CHAPTER XII.

“TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.’

The Signora’s life in these days was disturbed by a doubt that was all the more troublesome because she was obliged to solve it unaided, and that without delay. What should she do with Mr. Vane?

Advice could be of no use, even if she had been willing to ask it. He satisfied perfectly all the conditions concerning which outward influence could have weight with a woman of character and refinement. It is always possible to tell a woman that she should not marry a man, the reasons given being good ones; but it is never possible to tell her that she should marry him, if she does not wish, however excellent he may be. The question with the Signora was, Should she marry at all? She certainly did not wish to marry. Was she willing? Here came up a host of arguments for and against, till she was as tormented and uncertain as Hamlet. If Mr. Vane would have consented to spend his life in Rome and remain her friend, without asking for more, she would have been satisfied, and have thought that her life had gained by him a sweetness she had never known, nor even thought of. For she had not been conscious of anything wanting, till his companionship had taught her that one niche in her house was vacant. She contemplated the possibility of marrying him only in order to keep him near her, not because she wished to change their relations. But the choice was forced upon her to lose him or to marry him.

It was a choice between two evils. Her life had been so exquisite, so nearer perfect than any one but herself could know, that to introduce new and important interests there was a dangerous experiment. How much more likely they would be to disturb than to complete the harmony! And yet, how pleasant was that masculine presence, like a shady tree in the midst of a sunny garden of flowers! How pleasant the sense of a superior physical strength and manly sympathy ever near! How pleasant the consciousness of constantly pleasing one worth pleasing by the thousand little feminine ways and words, and by the very being what she was, like a fragrant rose set in a chamber, silent and gracious. How many little pleasures he gave her which a man gives only to the woman he prefers to all others! It seemed to her she had never been well listened to before. Then to see her do a favor to any one, perform some graceful little act that might pass unregarded by others, even go about her ordinary duties, gave him a vivid pleasure. He appreciated the very rose in her hair, the ribbon at her throat, the bow on her slipper. Little things: but it is the little pleasures which make life sweet, as the little displeasures may do more than afflictions can to make it bitter.

She watched to see what danger there might be of certain small annoyances which she had seen fretting the course of many a married life, and he came out triumphantly from the ordeal. He did not hang for ever about the house till the women grew tired of him, any more than he went to the opposite extreme of staying away too much. He preserved a respectful ignorance of household affairs, in which he held that women should be autocrats, and at the same time listened with interest to any details that might be vouchsafed him, as to curious particulars of a country he had never visited, but which sent him important supplies. He was habitually polite to women, but never gallant, and he would have given a civil reply to a civil question proffered him even by an infamous person; and in the most private life, he dropped only ceremony, never respect. As far as personal habits went, he was a man who might have been a hero, even to his _valet-de-chambre_.

Point by point the Signora tried him, and still found no defect which could seem to indicate a disagreeable habit or an intolerable opinion. She could but laugh—a little nervously, indeed—at her own perplexity.

“You dear soul!” she thought, “why will you not do something hateful and set my mind at rest?”

He would not. He was not even guilty of the one fault that might naturally have been expected of him under the circumstances: he had no appearance of hanging upon her words and looks, as if for some indication of a change of intentions regarding him. She was free to act herself perfectly, without fear of misinterpretation. And yet, in spite of his forbearance, she felt that time was committing her, and that she must soon either decidedly prevent or decidedly receive a renewal of his offer.

The Signora might easily be accused by persons of little refinement of being one who did not know her own mind. On the contrary, she was rather exceptionally prompt and clear as to her requirements. But she was past the age when women usually marry in haste to repent afterward at leisure; and was, moreover, one of the comparatively few women who are fitted by their character to be friends to men without marrying them. The insidious sisterhood which ends in wifehood or in mischief she saw through and reprobated. “No man can have a sister,” she was wont to say, “other than the daughters of his mother. But he may have a friend. And no man has a right to expect sisterly service and familiarity from a woman not born his sister. It is a snare.” As a friend, she would never have charged herself with the care of Mr. Vane’s collars and cravats, advised him regarding the most becoming cut of his beard, nor performed the sentimental service of “bathing his fevered brow” when he had a headache, though she might have done all these things as a sister or a wife.

It was, altogether, a perplexing and even painful situation, and the Signora found all her pleasure disturbed by that ever-present fear of either throwing away a good which she might afterward regret, or committing herself to a state of life which she might regret still more. The weather added to her annoyance. Summer had reached its meridian heat rather prematurely, the sun poured his rays down in a torrent, and at noon the city was like a martyr at the stake. The nights began to lose their freshness and be scorched about the edges; the early stars, instead of shedding dews, were like the coals left in a half-swept oven; and the mornings languished on the horizon. It was a time for not only _dolce far niente_, but _dolce pensar niente_. Besides, people, being at this season so shut up together, need to be at ease with each other. There was very little to call them out, few friends left in town, and but few _festas_.

On one of these days came the _festa_ of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the vigil of which is unique in Rome, being a real witch’s holiday, according to popular superstition. It is an ancient belief among the people that on this vigil the witches have liberty to go about where they will; and, since the world all goes to St. John Lateran, the witches go there too. In order to detect them it was the custom to procure a stick with a natural fork at the end. This fork was placed under the chin, the two prongs coming up over the jaws. Looking at a person over it in this wise, it could be known if he or she were a witch. Moreover, since it was believed that the witches would take advantage of the absence of the heads of the family to enter the houses and do harm to the children, the little ones being their favorite prey, a new broom was bought, and set, broom-end upward, outside the door. Before entering, the witch was obliged to count every spill of the broom. As a further precaution, some salt was sprinkled on the threshold, and, in case that should not prevent their entering, these words were repeated while sprinkling it: “Come tomorrow to borrow salt of me.” The witch who entered was constrained to come and knock at the door the next day, and ask the loan of a little salt. For the further safe-keeping of the children during the night, the mothers hang some object of devotion about their necks or bind it around their bodies, and, when they are about going to sleep, whisper the _Credo_ in their ear, repeating every word twice, thus: “I believe, I believe, in God, in God,” etc.

“What do they think a witch would do to the children, if she should enter?” we asked our Roman informant.

“Take off the object of devotion and touch them, or do something to them so that they would die,” was the reply. “A child that has been touched by a witch pines away to a skeleton, and dies, without any one being able to find out what ails it. I believe, and I do not believe,” she said with a shrug. “Who knows? The Scriptures tell of evil spirits having power. Who knows how it may be? My sister, however, lived and died persuaded that her only child was touched by a witch, though it was not on St John’s eve. She had been getting her baby to sleep one day, when a neighbor came and called her to the door for some reason. She went out, leaving the door open and the baby in its cradle. When she returned, there was an old woman bending over the cradle and talking to the child—an ugly, dirty old creature, that she had never seen before. My sister took fright at once, and called out to her to go away. 'I saw the door open and heard the baby crying, and I came in to soothe it,’ the old woman said. My sister told her she had no right to come in, and chased her away. On the threshold the woman turned and shook her finger. 'You will repent this,’ she said. In fact, the babe, which had been healthy, and was just dropping peacefully asleep, began to moan and cry, and nothing could pacify it. My sister examined and found that the little devotion it wore had been taken away. From that day the child pined. She got nurses for it, she tried everything possible, but nothing helped it. Finally, she carried it to the church of St. Theodore, in the Roman Forum, where all the mothers carry their sick babies. The priest blessed it, but told her that it was too late: the child would die. And it did die. She tried then one proof more. She took all its clothes that it died in, and that it had on when the witch touched it, put them in a grate, and kindled a fire under them. They burned as if there had been gunpowder among them. That was a sure proof, they said. But for me,” continued the story-teller, with another shrug, “I believe, and I don’t believe. _Chi lo sa?_”

It is curious to find how this witch-idea is embodied in every nation, and always with very nearly the same features: old, ugly, child-hating, powerful for petty malice, but a slave to the most trivial spells, repelling, disgusting—a fair representation of the utter despicableness and feebleness of evil.

At the first soft fall of twilight the family of _Casa Ottant’Otto_ stepped into a carriage and drove out to the Lateran by the roundabout way of the Roman Forum. From the Colosseum up to the church, all about the church and palace, in a part of the piazza, and the ends of the streets leading to it, every nook and door-way and every rod of ground had its table or booth, some lighted by a soft olive-oil lamp, others clear and bright with petroleum, others flaring with the red light of a torch. Piles of cakes of every shape and size, wine in bottles, flasks, and jars, cones of the delicious Roman lemons, that are so juicy and fragrant, trinkets, scarfs, knick-knacks of various sorts, covered the tables and counters. Here and there a more ambitious salesman, probably a Jew, had erected a little shop. Everywhere were pinks and lavender. Each table and counter held sprigs and bunches, and men, women, and children went about with their arms full of it. A little crowd of these noisy venders surrounded the carriage the moment it stopped, and the ladies supplied themselves with lavender for their drawers, and bought large bunches of red pinks, and each of them a St. John’s bouquet. This bouquet consists of a little white flower surrounded by pinks, and outside four sprigs of lavender. The lavender for drawers is ingeniously done up. A bunch is gathered with long stems to the sweet gray seeds and blue flowers, and a string is tied close under their little chins. The stems are then turned back to make a cage for the cluster, and tied again at the other end; and yet again turned back and tied a third time, so that only glimpses can be had of the caged bloom; and all is lavender.

“We should have come to first Vespers, if we wished to think of the austere St. John,” the Signora said. “The scene is simply picturesque and beautiful at this hour, and will be bacchanalian later. The world doesn’t begin to come till twelve o’clock, and at that time it will be almost impossible to move for the crowd, which does not disappear entirely till daylight.”

They drove off toward Santa Croce, and, turning there, stayed awhile under the soft dusk of the trees, looking back on the twinkling lights and crowding figures, and talking a little. The fiery half-ring of the three days’ moon touched the tip of a pine-tree in the west and kindled it; the stars overhead seemed to be melting out of their orbits in a glowing rain; the air was full of a sweet fragrance and delicately fresh. Sounds of laughter and mingled voices reached them now and then. But all—the wafts of air, the sounds, the radiating lights, the motions—were so soft that the whole might be a great picture which they half imagined to be alive.

The Signora leaned back in her seat and gave herself up to the scene, mingling with it the ever-present thought: What should she do with this man who sat opposite her? His face was turned to look back, so that she saw the profile, a fine one. She felt very feminine and weak just then—not at all like taking care of herself all her life long, being both mistress and master of her house, and her own adviser and support. The spirit of strength, of an enthusiastic liberty of effort and labor, faded and fainted within her. They could not live in such a scene. She wanted to be taken care of. All the insidious arguments of the sluggard began to whisper themselves to her. Of what use was this constant toil and strain, which was but a daily rolling up hill of a burden that every night rolled down again? Of what use the study, the thought, the self-denial? All had seemed pleasant; but, come to think of it, where had been the repose? Had she ever looked at a flower without, after the first glance, studying how she should present its beauties in words to other eyes? Had she ever drunk a sunset with all its color down into her own soul, and left its glory there, but speedily her pen must dip the light of it up to shine on a page for others to see? Whither had fled the long, tranquil sleep, the calm folding of the hands, the deep and steady thought for thought’s sake? There was no one in the world, it seemed to her, who thought so much of others as she did. She analyzed her pains, her religious emotions, her very temptations, for them, and studied her own breathing that she should be able to tell them how they breathed. And what was the return? Bread, and not too much of that. She had studied her art as the painter, the sculptor, and the musician study, making a science of it, and not one in a hundred looked on it as any more than an idle and facile play. She had felt her way, by a natural gift and an acquired power, into the depths of souls, and had led them out alive into the light; yet how many an ignorant critic and shallow moralist had set up his wooden or card-paper model for her to follow!

