these five vicariates there are about eleven hundred religious of the first and second profession, including lay sisters. The number of houses in various parts of the world is about one hundred, and the total number of members four thousand. Madame Barat herself founded one hundred and fifteen houses, and many others have been established since her death. But of these some have been suppressed in Italy and Germany, and others were given up or transferred by the superiors of the order. Madame Goëtz, who was vicar-general to Madame Barat during the last year of her life, succeeded her as superior-general, and was succeeded after her own death, in 1874, by Madame Lehon, the present superior-general.

Our limits will not permit even a succinct narrative of the events which filled up the half-century during which Madame Barat governed the Society of the Sacred Heart, from the memorable council of 1815 until 1865. We cannot omit, however, some brief notice of the foundation of the American mission and the ladies who were sent over to establish it. The first American colony was composed of three ladies and two lay sisters: Madame Duchesne, Madame Audé, Madame Berthold, Sister Catharine Lamarre, and Sister Marguérite Manteau. Madame Philippine Duchesne was a native of Grenoble, where she received an accomplished education, first at the Visitation convent of Sainte-Marie-d’en-Haut, and afterwards under private tutors in the same class with her cousins, Augustin and Casimir Périer. At the age of eighteen she entered the Visitation convent as a novice, but was prevented by the suppression of the religious orders in France from making her vows. During the dark days of the Revolution her conduct was that of a heroine. After the end of the Reign of Terror she rented the ancient convent above mentioned, and for several years maintained there an asylum for religious women with a small boarding-school for girls, waiting for an opportunity to establish a regular religious house. Her desire was accomplished when Madame Barat accepted the offer which was made to her to receive Madame Duchesne and her companions into the Society of the Sacred Heart, and to found the second house of her society in the old monastery of Ste.-Marie-d’en-Haut. Madame Duchesne had felt an impulse for the arduous vocation of a missionary since the time when she was eight years old, and this desire had continually increased, notwithstanding the apparent improbability of its ever finding scope within the limits of her vocation. She was about forty-eight years of age when she was entrusted with the American mission, and lived for thirty-four years in this country, leaving after her the reputation of exalted and really apostolic sanctity. Madame Eugénie Audé had been much fascinated by the gay world in her early youth, and her conversion was remarkable. Returning one evening from a _soirée_, as she went before a mirror in her boudoir, she saw there, instead of her own graceful and richly-attired figure, the face of Jesus Christ as represented in the _Ecce Homo_. From that moment she renounced her worldly life, and soon entered the novitiate at Grenoble as a postulant. Even there, her historian relates, “on souriait de ses manières mondaines, de ses belles salutations, de ses trois toilettes par jour! Même sous le voile de novice qu’elle portait maintenant, elle laissait voir encore, pas sans complaisance, l’élégance de sa taille et les avantages de sa personne. On ne tardera pas à voir ce que cette âme de jeune fille changée en âme d’apôtre était capable d’entreprendre pour Dieu et le prochain.” This great change was wrought in her soul during a retreat given by Père Roger on the opening of the general novitiate at Paris during November, 1816. When called to join Madame Duchesne two years later, she was twenty-four years of age, and, after a long period of service in the United States, was finally elected an assistant general and recalled to France. Madame Octavie Berthold was the daughter of an infidel philosopher who had been Voltaire’s secretary. She was herself educated as a Protestant, was converted to the faith when about twenty years of age, and soon after entered the novitiate at Grenoble. She volunteered for the American mission, animated by a desire to prove her gratitude to our Lord for the grace of conversion, and was at this time about thirty years of age. “Caractère sympathique, cœur profondément devouée, intelligence ornée, spécialement versée dans la connaissance des langues étrangères, Mme Octavie était fort aimée au pensionnat de Paris.”