How odd she had not known before how tiresome it was! She had at times felt tired, but to know that all was tiresome, and vanity of vanities—that had but just broken on her. This soft and joyous scene, usurping the hours of sleep, making the work of the day to follow an impossible thing to be done, and finding its playground under the stars—this was what had opened her eyes. A careless laugh had done it. She looked at Mr. Vane and thought: “I hope he won’t ask me to-night, for if he should I shall certainly promise to marry him; and I do not like cutting Gordian knots with sudden resolutions. I would rather untie this a little more leisurely,” she considered, still looking at him. “If I want honors and favors, I could win more by giving good dinners than by writing good books. A dinner is more powerful than an epic; for anybody can take in a dinner, but everybody cannot take in an epic. If I want friends and the reputation of being amiable, the good-natured complacency of prosperous ease will go a great deal further than the somewhat over-earnestness of a serious life.”

She snatched her eyes and her thoughts quickly away from the subjects that occupied both, and began to talk; for Mr. Vane turned, as if aware of being observed, and looked at her.

“I must have a little longer to think,” she said to herself, with a fluttering heart. “It will never do to decide to-night.”

“If we are going to keep up our character of a sober and orderly household, we must soon be on our way home,” she said. “The witches are certainly abroad—I almost see them—and we have no spell to prevent their getting into our carriage.”

Mr. Vane had been holding his breath for the last few moments. He knew, without looking, what eyes were on him, and almost knew what thoughts were passing in the Signora’s mind. He felt that his fate was in the balance. The prize seemed to be within his grasp; for to hesitate, even, seemed to give consent. At the first word he felt that hope grow dim. Consent would have lingered in that enchanted scene, would have given itself up to some ideal dream, forgetting the flight of time. She was evidently resisting, if not refusing.

“Let us take one turn round by the wall and Santa Croce,” he said. “Then we will go. I don’t think I shall ever have another drive just like this, and I would like to prolong it a little.”

“Prolong it as much as you please!” the Signora exclaimed, with quick compunction. “I only made a suggestion, which came from habit. If you like to stay, I shall be pleased.”

His voice, a little quickened and a little deepened, had seemed to have a touch of reproach in it, as though he should say: “Think, at least, a little of me!” But his answer to her was quite friendly: “You were right. We had better not stay long. One turn will be enough.”

They went on, the Signora fighting now two forces instead of one—for pity for him was added to pity for herself. What a beautiful and noble patience his life had shown, and with what a sweet dignity he had covered that painful thought that he had never been first to anybody!

As they passed round near the wall, approaching Santa Croce, the trees hid all the lights from them. The two daughters, one at either hand of the father, leaned on his arm and sighed with delight; Marion, seated beside the Signora, leaned forward to touch Bianca’s hand, unable in that shadow to see her. The darkness touched their faces like a down, so thick and moist was it, and so full of fragrance.

They came out before Santa Croce, and, turning, went back as they had come. More than one of the company would have liked to propose walking back along the avenue, but did not venture to do so. A few minutes brought them to the piazza of St. John’s again, and into the midst of a crowd of eager buyers and sellers. Here and there out of some dim corner a face shone red in the flare of a half-shaded torch, small figures ran and danced across the lights, black as _silhouettes_; the whole coloring was Rembrandt.

Then home through the quiet streets, where occasionally they met a couple or a party, all going toward St. John’s.

“It seems to me a kind of Santa Claus time, except that it is hot weather,” Bianca said when they reached home. “I feel as though somebody ought to come down the chimney to-night.”

“By the way,” the Signora exclaimed, “I have never introduced you to my Santa Claus. How ungrateful I am! I am going to tell you my little story; for I am almost sure that you four good people are as ignorant of the genealogy of the Santa Claus of Christmas fame as I was when I came to Rome. If you are wiser, then you can at least hear how I was enlightened. When I had been in Rome but a little while, I made the acquaintance of an elderly prelate, who was so kind as to do for me many of those little services which a stranger needs, and was of the greatest use to me in many ways. I seldom, almost never, asked anything of him, but it was constantly happening that he offered some kindness at the very moment it was needed. I never went to visit a city new to me but he introduced me to some influential friend there, and I never heard of a new old sight to see but he could tell me how to gain the best view of it. His kindness was so pleasant and opportune that after a while, without the least intention of being disrespectful however, I came to call him in my own mind Santa Claus. His Christian name is Nicholas. One day, while talking with me, he asked if I had any of the manna of St. Nicholas of Bari. I replied that I did not even know what it was. He looked at me in astonishment, and explained that it was a limpid substance like water which had oozed from the bones of St. Nicholas the Great, without ceasing, for more than fifteen hundred years, the saint having been born somewhere late in the third century; that every morning the sacristan gathers it with a sponge and preserves it in bottles; and that the people of Bari and all that region have so great a faith in the saint and his miraculous 'manna’ that they use it for every malady. He ended by promising to send to his brother, an archbishop somewhere in the south of Italy, to procure a bottle of this precious liquor for me. In a few days he brought it. Here it is!” The Signora brought from a little shrine that closed with a door in the wall, and displayed, a bottle filled with what appeared to be the brightest and most limpid water. “Monsignor showed me a similar bottle that he has had forty years,” she continued, “and it was as pure and bright as this—perfectly unchanged. He had opened it, now and then, to take out a few drops. Some years ago he gave a bottle also to the Holy Father, who keeps it beside his bed on a little shelf. Here is the picture of my saint.”

It was a quaint old print, copied, doubtless, from a picture in the church of St. Nicholas, in Bari, and represented the sainted archbishop standing on the shore, with the sea and ships behind him. At his right knelt a youth on the sands; at his left three infants were rising out of a tub, commemorative of two of his miracles.

“After having given me this relic of his great patron, Monsignor, full of zeal for his honor and of pity for my ignorance, began to tell me something of his life, and how knowing of an impoverished noble family, driven to desperation by need, and almost deciding to sell the daughters to a life of vice, since they had no money to marry them, this young saint went slily by night, and dropped a bag of gold in at the window sufficient for a _dot_ for the eldest; and, after a while, in the same manner, provided for the others, the family rejoicing over their escape and repenting of their evil resolution. When Monsignor had got so far with his story, I broke out, 'Why, it is Santa Claus!’ And, sure enough, it was. The great saint was no longer a stranger to me. I had known, without knowing, him all my life, from the time when I had first read the wonderful illustrated story-books of Christmas, and seen my mother hang my stocking in the chimney-corner before taking me off to bed on Christmas eve.”

The Signora was very glad to have this little story to tell by way of making an inclined plane to the saying of good-night. Undercover of it she escaped to her own room without being entrapped into a private interview, which she almost suspected Mr. Vane of plotting.

Then they had a little expedition for the morning to see the making of tapestry in the great hospice of St. Michael.

“If the weather and the time of day were not so hot,” the Signora said, “we would go a little further on, to the scene of a miracle of Santa Francesca Romana; but I don’t believe we shall be able to do so. A little way from the hospital is the Porta Portese, and outside that is the vineyard where that beloved saint and her companions worked one January day from dawn till noon, without having anything to eat or drink. They had forgotten to bring provisions; and Francesca, when she saw her companions suffering from thirst, accused herself of having neglected to provide for them. She was then, you know, a mother-superior, and these were her oblates. Well, the youngest of them, almost crying with thirst, begged to be allowed to go to a fountain out on the public road. The saint told her to be patient, and, withdrawing herself, began to pray: 'Lord Jesus, help us in our need; for I have been thoughtless in neglecting to provide food for my sisters.’ 'She’d much better take us home at once,' said the poor little nun to herself. And then Francesca, rising from her knees, pointed to a tree around which twined a vine loaded with large clusters of grapes—just as many clusters as there were poor nuns to eat them. They had passed this very tree again and again, and seen the vine dead and withered that very day. That same Santa Francesca is one of the dearest saints in the calender,” the Signora said. “Though, to be sure,” she added, “when we think over their lives, each one seems to be the dearest.”

“My idea of saintliness is always associated with asceticism,” said Isabel.

“If only the asceticism be not sour, as it never is with the saints,” responded the Signora with a sigh. “About the most uncomfortable company one can have is that of a person who, we cannot doubt, is virtuous in many ways, but who looks upon one with an expression full of suspicion and condemnation, without seeming aware that in so doing he has committed a sin against charity which, according to St. Paul, renders his other virtues nothing. To my mind, one of the first requisites of a Christian character is to mind one’s own business.”

“Oh! I don’t mean asceticism that goes only far enough to stir up the bile,” Isabel said, “but that which clears the heart, so that the light of charity shines quite through it and brightens every object it looks upon.”

They were already on their way to the asylum of St. Michael—that immense establishment, which contains a little world within itself, where beauty and charity dwell together; where the young find protection and instruction, and the old a refuge, under the same roof; where music, sculpture, painting, and kindred arts have made their home. Here the poor, instead of being swept away like dead leaves from a garden, to decay in obscure disgrace, slip, consoled and unashamed, into the grave, like fallen leaves that die in peace between the embracing roots of the green tree they once helped to adorn. The long, arched corridors were fresh and cool, the brilliant day entering only in a tender light, or, here and there, in some splash of gold that burned only the spot it fell upon. Fountains murmured in the courts, and all the business of the place moved with a subdued and leisurely action which made work seem a pleasure. It was not toil, but occupation—that wise and healthy degree of work which makes work possible for many years, instead of crowding the force of a whole life into a few feverish days. There was not a face which showed anxious and nervous hurry. All were calm and cheerful.

Our friends did not attempt to see anything more than the tapestry-making and mending, the first in the men’s department, the last done entirely by women and girls. The two immense halls devoted to these works, with the ante-chambers, were completely hung with old tapestries, making a softly and richly-colored picture-gallery of the whole place. In the manufacturing hall upright frames held the great squares of the warp, with the design drawn or stamped carefully on the closely-stretched threads. Behind these sat the weaver, working in the figures with long spools of colored wools, pressing down closely each stitch with a little instrument he held in the left hand. A score or more of these bobbins hung at the back of the tapestry, each to be caught up and woven in in its turn. Across the lower part of the carpet already a yard was splendidly woven of solid and brilliant color. In another part of the hall hung a large picture for a future weaving—a balcony with a vine and figures—and on a table under it were arranged the myriad selected shades and colors that composed it. Here all in the work was brightly colored; but when they went to the other part of the building, where the women were occupied in restoring, it was like passing from dazzling midsummer to a late October day. The very light and atmosphere of the place seemed different. Stretched on large frames laid out like country quilting-frames were dim old tapestries with figures of gods and goddesses, of mythical heroes and heroines, or of historical persons and events, the fabrics all more or less ragged, but inestimably precious. Girls were grouped around these, mending, directed by an artist. Hanging on the walls were other tapestries that had been repaired, and so perfectly that it was impossible to distinguish what part had been restored without looking at the wrong side of the work. Lying in bunches and snarls on the work, or hanging in long rows of varied hues on the wall, were skeins of wool, of every shade and color, dim, dark, soft, or pallid, like colors seen by night, by the stars, or by the moon, or colors guessed at by eyes half-blind or by eyes that are dying. There was a suggestion of tragedy in those old new colors, as in sad or blighted faces of children. And how much more of interest and tragedy in the old tapestries for which they had lost all their brightness! Nothing else is so interwoven with romantic possibilities as old tapestry. Luxury, which may have been regal, clings to it, but it is the luxury of olden times, when the beggar touched the prince. Mystery and terror are its companions; for who knows who or what may sometimes have been hidden behind that splendid curtain? Lifting its fold on some day of an age gone by, what white, cold face might have been found there between it and the wall, what sliding figure of a hiding spy, what twinkle of a dagger-point in the dusky corner! And then what pageants does it not suggest of the times when life was a picture!