Mgr. Dubourg, Bishop of New Orleans, was the prelate who introduced the Ladies of the Sacred Heart into the United States. It was during the year 1817 that the arrangements were completed at Paris. On the 21st of March, 1818, the five religious above mentioned embarked at Bordeaux on the _Rebecca_, and on the 29th of May, which was that year the Feast of the Sacred Heart, they landed at New Orleans, where they were received as the guests of the Ursulines in their magnificent convent. Their own first residence at St. Charles, in the present diocese of St. Louis, was as different as possible from this noble religious house, and from those which have since that time been founded by the successors of these first colonists. Madame Duchesne, in her visions of missionary and apostolic life, never dreamed of those religious houses, novitiates, and pensionates, rivalling the splendid establishments of Europe, which we now see at St. Louis, Manhattanville, Kenwood, and Eden Hall. Her aspirations were entirely for labor among the Indians and negroes, and, to a considerable extent, they were satisfied. She began with the most arduous and self-sacrificing labors upon the roughest and most untilled soil of Bishop Dubourg’s diocese, and one of her last acts was to go on a mission among the Pottawattomies, from which she was only taken by the force of Archbishop Kenrick’s authority a little before her death. The present flourishing condition of the two vicariates of New Orleans and St. Louis is well known to all our readers. The foundation at New York was due to the enlightened zeal of the late illustrious Archbishop Hughes, although the first idea originated in the mind of Madame Barat many years before. In the year 1840 the celebrated Russian convert, Madame Elizabeth Gallitzin, a cousin of Prince Gallitzin the priest of Loretto, and assistant general for America to Madame Barat, was sent over to establish this foundation and to make a general visitation, in the course of which she died suddenly of yellow fever at St. Michel, on the 14th of November, 1842.

The first residence in New York was the present convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Houston Street, from which it was removed, first to Astoria, and afterwards to the Lorillard estate in Manhattanville, where is now the centre of an extensive vicariate comprising eight houses in the States of New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Michigan, about five hundred religious, a novitiate containing at this moment forty-eight novices exclusive of postulants, and flourishing schools both for the education of young ladies and the instruction of the children of those parishes which are adjacent to the several convents. It is not necessary to describe for the benefit of our American readers with more detail the history and present condition of the Society of the Sacred Heart in this country. Our European readers would no doubt be interested by such a history; but, besides the imperative reason of a want of space in the present article, there is another which imposes on us the obligation of reserve in respect to works accomplished by the living, to whom has been transmitted the humility as well as the other virtues of their holy foundress. There is one venerable lady especially, now withdrawn from the sphere of her long and active administration to a higher position in the society, who is remembered with too much gratitude by her children, and honor by all classes of Catholics in her native land, to require from our pen more than the expression of a wish and prayer, on the part of thousands whose hearts will echo our words as they read them, that she may resemble the holy mother who loved her and all her American children so tenderly, as “_sa plus chère famille_,” in length of days, and in the peace which closed her last evening.