“It really takes one out of the nineteenth century,” Mr. Vane said.

“The weaving of this tapestry,” the Signora told her friends, “was first taught here by a monk—I have forgotten in the time of what pope. This monk was a backslider and ran away from his convent; after being absent ten years he repented, and came back to throw himself at the feet of the Holy Father. 'Give me any penance, Holy Father,’ he said, 'and I will do it gladly.’ The pope, rejoiced to receive this prodigal, asked him where and how he had passed the ten years of his absence, and was told that they had been spent in the tapestry-works of Coblentz, where he had learned all the art of tapestry-making. 'Go, then, to St. Michael’s,’ said the pope, 'and teach them to make tapestry. That shall be your penance.’ And so it was done; and that is the origin of the work in Rome. The story was told me by a prelate who was formerly director of St. Michael’s.”

It was too near noon when the inspection was over for them to go to Santa Francesca’s vineyard. They could only hide themselves in the large covered carriage, and drive slowly home through the almost silent streets. They sighed with contentment when they reached the doorway, where, through the half-open valves, the floor showed freshly sprinkled and all the place cool and softly lighted.

Isabel glanced back into the street. A sick beggar, who was at his post on a doorstep of the opposite convent so constantly that one might well believe he had no other home, leaned back and seemed to sleep, his pallid face whiter than the white stone it lay against. A poor man slept in the shadow of the garden wall above, lying flat on his face on the pavement. Further up, a woman, with two little children clinging to her, sat on the ground in the shadow, and ate her dinner of a piece of bread.

“It seems to me,” the girl said thoughtfully, as she followed the others up-stairs, “that there should be a perpetual thanksgiving society which every one who has a home or a roof to cover them should join.”

The Signora touched Isabel’s arm affectionately and smiled in her pretty, sober face. She found this girl changing, or, rather, developing into something nobler and more serious than she had expected.

“There is a Perpetual Thanksgiving Society in Rome, my dear,” she said. “I am so glad you have had the thought without having heard of it. It is one of the most beautiful societies in the world. It has its meetings the third Thursday of every month, at the Caravita, a little church that used to belong to the Jesuits. There is an instruction, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and afterward the _Magnificat_ is sung. The special objects of the association are to thank God constantly for the good we receive through the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Sacred Heart, and by the intercession of the Virgin Mary; and the special festas of the society are Epiphany, Pentecost, Corpus Domini, Sacred Heart, Annunciation, Visitation, Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, St. Gertrude, St. Felix de Cantalice, and Our Lady of Grace. The loveliest thing of all is the practice enjoined on the members of making constantly the aspiration, 'Thanks be to God.’ I wish this society were in every town in the world. We beg, we are always begging, and the showers are always coming down. How beautiful is the idea of a society which asks nothing, but sends up a perpetual _Deo gratias_, as the earth sends up mists in return for the rain!”

“I shall join that society at once,” Isabel said with decision.

The Signora laughed. “You had better take off your bonnet and have some dinner now,” she said.

“Your society pleases me very much,” Mr. Vane remarked. “But the most perfect act of thanksgiving I know is that in the _Gloria_: 'We give thee thanks for thy great glory.’”

There was a little moonlight reception and tea-party that evening out on the _loggia_. Clive Bailey came to take leave before going away for a few weeks into the country. Mr. Coleman also had been unexpectedly called to England on business, and was so afflicted about going that the Signora was vexed.

“I cannot bear to have a man about who cannot get along without me,” she said privately to Isabel, “especially when I can get along perfectly well without him. When a man falls into that dependent and moony state, he loses all his character and becomes despicable. It disgusts me the more, besides, because it is usually the strong-willed, driving women who have such masculine appendages. I do hope I’m not getting into that way. For pity’s sake, tell me if I show signs of it. I have seen ladies—I recollect at this moment a lady, clever, pretty, prompt, and circumscribed in character, who makes all her familiar gentlemen acquaintances either hate her or serve her like dogs. I’ve seen her take a man whom I thought a very respectable sort of person, with a mind of his own, and, by dint of smiling and scolding, rewarding him promptly when he was good, and punishing him promptly when he didn’t obey, end by making a perfect ninny of him. He couldn’t brush his boots or tie his cravat except just as she directed him; if she was vexed with a person, he didn’t dare be civil to them; if she was reconciled to the same, he immediately beamed upon them with the most unconscious and imbecile servility. Yet the two were not lovers, and never dreamed of being so, I presume, and both of them would have been astonished, or would have pretended to be astonished and indignant, if one had hinted that his firmness had been nothing but starch, and she had washed that out of him. I wouldn’t be such a woman for the world. I wouldn’t be a driving, positive woman for anything. I wouldn’t be a woman persistent in small things for my eyes. Mr. Coleman makes me feel as if I were growing so.”

“Nonsense!” Isabel laughed. “It isn’t in you to be so. Mr. Coleman needs change of scene, that is all. He has been circling round you so long that he has got dizzy.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s going off at a tangent,” the Signora replied, only half-reassured. “He certainly would provoke me dreadfully, if he were to go on in this way under my eyes. Don’t let him come near me this evening, and don’t give him a chance to say good-by to me. Take him quite off my hands—that’s a dear girl.”

Isabel promised, and kept her promise so well as to make of the poor bewildered gentleman as nearly an enemy as he was capable of being to any one. He had another source of disquiet, too, and that was the exceeding politeness and cordiality with which the Signora treated the very cruel relative who had come to take him away, and whom he had brought up with him that evening in the vain hope that she would help him to escape. On the contrary, she merely sealed the compact.

“You are quite right, sir,” she said. “These affairs of property can so much better be attended to in person than by proxy.”

“Besides,” replied the cousin, “a man who has property in the country has really some duties there. He should spend a little of his money for the benefit of the state, his neighbors, and the church.”

He privately despised this city of Rome, which he now visited for the first time. Its dinginess, its dirt, and its religion disgusted him.

“Church!” echoed the Signora with calm inquiry. “I was not aware that Mr. Coleman belonged to any church.”

“He has certainly deteriorated very much since he left England,” was the rather sharp response, “but our family are all Catholic.”

“Indeed!” she exclaimed, in real surprise. “I have always understood from Mr. Coleman that his family belonged to the English Episcopal Church.”

“We claim that to be the Catholic Church, madam,” the gentleman responded proudly. “Or, rather, we claim the title for that older branch of it which now restores the ceremonies and beliefs it laid aside for a while.”

“Oh! the family are Ritualists,” said the Signora.

The gentleman drew himself up. “The term does not describe us,” he said. “We have a ritual, of course; but that is not all. I consider the title trivial and disrespectful.”

“I did not intend the least disrespect in the world,” the Signora made haste to say. “I merely repeat the name I have heard. I have always considered Ritualism very—refined—and”—she seemed to be laboriously seeking some words of suitable praise—“and—delicate. It has many beauties—and—in short, is, it seems to me, an—eminently—lady-like religion.”

Mr. Vane took pity on the Englishman, who looked confounded, as if not knowing whether to believe his ears, which had heard, or his eyes, which beheld, the perfectly simple and courteous expression of his entertainer. Mr. Vane, without seeming to have heard a word, introduced the subject of property, on which men can always talk unflaggingly for any length of time.

The Signora gave her attention to an enthusiastic Catholic lady, who was making a pilgrimage of her visit to Italy. This lady was one of those charming Christians who sometimes puzzle us a little. Her whole life was given up to what may be called religious pursuits. She attended functions unceasingly, and on every day was to be found in the church dedicated to the saint whose day it was. She visited relics, shrines, and scenes of religious events, and she did all with an enthusiasm which expressed itself in the most gushing manner. In short, she luxuriated in religion. She knew all about the lives of the saints, and spoke of them with the ease and familiarity of an intimate friend. One could perceive by her conversation that she believed them to be particularly watchful over her, and rather more ready to do her favors than to attend to the wishes of most others. She exhorted people a little now and then, gently, with the air of one who knows. The whole manner of the woman, in things religious, was that of a favorite daughter in her own father’s house, to which the world at large was welcomed with a smiling charity and hospitality. But that others were there also in their own father’s house, and equally beloved by him, did not seem to occur to her. The clergy and all religious she admitted and gave precedence to, seeking and admiring them almost as she did the saints. But, after them, she seemed to walk alone; or rather, she entered with them, and others waited a permission. People in the laity, like herself, were, in some mysterious manner, assumed to be unlike her. The silence of deep religious feeling in others she treated as indifference, and sometimes strove, with seeming good intention, to stir up the souls of those already more deeply moved than herself. She abounded in little devotions, little pictures, little lamps and candles, a multiplicity of pious knick-knacks, enough to bewilder a person of simpler tastes. She wore every scapular, and all the medals she could get, and her girdle was laden with rosaries. By most people she was called a very pious woman; by many she was believed to be a saintly woman. She certainly was a fairly good woman and a nice lady of religious tastes. But, looked at by clear eyes, she was a little puzzling, like some others of her kind. One missed there a central virtue, the sweet humility that makes little of its own goodness, and the charity which rejoices to see others beloved and preferred. With such assumption, one would have expected these virtues. Looking so, moreover, one suspected the existence of a deep and pernicious pride. How did she receive a word of exhortation from an equal? Not as she expected her own exhortations to be received, certainly, but with an expression of astonishment, mortification, and even displeasure. When did she sacrifice herself for others, and say nothing about it? when did she do an act of charity, and conceal that she had done it? when did she hesitate to obtain for herself an advantage because it was to be at the cost of another, unless that other were a person in orders or in religion?

The Signora looked at this lady, and liked her, and admired her in many ways, but she could not help wishing that there were a little less self-complacency in spiritual matters, and a little more willingness to sacrifice her own wishes and aims at times. The thought would intrude itself into her mind that it was less a real, working Christian that she beheld than a religious sybarite. She could not say of her, as a famous author has said of some characters rather similar, that “their celestial intimacies did not seem to have improved their earthly manners, and their high motives were not needed to account for their conduct”; but she was frequently pained to perceive a striking discrepancy between the profession and the practice.

“I have been to-day for the first time to see Santa Maria degli Angeli,” the lady said, in the gay and pleasant way habitual to her. “There seems to be no one left there but a few old, old men. They were in choir when I went to the church, but I should never have suspected it. I asked the sacristan if there would be a Mass soon. 'After _coro_,’ he said. I asked when _coro_ would be, and he replied, looking at me with some surprise, that it was going on then. I had heard a sound like a little company of bumble-bees among the clover, but that it had anything in common with the great, ringing chorus of St. Peter’s or the other great churches I never dreamed. By and by choir and Mass were over, and they all came out. Such a group of dear old Rip Van Winkles! They were all tall, had long hair and long beards of white, or streaked black and white; they drooped in walking, and their black and white robes, not very fresh, gave me a strange impression of antiquity and decay. It must have been the color and oldness of their clothes that made me think of Rip Van Winkle. I was quite ashamed of the thought. More than one head among them would have answered for a St. Jerome. That dear St. Jerome!” she added, drooping into pensiveness, as if, in uttering the name, she had been rapt away.

She recovered herself after an instant, and came back smilingly to the present. “You have no idea what a devotion I have for St. Jerome,” she said.

“I can quite understand it,” the Signora replied. “His character is one to inspire a great admiration and reverence. Here in Rome one becomes more familiar, in a certain way, with the saints. One is so much nearer their earthly lives, their relics and their _festas_ abound so, and one comes so constantly upon places which they have inhabited or visited, that one has a sense of shame and humiliation at coming no nearer their virtues.”

The lady smiled. “I had not thought of that,” she said. “I approach the saints with all confidence and simplicity.”

“That is a very pleasant feeling,” the Signora said calmly, “and, to an extent, may be a virtue. But do you not think that we should have also a feeling of awe in view of that splendid faith of theirs, and of that sublime constancy and ardent charity, which led them to face torments and death without flinching, while our lives seem but a series of compromises, and dispensations from everything that does not agree with our delicate and pampered natures? It seems to me that, if we remember the difference between our lives and theirs, we shall almost expect that when we approach their shrines they will perform one miracle more, and speak an audible reproof to us.”

The lady looked disconcerted and a little displeased. But, some one interrupting them, the subject was dropped.

After they were gone Mr. Vane displayed a letter he had received that day from the prior of Monte Cassino, inviting him and his family to visit their monastery. This clergyman had been on very friendly terms with Mr. Vane in America, where he had spent a good many years, and now, hearing of his conversion, was anxious to renew a friendship which would have a charm it had not before possessed, and to welcome to a brotherhood of faith one who had always been kin to him by a community of generous nature.

“He writes that we can stay a few days on the mountain and see everything there at our leisure,” Mr. Vane said. “There is a house outside the gate where you ladies can stop, and I can have a bed inside. What do you say to it?”

The invitation was accepted by acclamation. Monte Cassino was one of the places to see in Italy—a gem of nature, religion, and art. Before sleeping that night their plans were made. They would put off the visit a little, hoping for cooler days, as the journey was one of five or six hours. Meantime they had a little trip to Genzano in view, to see the _festa_ of the Santissimo Salvatore. And close upon them was Santa Maria delle Neve.

To Be Continued.

“MAY-FLOWERS.”

Dear Mother, on our country’s breast— Our country that is thine— Our poets place as scutcheon flower Small argent stars that shine With pallid light when scarcely wake The leaf-buds from their sleep, When, nursing summer’s waiting bloom, The storm-stained leaves lie deep.

Fair, little stars that faintly gleam Like planets sunset-dimmed, The dearer for their glory scant On barren heavens limned. Pale May-flowers, whose stainless cheek Seems born of winter snow— One rosy drop of living blood Flushing the veins below.

Whose faint-breathed perfume seems to rise Like prayer of anchorite, The heart that pours its incense forth Low hidden from our sight; Whose sweetness seems like nimbus pale Crowning some saintly head, The light of self-forgotten life In holy odor shed.

Kind Mother, see, these little flowers Our land is given to wear, When still the forest arches stand Of leafy tracery bare; When still the heavens’ softened blue Grows dim with wind-swept snow, And lonely-seeming Phœbe chants Disconsolate and low.

This precious bloom bears thy dear name— Though given unaware— And in its gentle life we trace The gleam of thine more fair. In France’s thoughtful land they give Bright flowers to be thine eyes, Within their blue forget-me-nots Thy glance’s calmness lies.

Upon our matin blossom rests No depth of peaceful blue, Yet breaks the rosy dawn of love Its cheek’s pure whiteness through. Amid the darkened leaves it lies In blest humility, A lowly handmaid of the Lord, Unstained of earth, like thee—

A hidden life e’er pouring forth An offering pure of prayer; The sweet unconsciousness of grace Soft’ning the rude, bleak air. The blood-stained heart the sword hath pierced The spotless breast within, The quiet shining on a world Bitter and drear with sin.

A crown of stars that perfects all With heaven-won aureole— Let France’s blossom claim thine eyes, Claim ours thy spotless soul; Whose gracious blessing ever rest On this broad land of ours, That not in vain her poets’ shield Be quartered with May-flowers.

THE LEPERS OF TRACADIE.[28]

Footnote 28:

This article is condensed from one which appeared in the _Revue Canadienne_, by M. de Bellefeuille.

“Ah! little think the gay, licentious crowd, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround— Ah! little think they, while they dance along, How many pine! how many drink the cup Of baleful grief! how many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind!”

—THOMSON’S _Seasons_.

“In a rage, I returned to my dwelling-place, crying aloud: 'Woe unto thee, leper! Woe unto thee!' And as if the whole world united against me, I heard the echo through the ruins of the Château de Bramafan repeat distinctly: 'Woe unto thee!' I stood motionless with horror on the threshold of the tower, listening to the faint tones again and again repeated from the overhanging mountains: 'Woe unto thee!'”

—XAVIER DE MAISTRE.

On the low and miry land forming the borders of the county of Gloucester in New Brunswick, fifty miles from Miramichi and twenty-five south of Caraquet, between a narrow river and the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, stands a little village. The situation it occupies is dreary and sad to a degree. On one side moans the gray sea, on whose dull and turbid waters rarely is seen a sail. On the other stretches a long, low line of coast, dotted at intervals by the huts of the fishermen. The whole landscape is painfully monotonous, desolate, and mournful. The cottages are mean in the extreme, while the simple church is without architectural merit. Afar off frowns forbiddingly a large building shut in by high walls. In this melancholy spot the passing traveller says to himself: “Is this place accursed alike by God and man?”

Accursed, alas! it has indeed been by despairing lips and hearts; for the building is the lazaretto of Tracadie. Before the year 1798 no register was kept of baptisms, marriages, or burials in the parish. Since that date, however, and up to 1842, Tracadie was under the care of the _curés_ of Caraquet, a neighboring parish.

On the 24th of October, 1842, arrived the first resident priest, M. François Xavier Stanislas Lafrance, who remained there until January, 1852. M. Lafrance has since died. At Tracadie he was succeeded by the present _curé_, M. l’Abbé Ferdinand Gauvreau,[29] with whose name the history of these poor lepers must always be interwoven.

Footnote 29:

The author writes: From this excellent and faithful priest I have obtained the greater part of my information on this subject. In addition, M. Gauvreau has allowed me free use of his notes and documents.

Probably the most terrible chastisement inflicted on a guilty people is that known as leprosy. In ancient times it was only too well known, for it was then more frequent than in our day. It made such fearful ravages in certain parts of the world that its very name was whispered in accents of horror and dread.

From time immemorial has this scourge been looked upon as utterly distinct from all other diseases; more virulent in its effects; more insidious in its approaches, and above all by reason of the frightful manner in which it distorts and disfigures its victims.

Leprosy has probably been known from the creation of the world. Nothing in history leads us to reject this idea, and, indeed, many interpreters who have exercised their talent on certain obscure passages of Holy Writ have found no better way of defining the terrible sign with which God marked the fratricide Cain than by supposing it to be leprosy. The alarm that has always been felt in regard to this most loathsome disease arises not alone from its hideous results, but also from the conviction that has always existed as to the absolute hopelessness of cure.

Before the time of Moses leprosy was well known. The first mention made of it in Holy Writ is in the fourth chapter of Exodus. God, having chosen Moses to deliver the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Egyptians, orders him to present himself before his afflicted people and to announce himself to them as their deliverer. Moses objected, saying: “They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee!” Then the Lord, to convince Moses of his divine mission, said unto him, “Put now thine hand into thy bosom,” and he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold his hand full of leprosy, white as snow—“_instar nevis_.”

Here, then, was leprosy easy to recognize, since it had the whiteness of snow. Let us not forget this peculiar feature, for we shall see it again later.

From this incident we see clearly that the disease was by no means unknown to Moses, because on seeing his hand he said: “_Leprosam instar nevis._” Therefore we have a right to believe that the disease existed before Moses. To the support of this opinion Dom Calmet, in his _Biblical Dictionary_, cites Manetho the Egyptian, Lysimarchus, Appian, Tacitus, and Justin, who have advanced the idea that the Jews went out from Egypt on account of the leprosy. Each one of these historians narrates the events in his own fashion, but all agree that the Hebrews who left Egypt were attacked by leprosy.

Not only does leprosy fasten on mankind, but it clings to clothing and to the stone walls of houses. It is to be presumed, however, that the leprosy brought by the Israelites out of Egypt was not of this malignant type; for Moses, by the order of God, takes pains to mention another and more virulent kind known in the land of Chanaan, the promised land of the Israelites.

In Leviticus, chapter xiii., we find the following: “If there be a spot, greenish or reddish, in the garment, of wool or of skin, the garment must be shown to the priest; and the priest shall look on the plague, and shut it up for seven days; and if at the end of the time the spots have spread, the priest will burn the garment, for it is a fretting leprosy. If the priest find, however, that the spots have not spread, he shall order the garment to be washed; and, behold, if the plague have not changed his color, and be not spread, it is unclean: thou shalt burn it in the fire.”

As to the suspected taint of leprosy in their houses, let us see their method of proceeding: “When you be come into the land of Chanaan, if you think there be leprosy in the house, he that owneth the house shall go to the priest, who shall order the house to be emptied. If the priest finds in the walls hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, he shall shut the house for seven days. The priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look; and if the plague be spread, the stones shall be taken away, and cast into an unclean place without the city. Then the rest of the house shall be scraped within and without, and they shall pour the dust without the city, and they shall take other stones and put them in the place of these, and other mortar to plaster the house.

“And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, it is a fretting leprosy, and the house is unclean and shall be destroyed.”

Thus it is seen that the leprosy known to the ancients—this lamentable scourge, “this eldest daughter of death”—attacked in its fury not man alone, but his clothing and the very walls of his house. The primary cause of an evil so malignant and so wide-spread must for ever remain a mystery. The learned Dom Calmet, as commentator of the Bible rather than as a physician, offers a theory in his notes on Leviticus. He maintains that the disease is caused by a multitude of minute worms. These parasites glide between skin and flesh, gnawing the epidermis and the cuticle, and then the nerves, producing, in short, all the symptoms that are remarked in the beginning, the progress, and the end of leprosy. Dom Calmet concludes by saying that “venereal diseases are but forms of leprosy which were only too well known to the ancients.” In this century leprosy still exists in some portions of Italy and in Norway to a very considerable extent, according to the reports of Drs. Danielson and Boëk. It is still to be met with in Turkey in the village of Looschori—the ancient Mytilene of the Ægean Sea—in the Indian Archipelago, on the coast of Africa, and in the West Indies. I myself have seen it in Jerusalem and at Naplouse, ancient Samaria; at Damascus also, where there is a lazaretto very poorly supported by public charity. To Mr. Charles A. Dana, one of the editors of the _New American Cyclopædia_, the _maladie de Tracadie_ is not unknown; for he says that leprosy exists in Canada and in other portions of America.