We have already alluded briefly to the blessed departure of Madame Barat from the scene of labor to the glory which awaits the saints, in the eighty-sixth year of her age and the sixty-sixth of her religious life, on the Feast of the Ascension, 1865. The narrative of a few salient events in her life, and of the principal facts in the history of the foundation of the Sacred Heart, which we have thought best to present, meagre as it is, in lieu of more general observations on her character and that of her great works, for the benefit of those who cannot, at least for the present, peruse the history of M. Baunard, leaves us but little room for any such remarks. The character of this saintly woman must be studied in the details of her private and public life, and in the expression she has given to her interior spirit in the extracts from her vast correspondence published by her biographer. No one could ever take her portrait; and we are assured by one who knew her long and intimately that the one placed in front of the second volume of her life is not at all satisfactory. How can we describe, then, such a delicate, hidden, retiring, subtile essence as the soul of Sophie Barat in a few words, or give name to that which fascinated every one, from the little nephew Louis Dusaussoy to Frayssinous, Montalembert, and Gregory XVI.? Extreme gentleness and modesty, which, with the continual increase of grace, become the most perfect and admirable humility, were the basis of her natural character and of her acquired sanctity. In the beginning her modesty was attended by an excessive timidity, so that Father Varin gave her the name of “_trembleuse perpetuelle_.” This was supplanted by that generous, affectionate confidence in God which shone out so luminously in the great trials of her career. In all things, and always, Madame Barat was exquisitely feminine. She conquered and ruled by love, and this sway extended over all, from the smallest children to the most energetic, commanding, impetuous, and able of the highly-born, accomplished, and in every sense remarkable women who were under her government in the society, to women of the world, to old men and young men, to servants, the poor, fierce soldiers and revolutionists, and even to irrational creatures. With this feminine delicacy and gentleness there was a virile force and administrative ability, a firmness and intrepidity, which made her capable of everything and afraid of nothing. Her writings display a fire of eloquence which may be truly called apostolic, and would be admired in the mouth of an apostolic preacher. Besides the great labors that she accomplished in the foundation and visitation of her numerous houses, and in the government of her vast society, Madame Barat went through several most severe and dangerous illnesses, beginning with one which threatened her life in the first years at Amiens; and was frequently brought, to all appearance, to the very gates of death. Besides these sufferings, and the great privations which were often endured during the first period of new foundations, she practised austerities and penances of great severity, to the utmost limit permitted by obedience to her directors. With her wonderful activity she united the spirit of a contemplative; and there are not wanting many evidences of supernatural gifts of an extraordinary kind, or proofs of her power with God after her death. Mgr. Parisis has publicly declared that her life was one of the great events of this century, and comparable to those of St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catharine of Siena, and St. Teresa. There is but one, universal sentiment in respect of her sanctity, and one, unanimous desire that the seal of canonization may be placed upon it by the successor of St. Peter. A prayer under her invocation has been already sanctioned by Pius IX., and the cause of her beatification has been introduced, the issue of which we await, in the hope that we may one day be permitted and commanded to honor the modest little Sophie Barat of Joigny—who went away weeping in the coach to Paris at sixteen to found one of the greatest orders of the world—under the most beautiful and appropriate title of _Sancta Sophia_.

When we consider the work of Madame Barat as distinct from her personal history, we observe some peculiar and remarkable features marking its rise and growth. It came forth from the fiery, bloody baptism of the French Revolution as a work of regeneration and restoration. Many of its first members had been through an experience of danger, suffering, and heroic adventure which had given them an intrepidity of character proof against every kind of trial. The stamp thus given to the society at the outset was that of generous loyalty to the Holy See, and uncompromising hostility to the spirit and maxims of the Revolution.

Another fact worthy of notice is that so many small communities, private institutes for education, and persons living a very devout and zealous life in the world, were scattered about the territory over which the destructive tornado of revolution had passed, ready to be incorporated into the Society of the Sacred Heart, and furnishing the means of a rapid growth and extension.