But to return to the Scriptures: Moses is not the only one of the inspired writers who speaks of leprosy, and more than once our blessed Lord, on his journeys through Judea, exercised his charity and showed his goodness by curing lepers who threw themselves at his feet, entreating mercy. Job was struck by the hand of God with this scourge, and has described it with marvellous beauty and pathos. He was forsaken by his wife and his friends in his humiliation and suffering; they shrank from him, saying that he must have committed some fearful crime to have drawn upon himself so heavy a chastisement. A similar horror of this disease existed among all nations. In Pérsia no citizen infected by it could enter a village or have any intercourse with his fellow-creatures, while a stranger was driven pitilessly forth into the desert (Herod., _Clio_).

Æschines, giving an account of his sea voyage, states that, the ship putting into Delos, they found the inhabitants suffering from leprosy, and the travellers hurried away in fear and trembling, lest they themselves should fall victims.

In Egypt Pliny[30] says that when this evil attacked kings, it was most unfortunate for their people; for to cure them baths of warm human blood were believed to be efficacious.

Footnote 30:

_Hist. Nat._, l. xxvi. c. i. proem.

In later days we find that lepers have been the victims of most unjust and cruel laws among almost all nations. Thus, among the Lombards, in 643, one law ordered not only that lepers should be confined to isolated localities, but declared them also civilly dead, deprived them of their property, and confided them to the charity of the public. Several provinces in France adopted this law with some qualifications. In certain localities even the posterity of lepers were excluded—as at Calais—from all rights of citizenship, and in 757 an ordinance of Pepin le Bref permitted divorce between a healthy wife and leprous husband, or a healthy husband and leprous wife. Charlemagne augmented the severity of laws already so hard. He ordered lepers to live apart, permitted them no social intercourse whatever, and finally, as their crowning misery, these unfortunates saw themselves thrust on one side by the church itself from communion with the faithful.

At the time of the separation of the lepers from family, home, and friends, the church pronounced over them the prayers for the dead. Masses were said for the repose of their souls, and, to complete the mournful illusion, a handful of earth was thrown upon their bodies. They were forbidden to enter any church or any place where food was prepared, nor could they dip their hands in a running stream, nor accept food or anything handed them, save with a fork or the end of a stick. They were compelled, moreover, to wear a particular costume that could be seen and recognized from afar off, and, under threats of severe penalties for disobedience, were ordered to ring a little bell to announce their coming. More recently, in France, lepers herded together, in secluded places, which were called _léproseries_. In the year 1244 there were throughout all Christendom 19,000 of these léproseries, and in France alone 2,000.

There these poor wretched creatures passed their desolate lives, separated from the outside world, without occupation or interest, save that of watching the slow but sure progress of their companions toward the inevitable and horrible death that was impending.

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, says Mgr. Gaume, leprosy extended its ravages over a large part of the world. The pestilence attacked suddenly all parts of the body at once, drying it up, as it were; and, like the plague, leprosy was unquestionably most contagious. To receive the infection it was but necessary to touch the clothes or the furniture, or even to breathe the tainted air; consequently, every one fled in dismay at the sight of a leper. They were driven from the vicinity of towns, and they were seen from afar wandering over the fields and hillsides like living corpses, while at a distance they were compelled to signal their approach by a rattle or bell. Abandoned by the whole world, and a prey to horrible sufferings, they called on death to deliver them.

The King of France, anxious to protect his subjects from exposure to this disease, formed a complete code of laws for lepers. “Every person,” said M. Deseimeris in his _Medical Dictionary_, “who is suspected of leprosy must submit to a thorough examination by a surgeon. The suspicion confirmed, a magistrate takes possession of the individual to dispose of him according to law. If he be a stranger, he must be sent at once to the place of his birth, bestowing first upon him, however, the poor gifts of a hat, a gray mantle, a beggar’s wallet, and a small keg. The poor creature, on arriving at his native village, must carefully avoid all contact with his fellow-creatures.” Even the church rejects him. Each town or village was compelled to build for his reception a small wooden house on four piles, and, after the death of its inmate, the house, with all that was in it, was consigned to the flames.

As the number of lepers was constantly increasing, the erection of so many of these small tenements became a source of great expense. It was therefore finally decided to unite them under one roof, and give them the name of a léproserie. In this way their support became less onerous, while their seclusion was far greater, and their diet and medical treatment was easier of regulation.

Louis VIII. published in 1226 a code of special laws for the government of léproseries. These laws were intolerably severe. A leper once incarcerated within the walls of a lazaretto incurred the penalty of death if he passed over the threshold again; scaffolds were erected where they could be seen from the hospital, thus keeping this fact ever in the remembrance and before the eyes of the miserable inmates.

I have recounted these details to demonstrate the utter horror with which leprosy was regarded. It must not be supposed that only the ignorant and superstitious were overwhelmed by foolish dread, or that it was an idle prejudice, a relic of barbarism; for in the nineteenth century we witness the same horror, and here on our own shores encounter the same rigorous legislation. We should also find the lepers as uncared for, as shunned and neglected, as they were of old, were it not for the Catholic Church, which, with its customary zeal in all labors of charity and mercy, aroused in the hearts of a humble priest and a few weak nuns the wish and determination to consecrate their lives to the service of this most miserable class of their fellow-creatures.

The first settlements on the Miramichi River were made after the treaty of Utrecht in 1718 by the subjects of France—Basques, Bretons, and Normans. Under the administration of Cardinal Fleury stringent measures were taken to encourage and protect these colonies. After a time, when their prosperity seemed secure, a certain Pierre Beauhair was sent from France as intendant to rule and arrange matters for the French government. He erected a small villa on a point of land that since his death bears his name, at the mouth of the northwestern branch of the Miramichi River. The island opposite l’Ile Beauhair was strongly defended, and tradition states that the intendant built within the walls of the fort a foundry for cannon, and other buildings for the manufacture of munitions of war.

During the summer of 1757 the colony on the Miramichi suffered much from the war between France and England, which sadly interrupted their traffic in fish and furs. Consequently, the following winter was one of great suffering, and many of the colonists died of hunger. Two transport ships, laden with provision and supplies of all kinds, were sent out by the French government in 1758, but both vessels were captured by the English fleet then assisting at the siege of Louisburg.

While these colonies were enduring suspense and starvation a French vessel, called the _Indienne_, from Morlaix, was wrecked at the mouth of the Miramichi near the “Baie des Vents”—a name now corrupted into “Baie du Vin.” Tradition states that this ship, before coming to America, had traded in the Levant, and that a large number of bales of old clothes had been taken on board at Smyrna. The clothes were strewn upon the beach after the vessel went to pieces, were seized by the inhabitants, dried, and afterwards worn. However this may be, it is certain that from that date arose a most terrible pestilence among the Canadians, who were already decimated by famine. The first victim of this malady was M. de Beauhair, and he, with eight hundred others, it is said, were buried at Point Beauhair. The survivors abandoned Miramichi and fled, some to l’Ile Saint-Jean—now Prince Edward’s Island—and the greater number settled along the western coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they formed scattered hamlets under the names of Niguaweck, Tracadie, and Pokemouche, combined in one parish—that of Caraquet.

For eighty years, although it was known that isolated instances of leprosy existed in the different colonies, they attracted little or no public attention up to 1817, when a woman named Ursule Laudry died of the disease.

An account written by one of the nuns of l’Hôtel Dieu attributes a somewhat different origin to this scourge. This good sister writes that the disease was carried to New Brunswick in 1758 by a ship from the Levant; the vessel having made the port late in the autumn, the crew were paid off and dispersed, many seeking a temporary home in Caraquet. Unfortunately, this crew was afflicted by a malady that was unsuspected by any one. The colonists were kind to the sailors; the women washed their clothes and in this way contracted the disease, which was transmitted from one to another and from father to son, and in time acquired its peculiar features. Hamilton Gordon, the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick in 1862, has assigned a similar origin to the malady in an interesting pamphlet entitled _Wilderness Journeys in New Brunswick in 1862-3_.

“A vague and uncertain tradition exists,” he says, “that somewhere about a hundred years ago a French vessel was wrecked on the coast of Gloucester or Northumberland, and that among the crew were some sailors from Marseilles, who in the Levant had contracted the hideous leprosy of the East, the veritable elephantiasis Græcorum; however this may be, it is beyond all question that for many years a part of the French population of these two counties has been sorely afflicted by this mysterious disease, or by one that closely resembles it, and which may be, indeed, the form of leprosy so well known on the coast of Norway.”

“It is difficult,” says in his turn M. Gauvreau, _curé_ of Tracadie and chaplain of the lazaretto, in a letter published in the _Journal de Montreal_, November 30, 1859—“it is difficult to persuade one’s self that this malady could be the spontaneous generation of the locality where it now exists. The geographical position of Tracadie is on the sea-coast, with the fresh currents of a river close at hand, the waters of which are salt for eight or nine miles above the mouth. The soil in some portions is sandy, in others clayey; in the vicinity are no marshes, no stagnant water, consequently no injurious malaria. These facts seem to justify the opinion which I have long held, and which as yet I see no reason to change, that the poisonous virus was not the growth of this spot, but was brought here by some traveller.”

These traditions are, in the main, probably correct as to the origin of the scourge in this Canadian village. The inhabitants of other villages than Tracadie subsist almost entirely on fish, are equally poor, equally ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, living in the same damp and foggy atmosphere; but it is only in Tracadie or its vicinity that a leper is to be seen. The inhabitants of Labrador and Newfoundland eat fish almost exclusively, and live amid similar climatic conditions, paying no more enlightened attention to hygienic laws, and yet the “maladie de Tracadie” does not attack or decimate them.

From the date of the introduction of this disease into the village it increased slowly but steadily until 1817, when certain precautions began to be taken; but not until 1844 did the authorities try any active precautions. In that year a medical board was organized, who made a report of their investigations to the government, and later in the same year an act of the Provincial Legislature was passed, renewed and amended in 1850. It authorized the lieutenant-governor to establish a health committee. This committee recommended the erection of a lazaretto on l’Ile de Sheldrake, an isolated spot in the middle of the Miramichi River eighteen miles above Chatham. “Whoever was found to be unquestionably tainted by the disease,” says the article, “must be torn from his family, using force if needful. The husband must be taken from his wife, the mother from her children, the child from its parents, whenever the first symptom of leprosy declares itself. An eternal farewell to all they hold most dear must be said, and the poor creature is sent to the lazaretto. It often happens that a leper refuses to go quietly; he is then dragged by ropes like a beast to the shambles—for none is willing to lay a finger upon him. Often the unhappy beings are driven with blows to the very door of the lazaretto.” Things, of course, could not long remain in this brutal condition. The lepers, driven to desperation by their physical and mental sufferings, by a wild longing for the liberty denied them, and for the sight of their loved ones, sometimes effected their escape.

An attempt was finally made to ameliorate their condition, and in 1847 the lazaretto was removed to the spot where it now stands, about half a mile from the parish church of Tracadie. A large tract of land was here purchased by the government, and the present building was erected, surrounded by a wooden wall twenty feet high, set thick with nails to hinder the escape of the lepers. The windows of the lazaretto were barred heavily with iron, and thus added to the melancholy aspect of the building. The lepers, weary of the revolting resemblance to a prison, themselves tore most of the bars away, and, when the nuns arrived there they at once ordered the remainder to be removed.

In 1868 the nuns from the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal took possession of the lazaretto of Tracadie. For some few years a strong necessity had been felt for the reorganization of this institution. A wish was expressed that it could be placed under the care of the Hospital Nuns. I have now before me a letter from the Rt. Rev. James Rogers, Bishop of Chatham, in which is given an account, for the _Conseil Central de la Propagation de la Foi_ at Paris, of the steps that had been taken up to December, 1866:

“Since my first visit to the establishment,” says the bishop, “I have always thought that it would be most desirable to place it under the care of the Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu, who would watch over the souls and the bodies of these sufferers, whose number varies from twenty to thirty. But so many great and pressing needs claimed my attention—while my resources were insufficient even for the alleviation of physical suffering, and also, perhaps, for the spiritual wants of certain souls—I was compelled to postpone my plans in regard to the lazaretto, until my diocese could satisfy the religious needs of its inhabitants by an increase of the number of priests, and by the erection of chapels in places where they had long and earnestly been demanded, and also by the establishment of schools for the Christian education of youth. Another obstacle to the immediate execution of my intention was the lukewarm approbation and co-operation of the government. The total lack of suitable lodging for the nuns, as well as the uncertainty whether the Protestant element which pervades our government and our legislature would be willing to grant us funds or permit us to make needful preparations for the sisters to take charge of the lazaretto—all conspired as hindrances to my desires.

“Last spring I petitioned the government, but political changes interfered, and no steps were taken until now. This is the reason why the worthy _curé_ of Tracadie continues to be the only priest who administers the consolations of religion to that portion of his flock so bitterly afflicted.”

The steps taken by Bishop Rogers seem to have been singularly felicitous. He obtained from Bishop Bourget the assistance of the nuns of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, and the government appears to have regarded with favorable eyes this regeneration of the lazaretto, which produced in a very brief period of time the best possible results upon the patients. Abbé Gauvreau draws a sad picture of the state in which these poor creatures lived before the nuns went to their assistance. In a letter dated April 28, 1869, addressed to the mother-superior of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, he says:

“I am absolutely incapable of describing the state of abject misery in which our poor lepers passed their lives before the coming of the sisters. I can only say that from the hour of their transfer from l’Ile aux Bec-scies (Sheldrake) at the entrance of the river Miramichi, discord, revolt, and insubordination toward the government, divisions and quarrels among themselves, made the history of their daily lives. The walls rang with horrible blasphemies, and the hospital seemed like a den of thieves.”

The Board of Health spared nothing to make the lepers comfortable. Good food, and abundance of it, appropriate clothing, and careful medical attendance were liberally provided; but, in spite of these efforts, the hearts of these poor creatures were as diseased as their bodies. Some of them revolted against the summons of death, notwithstanding the constant exhortations of the chaplain, and even after their last communion clung strongly to the futile hope of life. Of this number was one who had been warned by the physician that his hours were numbered and that a priest should be summoned. His friends, and those of his relatives who were within the walls of the lazaretto, implored him to prepare for death. “Let me be!” he cried. “I know what I am about!”

About nine o’clock in the evening he begged his companions in misery not to watch at his bedside, and, believing himself able to drive away Death, who was hurrying toward him with rapid strides, insisted on playing a game of cards. The game had hardly begun, however, when the cards dropped from his hands and he fell back on his bed. Before assistance could reach him all was over.

With the arrival of the nuns a new order of things began. Without entering into a detailed account of all the labors performed by the sisters since their arrival, it is enough to state that cleanliness and order prevail and true charity shows itself everywhere. The poor creatures, who formerly revelled in filth and disorder, now see about them decency and cleanliness. They are induced to be submissive and obedient by the hourly example of the sisters; their modesty and reserve, their virtue and careful speech, their watchful care and devotion, their tender attention to the sick, teach the inmates of the hospital the best of lessons. It is easy to imagine with what joy the poor lepers welcomed the nuns who came to consecrate their lives to this service, and also to understand with what affection and respect these holy women are regarded.

“The enclosed grounds of the lazaretto,” says Governor Gordon in his _Wilderness Journeys_, “consist of a green meadow three or four acres in extent. Within these limits the lepers are permitted to wander at their will. Until recently they were confined to the narrowest limits—a mere yard about the lazaretto. I entered these dreary walls, accompanied by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Chatham, by the secretary of the Board of Health, by the resident physician, and by the Catholic priest of the village, who is also the chaplain of the institution.

“Within the enclosure are several small wooden buildings, separated from each other, consisting of the kitchen, laundry, etc. A bath-house has recently been added to these, which will be a source of infinite comfort to the patients. The hospital contains two larger halls—one devoted to the men, the other to the women. Each room has a stove and a table with chairs about it, while the beds are ranged against the wall. These halls are both well lighted and ventilated, and at the time of my inspection were perfectly clean and fresh. At the end of these halls is a small chapel arranged in such a way that the patients of both sexes are able to hear Mass without meeting each other. Through certain openings they also confess to the priest and receive the holy communion.”

Many changes in the interior arrangements of the lazaretto followed the arrival of the sisters. The patients and the nuns now hear Mass at the same time. The male patients occupy two rooms twenty-five feet square, while similar apartments above are reserved for the females. The grounds of the lazaretto have also been enlarged.

“Before giving the characteristics of this appalling disease,” says Mr. Gordon, “I wish to reply to a question which you undoubtedly wish to ask: How is this malady propagated? No one knows. It seems not to be hereditary, since in one family the father or mother may be attacked, while the children entirely escape. In others the children are leprous and the parents healthy. In 1856 or '57 a woman named Domitile Brideau, wife of François Robichaud, was so covered with leprosy that her body was one mass of corruption. While in this state she gave birth to a daughter, whom she nursed—the mother shortly afterward dying in the hospital. Meanwhile, the child was absolutely healthy, and remained until she was three years of age in the hospital without any unfavorable symptoms being developed. The girl grew to womanhood and married, and to-day she and her children are perfectly healthy. Many similar examples might be cited.”

This malady, then, can hardly be contagious, since in one family husband or wife may be attacked, while the other goes unscathed. There is now at Tracadie a man, François Robichaud by name, who has had three wives; the two first perished of leprosy, the third is now under treatment at the lazaretto—the husband in the meanwhile enjoying perfect health. In one family two or more children are lepers, while the others are untainted. One servant-woman resided for eight years in the hospital, ate and drank with the patients, yet has never shown any symptoms of the disease. The laundress of the institution lives under its roof, and has done so for two years; she is a widow, her husband having died of the scourge, she being his sole nurse during his illness. She is in perfect health. It has also happened more than once that persons suspected of leprosy, and placed in the hospital, after remaining there several years and developing no further symptoms, are discharged as “whole.”

All the patients now in the hospital agree that the disease is communicated by touch, and each has his own theory as to where he was exposed to it—either by sleeping with some one who had it, or by eating and drinking with such.

I am strongly persuaded that this disease, whatever may be its origin, is greatly aggravated by the kind of life led by the natives of Tracadie, who are all fishermen or sailors. Their food is fish, generally herring, and their only vegetables turnips and potatoes. Such is their extreme poverty that there are not ten families in Tracadie who ever touch bread.

Let us follow Governor Gordon into the lazaretto.

“At the time of my visit,” he says, “there were twenty-three patients, thirteen men and ten women. They were all French and all Catholics, belonging to the lower class. They were of all ages, and had reached various stages of the disease. One old man, whose features were distorted out of all semblance to humanity, and who had apparently entered his second childhood, could hardly be sufficiently aroused from his apathy to receive the benediction of the bishop, before whom all the others sank on their knees.

“There were also young people who, to a casual observer, seemed vigorous and in health; while, saddest of all sights was that of the young children condemned to spend their lives in this terrible place. Above all was I touched by the sight of three small boys from eleven to fifteen years of age. To an inexperienced observer they had much the look of other children of their own age and class. Their eyes were bright and intelligent, but the fatal symptoms that had sufficed to separate them from home and kindred were written on their persons, and they were immured for life in the lazaretto.

“The greatest sympathy must naturally be felt for these younger victims when one thinks of the possible length of years that stretches before them, hopeless and cheerless; to grow to manhood with the capacities, passions, and desires of manhood, and condemned to live from youth to middle age, from middle age to decrepitude possibly, with no other society than that of their companions in misery. Utterly without occupations, amusements, or interests, shut off from all outside resources, their only excitement is found in the arrival of a new disease-stricken patient, their only occupation that of watching their companions dying before their eyes by inches!

“But few of the patients could read, and those who could were without books. There was evident need of some organization that might furnish the patients with employment. Both mind and body required occupation. Under these circumstances I was by no means surprised to learn that in the last stages of the disease the mind was generally much weakened.

“The suffering of the majority of the patients was by no means severe, and I was informed that one of the characteristic features of the malady was profound insensibility to pain. One individual was pointed out to me, who by mistake had laid his arm and open hand on a red-hot stove, and who knew nothing of it until the odor of burning flesh aroused his attention.”

After Governor Gordon’s visit the condition of the lepers was much improved. The sisters taught the young to read and employed them in making shoes and other articles.

The investigations of Governor Gordon, although made during a brief inspection of the lazaretto, are correct as far as they go, but are far from complete. The Abbé Gauvreau has been for eighteen years chaplain of the hospital. He has watched keenly the progress of the disease in over a hundred cases. He has noted every symptom of its slow and fatal march. He has been present at the deathbeds of many of the lepers, and he recounts with horror the terrible scenes he has witnessed.

“Without wishing to impose my opinions on you,” he says, “I cannot resist the conviction that, apart from divine will, this scourge of fallen man is a most subtle poison introduced into the human body by transmission or by direct contact, or even, perhaps, by prolonged cohabitation.

“But whichever of these suppositions is the more nearly correct, when once the poison is fairly within the system its action is so latent and insidious that for some years—two, four, or even more—the unfortunate Naaman or Giezi perceives in himself no change either in constitution or sensations. His sleep is as refreshing and his respiration as free as before. In a word, the vital organs perform all their functions and the various members are unshorn of their vigor and energy.

“At this period of the disease the skin loses its natural color, its healthy appearance, and is replaced by a deadly whiteness from head to foot. This whiteness looks as if the malady had taken possession of the mucous membrane and had displaced the fluids necessary to its functions. Without knowing if the leper of the Orient possesses other external indications, it is certain that in this stage the malady of Tracadie is precisely similar to the leprosy of the ancients—I mean in the whiteness of the skin. In the second stage the skin becomes yellow. In the third and last it turns to a deep red; it is often purple, and sometimes greenish, in hue. In fact, the people of Tracadie, like myself, are so familiar with the early symptoms of the disease that they rarely fall into a mistake.

“Only one death has ever occurred in the first stage—that of Cyrille Austin. All the other cases have passed on to the second or third stages before death; and, strangely enough, it has been remarked by the patients themselves that the treatment of Dr. La Bellois had always a much better chance of success during the third period than during the second.