New orders are not absolutely new creations. They spring from those previously existing, and are affiliated with each other more or less closely, notwithstanding their differences. Many of the first members of the Society of the Sacred Heart had been previously inclined to the orders of Mt. Carmel and the Visitation. The spirit of the Carmelite Order was largely inherited by the new society, and from the Order of the Visitation the special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was received by the same transmission of mystic life. The organization was produced by the engrafting of the principles of the constitutions of St. Ignatius on the new and vigorous stock. From this blending and composition sprang forth the new essence with its own special notes, its original force, and its distinct sphere of operation. Cardinal Racanati thus expresses his judgment of its excellence: “My duty has obliged me to read the constitutions of almost all ancient and modern orders. All are beautiful, admirable, marked with the signet of God. But this one appears to me to excel among all the others, because it contains the essence of religious perfection, and is at the same time a masterpiece of unity. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is at once the pivot around which everything moves, and the end in which everything results.” Pope Gregory XVI. said that the Rule of the Sacred Heart was in every part the work of God. Although not an exact counterpart of the Society of Jesus, the Society of the Sacred Heart is nevertheless, in its government and method of discipline, modelled after a similar type, with equally efficacious means for producing in its subjects, in a manner proportionate to their feminine character, all the highest religious virtues of the mixed state of action and contemplation. The only important differences between the Society of the Sacred Heart and the older orders of women are the absence of the interior cloister and of the solemn vows. The first, which is obviously an advantage considering the nature of the occupations in which the Ladies of the Sacred Heart are engaged, is compensated for by the extreme strictness of the rules governing their conduct in regard to intercourse with the world, and the obligation of going at a moment’s warning to any house, in any part of the world, where they may be ordered by the superiors. In respect to the second, as the final vows can only be dispensed by the pope, the completeness and sacredness of the oblation for life are not diminished, but only a prudent provision for extraordinary cases secured by the wisdom of the Holy See, which is beneficial both to the order and its individual members. In respect to poverty, self-denial, regularity, and all that belongs to the beautiful order of conventual life, the written rule of the Sacred Heart, which is actually observed in practice, is not behind those of the more ancient orders. In respect to the extent and strictness of the law of obedience, it is pre-eminent among all, and its admirable organization may justly be compared to that acknowledged masterpiece of religious polity, the Institute of St. Ignatius. The more humble occupations to which so many admirable religious women in various orders and congregations devote themselves form an integral part of the active duties of the society. A large portion of its members are lay sisters, and a great number of the religious of the choir are engaged in the instruction of poor children or domestic duties which have no exterior _éclat_. The specific work of the society is of course the education of young ladies, with the ulterior end of diffusing and sustaining Catholic principles and Catholic piety, through the instrumentality of the _élèves_ of the Sacred Heart, among the higher classes of society. There cannot be a nobler work than this, or a more truly apostolic vocation, within the sphere to which woman is limited by the law of God, human nature, and the constitution of Christian society. What an immense power has been exerted by the daughters of Madame Barat in this way as the auxiliaries of the hierarchy and the sacerdotal order in the church, is best proved by the persecutions they have sustained from the anti-Catholic party in Europe, and the fear they have inspired in the bosoms of tyrannical statesmen like Prince Bismarck, who tremble with apprehension before the banner of the Sacred Heart, though followed only by a troop of modest virgins. It is after all not strange. The women of the revolution are more terrible than furies led on by Alecto and Tisiphone. Why should not the virgins of the Catholic army resemble their Queen, who is “terrible as an army set in array”?

It is with great regret that we abstain from setting forth the enlightened, sound, and thoroughly Christian ideas of Madame Barat, and the various councils over which she presided, in respect to the education of Catholic girls in our age. We are obliged also to omit noticing the charming sketches given in the book before us of the first pupils of the Sacred Heart, and the noble part which so many of them played afterwards in the world. We must close with a few words on the merit of the Abbé Baunard’s work, and an expression of gratitude to the distinguished ecclesiastic who has furnished us so much pleasure and edification at a cost of such very great labor to himself. He has been fortunate in his subject and the wealth of authentic materials furnished him for fulfilling his honorable and arduous task. His illustrious subject has been fortunate in her biographer. The _History of Madame Barat_ deserves to be ranked with Mother Chauguy’s _Life of St. Frances de Chantal_ and M. Hamon’s _Life of St. Francis de Sales_. We trust that an abridged life by a competent hand may furnish those who cannot afford so costly a book, or read one so large, with the means of knowing the character and history of the Teresa of our century. There are also materials for other histories and biographies of great interest and utility in the rich, varied contents of this most admirable and charming work, which we hope may not be neglected.

[160] _Histoire de Madame Barat, Fondatrice de la Société du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus._ Par M. l’Abbé Baunard, Aumonier du Lycée d’Orleans, Docteur en Théologie, Docteur es Lettres. Paris: Poussielgue Frères. 1876.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.