“At first the victim feels devouring thirst, great feverish action, and a singular trembling in every limb; stiffness and a certain weakness in the joints; a great weight on the chest like that caused by sorrow; a rush of blood to the brain; fatigue and drowsiness, and other disagreeable symptoms which now escape my memory. The entire nervous system is then struck, as it were, with insensibility to such a degree that a sharp instrument or a needle, or even the blade of a knife, buried in the fleshy parts or thrust through the tendons and cartilage, causes the leper little or no pain. Some poor creature, with calm indifference, will place his arm or leg on a mass of burning wood and tar, and let it remain there until the entire limb, bones and all, is consumed; yet the leper feels no pain, and may sleep through it all as quietly as if in his bed.”

In another letter the abbé gives the following example of this astonishing insensibility:

“One of these afflicted beings who died at the lazaretto, and to whom I administered the last sacraments, lay down to sleep near a hot fire; in his slumbers he thrust one arm and hand into the flames, but continued to sleep. The overpowering smell of burning flesh awakened one of his companions, who succeeded in saving his life.”

One of the nuns says: “Since we reached Tracadie two of the patients have burned their hands severely, and were totally unconscious of having done so until I dressed the wounds myself.” In regard to this torpidity of the system, M. Gauvreau remarks that it is but temporary, but he knows not its duration; and the nun adds that the torpidity is not invariable with all the patients, and with some only in a portion of the body. In certain individuals it is only in the legs; in others, in the hands alone; but all complain of numbness like that of paralysis.

“By degrees,” says M. Gauvreau, “the unnatural whiteness of the skin disappears, and spots of a light yellow are to be seen. These spots in some cases are small and about the size of a dollar-piece. When of this character, they appear at first with a certain regularity of arrangement, and in places corresponding with each other, as on the two arms and shoulders—more generally, however, on the breast. They are distinct, but by degrees the poison makes its way throughout the vitals; the spots enlarge, approach each other, and, when at last united, the body of the sick man becomes a mass of corruption. Then the limbs swell, afterward portions of the body, the hands, and the feet; and when the skin can bear no further tension it breaks, and running sores cover the patient, who is repulsive and disgusting to the last degree.

“The entire skin of the body becomes extremely tender, and is covered with an oily substance that exudes from the pores and looks like varnish. The skin and flesh between the thumb and forefinger dry away, the ends of the fingers, the feet, and hands dwindle to nothingness, and sometimes the joints separate, and the members drop off without pain and often without the knowledge of the patient.

“The most noble part of the being created in the image of God—the face—is marred as much as the body by this fell disease. It is generally excessively swollen. The chin, cheeks, and ears are usually covered by tubercles the size of peas. The eyes seem to start from their sockets, and are glazed by a sort of cataract that often produces complete blindness. The skin of the forehead thickens and swells, acquiring a leaden hue, which sometimes extends over the entire countenance, while in other cases the whole face is suffused with scarlet. The explanation of these different symptoms may be found, of course, in the variety of temperaments—sanguine, bilious, or lymphatic. This face, once so smooth and fair, has become seamed and furrowed. The lips are two appalling ulcers—the upper lip much swollen and raised to the base of the nose, which has entirely disappeared; while the under lip hangs over the chin, which shines from the tension of the skin. Can a more frightful sight be imagined? In some cases the lips are parched and drawn up like a purse puckered on strings. This deformity is the more to be regretted is it precludes the afflicted from participation in the holy communion. Leprosy—that of Tracadie, at least—completes its ravages on the internal organs of its victims. It attacks now the larynx and all the bronchial ramifications; they become obstructed and filled with tubercles, so that the unhappy patient can find no relief in any position. His respiration becomes gradually more and more impeded, until he is threatened with suffocation. I have been present at the last struggles of most of these afflicted mortals. I hope that I may never be called upon to witness similar scenes. Excuse me from the details. If I undertook them my courage would give out; for I assure you that many of you would have fainted. Let me simply add that these lepers generally die in convulsions, panting for air; frequently rushing to the door to breathe; and, returning, they fling themselves on their pallets in despair. The thought of their sighs and sobs, the remembrance of their tears, almost breaks my heart, and their prayers for succor ring constantly in my ears: 'O my God! have mercy on me! have mercy on me!’

“At last comes the supreme moment of this lingering torture, and the patient dies of exhaustion and suffocation. All is over, and another Lazarus lies in Abraham’s bosom!”

After the above vivid picture of this loathsome disease we naturally ask if the evil be such that no medical skill can combat it with success. The Hospital Nun in the infirmary of the lazaretto tells us all that she has yet learned upon this point.

In 1849 and 1850 Dr. La Bellois, a celebrated French physician residing at Dalhousie, treated the lepers for six months and claimed to have cured ten of them: T. Goutheau, Charles Comeau, T. Brideau, A. Benoit, L. Sonier, Ed. Vienneau, Mme. A. Sonier, M. Sonier, Mme. Ferguson, Melina Lavoie. “All the above cases are now quite well, and the treatment I adopted was entirely for syphilitic disease, thus establishing without any doubt the nature of the disease” (extract from La Bellois’ report, Feb. 12, 1850).

Meanwhile, from the report of the secretary of the Board of Health—Mr. James Davidson—we gather that all the sick above mentioned returned after a time to the hospital; that they died there, with the exception of three, of whom two died in their own houses and the third still lives. Of this one Dr. Gordon, of Bathurst, says: “The disease is slow in its progress, but it is sure, and the fatal termination cannot be far off.”

Dr. Nicholson undertook the treatment at the lazaretto. By a certain course of medicine, the details of which he kept a profound secret, and with the aid of vapors, he wonderfully improved the physical condition of the lepers, who in many instances indulged sanguine hopes of recovery. Unfortunately, however, this physician suddenly abandoned his profession, and, to the sorrow of his former patients, died three years later. The lepers soon relapsed into their former hopeless state, and since then no change has taken place.

“On our arrival at Tracadie,” said the sister, “we found twenty inmates of the hospital, and since three more have been admitted. These poor creatures, being firmly persuaded that we could cure them, besieged us with entreaties for medicine, and were satisfied with whatever we gave. At first I selected three who had undergone no medical treatment; these three were also the only ones who suffered from contraction of the extremities. The first, twenty-two years of age, had been at the hospital four years, and as yet showed the disease only in the contraction above mentioned, and in a certain insensibility of the feet and hands. The second, fifteen years old, had been in the hospital for two years, his hands and feet were drawn up, and he suffered from a large swelling on the left foot. This young fellow is very delicate, and suffers intensely at times from spasms of the stomach. The third case is a lad of eleven, who for two years has suffered from the disease. His hands are twisted out of shape, and his body is covered with spots, red and white; these spots are totally without sensibility. I have administered to these patients the remedies as prescribed by Mr. Fowle—_Fowle’s Humor Cure_, an American patent medicine. The first and second patient experienced no other benefit from this remedy than a certain vigor previously unfelt. To the third the sensibility of the cuticle returned, but the spots remained the same. This in itself is very remarkable, because in no previous case have these benumbed or paralyzed parts regained their sensation. To another, a patient of twenty-two, I gave the same remedy. For eight years he had been a martyr to the virulence of the disease. When we arrived at the lazaretto, we found his case to be one of the worst there. His nose had fallen in; the lips were enormously puffed and swollen; his hands equally so, and looked more like the paws of a bear than like the hands of a human being. The saliva was profuse, but the effort of swallowing almost futile. Soon after taking this same medicine the saliva ceased to flow and he swallowed with comparative ease.

“On the 23d of January he was, by the mercy of God, able to partake of the holy communion, of which he had been deprived for four years. His lips are now of their natural size, and he is stronger than he has been for years. But the pains in his limbs are far worse than they have ever before been. I have also given Fowle’s cure to all the patients who had been under no previous medical treatment, and invariably with beneficial results. In some the tint of the skin is more natural; in others the swelling of the extremities is much abated; but the remedy seems always to occasion an increase of pains in the limbs, although it unquestionably acts as a tonic upon the poor creatures. In all of them the mouth and throat improve with the use of Fowle’s cure. And here let me say that this disease throughout bears a strong resemblance to syphilis. In both diseases the throat, the tongue, and the whole inside of the mouth are ulcerated. In both diseases the voice is affected to such a degree that it can hardly make itself heard. They cough frightfully, and some time after our coming a leper presented himself for admission at our hospital doors. The poor creature was covered with ulcers and every night was bathed in a cold perspiration. After he had rested for a few days, I gave him a powerful dose of _la liqueur arsenicale_, which has since been repeated. The night-sweats have disappeared, and the ulcers are healed, with the exception of one on the foot. His lips are still unhealthy, but he is much stronger, and the spots on his person are gradually disappearing.

“Two others, later arrivals have taken _la liqueur arsenicale_ and have improved under its use. Suspecting that the origin of this malady may be traced to another source, and remembering the opinion of Dr. La Bellois, I gave the bichloride of mercury, in doses of the thirty-second part of a grain, to the worst case in the hospital. It is too soon, however, to judge of its effects. The improvement in no one of these cases is rapid, but we trust that it is certain. We look to God alone for the success for which we venture to hope. I can find no statistics which will enable me to give you the number of victims that have fallen under this dread malady of Tracadie. I find, however, a letter from M. Gauvreau, bearing the date of November 30, 1859, that sixty persons perished from its ravages in the previous fifteen years, and that twenty-five of both sexes, and of all ages, were then inmates of the lazaretto, awaiting there the end of their torments.”

In 1862 Mr. Gordon said that he saw twenty-three patients at the hospital, and the Sisters of the Hôtel Dieu found twenty there when they reached the lazaretto, and have since admitted three in addition; it does not seem, therefore, as if the “eldest sister of Death” had relaxed her hold on this unhappy village. Yet if the disease can but be confined to this locality, wonders will be achieved. Good care, regular medical attendance, incessant vigilance, with intelligent adherence to hygienic laws, may eventually cause its entire disappearance from our soil. Let us hope that the faithful sisters will succeed in their good work; for we ourselves, every one of us, have a personal interest in it. Unfortunately, this good result is far from certain, as the Abbé Gauvreau desires us to understand.

“One or more of these unfortunates,” he says, “feeling the insidious approaches of the disease, and shrinking from the idea of the lazaretto, have at times secretly escaped from Tracadie. They leave Miramichi on the steamer, intending to land at Rivière-du-Loup, at Kamouraska, perhaps at Quebec or at Montreal. As yet no ulcers are visible, nor, indeed, any external symptoms which could excite the smallest suspicion. On landing at some one of the places mentioned they procure situations in different houses, and remain in them for a month or two, perhaps, saying nothing all this time of their symptoms to any one, not even to a physician. They eat with their master’s family, and, even if they take the greatest precaution, they convey this poisonous virus to their masters. When they have reason to fear that suspicion is about being aroused, they depart, but it is too late, and they go to scatter the contagion still further.

“The following instance came under my own observation: A youth suffering from this disease, and dreading the lazaretto, went to Boston, where he secured a position on a fishing vessel, hoping that the sea air, with the medicines that he would take, would effect his cure. He soon found that these hopes were groundless, and was obliged to enter the hospital in Boston, where, in spite of the care and attention bestowed upon him by the physicians of the medical school at Cambridge, he died, far from friends and home.”

One naturally asks, with a thrill of horror, whether, before the admission of this poor creature to the hospital, he did not transmit to his shipmates the poisonous virus that filled his own blood.

The total disappearance of this disease—if such disappearance may be hoped for—will be due exclusively to the noble and untiring exertions of the sisters. Tracadie and its afflicted population would not alone owe a debt of eternal gratitude to these Hospital Nuns. America itself would share this feeling. With an example like this of charity and self-abnegation before us, we cannot cease to wonder at, and to deplore, the narrow minds of those persons who condemn the monastic institutions of the church. Let us compassionate all such; for to them light is lacking, and they have yet to learn the great truth that the duty most inculcated by the church, after the love of God, is the love of our neighbors.

TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO SOME OF THE SACRAMENTS.

In a former article,[31] whilst following Mr. Withrow and other Protestant controversialists through their evasions and misinterpretations of the evidence to be found in the Catacombs on behalf of certain points of Catholic doctrine and practice, we pointed out that prayers either _for_ the dead or _to_ them were the only two articles on which it would be reasonable to look for information from the inscriptions on the gravestones. We said that these prayers were likely to find expression, if anywhere, by the side of the grave. As they took their last look on the loved remains of their deceased friend or relative, the affectionate devotion of the survivors would naturally give utterance either to a hearty prayer for the everlasting happiness of him they had lost, or to a piteous cry for help, an earnest petition that he would continue to exercise, in whatever way might be possible under the conditions of his new mode of existence, that same loving care and protection which had been their joy and support during his life; or sometimes both these prayers might be poured forth together, according as the strictness of God’s justice, or the Christian faith and virtues of the deceased, happened to occupy the foremost place in the petitioner’s thoughts.

Footnote 31:

THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Dec., 1876, p. 371 Jan., 1877, p. 523.

When, therefore, we proceeded in a second paper to question the same subterranean sanctuaries on another subject of Christian doctrine—the supremacy of St. Peter—we called into court another set of witnesses altogether: to wit, the paintings of their tombs and chapels. Exception has been taken against the competency of these witnesses, on the plea that they are not old enough; they were not contemporary, it is said, with those first ages of the church whose faith is called in question. To this we answer that the objection is entirely out of date; it might have been raised twenty or thirty years ago, and it might have been difficult at that time satisfactorily to dispose of it. Those were days in which writers like M. Perrot in France could affect to pronounce dogmatically on the age of this or that painting, solely on the evidence of its style, without having first established any standard by which that style could be securely judged. There are still a few writers of the same school even at the present day, such as Mr. Parker in England, who assigns precise years as the dates of these subterranean monuments with as much confidence as if he had been personally present when they were executed, and (we may add) with as wide a departure from the truth as if he had never seen the pictures at all. Such writers, however, have but few disciples nowadays. Their foolish presumption is only laughed at; and it is not thought worth while seriously to refute their assertions. Men of intelligence and critical habits of thought are slow to accept the _ipse dixit_ of a professor, however eminent, upon any subject; and all who have studied this particular subject—the paintings in the Catacombs—are well aware that the question of their antiquity has now been carried beyond the range of mere conjecture and assumption; it has been placed on a solid basis of fact through the indefatigable labors of De Rossi. Those labors have been directed in a very special way towards establishing the true chronology of the several parts of the Catacombs; and when this had been done, it was manifest to all that the most ancient _areæ_ were also those which were most abundantly decorated with painting, whilst the areæ that had been used more recently—_i.e._, in the latter half of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century—were hardly decorated at all. This gradual decline of the use of pictorial decoration has been traced with the utmost exactness through the successive _areæ_ of a single Catacomb; six or seven tombs being found thus decorated in the first _area_, two in the second, one in the third, none at all in the fourth; and the same thing has been seen, with more or less distinctness, throughout the whole range of subterranean Rome. Then, again, every casual visitor to them can see for himself that before the abandonment of burial here—_i.e._, before the year 410—many of the paintings were already considered old enough to be sacrificed without scruple to the wishes of those who would fain excavate new tombs in desirable sites. Men do not usually destroy to-day the paintings which they executed yesterday; certainly they do not allow the ornamentation which they have just lavished on the tombs of their fathers to be soon effaced with impunity. We may be sure, then, that those innumerable paintings which we see broken through in order to make more modern graves must have been of considerable antiquity at the time of their destruction. Then, again, it must not be forgotten that some of these paintings were actually appealed to as ancient testimony in the days of St. Jerome, on occasion of a dispute between that doctor and St. Augustine as to the correct rendering of a particular word in his Latin translation of the Scriptures. Finally, it is notorious that the fine arts had rapidly decayed and the number of their professors diminished before the days of Constantine—in fact, before the end of the third century.

We cannot, however, pretend to give in these pages even a brief summary of De Rossi’s arguments and observations whereby he establishes the primitive antiquity of Christian art in the Catacombs. We can only mention a few of the more popular and palpable proofs which can be appreciated by all without difficulty; and we will only add that it is now possible, under the sure chronological guidance of De Rossi, to distinguish three successive stages in the development of painting in the Christian cemeteries, the latest of which was complete when the Constantinian era began, and the first falls hardly, if at all, short of even apostolic times. This is no longer denied by the best instructed even among Protestant controversialists; they acknowledge that painting was used by the earliest Christians for the ornamenting of their places of burial; only they contend that it was done “not because it was congenial to the mind of Christianity so to illustrate the faith, but because it was the heathen custom so to honor the dead.” The author of this remark, however, has omitted to explain whence it comes to pass that the great majority of the paintings which survive in the cemeteries are more engaged in illustrating the mysteries of the faith than in doing honor to the dead.

But we must not pursue this subject any further. We have said enough, we think, to establish the competency of these paintings as witnesses to the ancient faith, and we will now proceed to question them concerning one or two principal mysteries of the faith—those that are called its mysteries _par excellence_: its sacraments. We do not doubt that, if duly interrogated, they will have some evidence to give. We say, if duly interrogated, because it is the characteristic of ancient Christian art to be eminently symbolical; it suggested rather than declared religious doctrines and ideas, and it suggested them by means of artistic symbols or historical types, which must be inquired into and meditated upon before they can be made fully to express their meaning. This is of the very essence of a symbol: that it should partly veil and partly manifest the truth. It does not manifest the truth with the fulness and accuracy of a written historical description, or it would cease to be a symbol; on the other hand, it must not be so obscure as to demand a sibyl for its interpretation; it must have a tendency to produce in the mind of the beholder some leading feature of the object it is intended to represent. And where should symbols of this kind be more abundantly found for the Christian preacher or artist than in the histories of the Old Testament? Ancient Christian art, says Lord Lindsay, “veiled the faith and hope of the church under the parallel and typical events of the patriarchal and the Jewish dispensations.”

We need not remind our readers that the principle of this method of interpreting Holy Scripture has express apostolic sanction; but few who have not studied the subject closely will have any adequate idea of the extent to which it was followed in the ancient church. We will give a single example, selected because it closely concerns the first mystery of which we propose to speak—the Sacrament of Baptism.

Tertullian, who lived at the end of the second and beginning of the third century, wrote a short treatise on this sacrament. This treatise he begins by bringing together all that Holy Scripture contains about water, with such minuteness of detail that he is presently obliged to check himself, saying that, if he were to pursue the subject through all Holy Scripture with the same fulness with which he had begun, men would say he was writing a treatise in praise of water rather than of baptism. From the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to the last of the Evangelists, and even of the Apocalypse, he finds continual testimony to the high dignity and sacramental life-giving power of this element. The Spirit of God, he says, moved over it at the first; whilst as yet the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the heaven was as yet unformed, water alone, already pure, simple, and perfect, supplied a worthy resting-place on which God could be borne. The division of the waters was the regulating power by which the world was constituted; and when at length the world was set in order, ready to receive inhabitants, the waters were the first to hear and obey the command and to bring forth creatures having life. Then, again, man was not made out of the dry earth, but out of slime, after a spring had risen out of the earth, watering all its surface. All this is out of the first two chapters of Genesis; and here he makes a pause, breaking into that apology which has been already mentioned. Then he resumes the thread of his discourse, but passing much more briefly over the remainder of the Old Testament. He notes how the wickedness of the old world was purged by the waters of the Deluge, which was the world’s baptism; how the waters of the Red Sea drowned the enemies of God’s people and delivered them from a cruel bondage; and how the children of Israel were refreshed during their wanderings through the wilderness by the water which flowed continuously from the rock which followed them, “which rock was Christ.” Then he comes to the New Testament, and briefly but eloquently exclaims: Nowhere is Christ found without water. He is himself baptized with it; he inaugurates in it the first manifestation of his divine power at the wedding-feast in Cana; when he preaches the Gospel, on the last and great day of the feast, he stands and cries, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.” He sums up his whole gift to man under the image of a fountain of water, telling the Samaritan woman that he has living water to give, which shall become in him that receives it a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. When he gives instruction upon charity, he instances a cup of cold water given to a disciple; he sits down weary at a well and asks for water to refresh himself; he walks on the waves of the sea, and washes his disciples’ feet; finally (Tertullian concludes), “this testimony of Jesus to the Sacrament of Baptism continues even to the end, to his very Passion; for, when he is condemned to the cross, water is not absent—witness the hands of Pilate; nay, when wounded after death upon the cross, water bursts forth from his side—witness the soldier’s spear.”

There may be something in this symbolism that sounds strange to modern ears; but we are not here criticising it; we have nothing to do with its merits or demerits, but only with the fact of its general use—so general that it was the one principle of exegesis which every commentator on Holy Scripture in those days followed, and we have every right to suppose that Christian artists would have followed it also. When, therefore, we find in the Roman Catacombs (as, for example, the other day in the cemetery of San Callisto) a glass vessel, very artistically wrought, with fishes in _alto rilievo_ swimming round it in such a way that, when full of water, it would have represented a miniature image, as it were, of the sea, is it a mere fanciful imagination which bids us recognize in such ornamentation a reference to holy baptism, and conjectures that the vessel was perhaps even made for the administration of that sacrament? It may be so; but we cannot ourselves think so; we cannot at once reject the explanation as fanciful; the work of the artist corresponds too exactly with the words of the theologian to allow us to treat the coincidence as altogether undesigned. “We little fish are born,” says Tertullian, “after the likeness of our great Fish in water, and we cannot otherwise be safe than by remaining in the water.” And we seem to ourselves to read these same words, written in another language, in the beautiful vessel before us. We read it also in another similar vessel, which looks as though it had come out of the same workshop, yet was found in an ancient cemetery at Cologne; and in another of bronze, dug up in the vineyard over the cemetery of Pretextatus, that used to be shown by Father Marchi in the Kircherian Museum at the Roman College. In all these instances we believe that this is the best account that can be given, both of the original design of the vessel and also of its preservation in Christian subterranean cemeteries. However, if any one thinks otherwise, we do not care to insist upon our explanation as infallibly certain. We will descend into the Catacombs themselves, and look about upon the paintings on their walls or the carving on their gravestones, and see whether baptism finds any place there also.

And, first, we come across the baptism of our Lord himself. We are not now thinking of the subterranean baptistery in the cemetery of Ponziano, with the highly-decorated cross standing up out of the middle of it, and Christ’s baptism painted at the side. For this is one of the latest artistic productions in the Catacombs—a work of the eighth or ninth century possibly. We are thinking, on the contrary, of one of the earliest paintings in a most ancient part of the excavations, in the crypt of Lucina, near the cemetery of Callixtus, with which, in fact, it is now united. We shall have occasion to return to this same chamber presently for the sake of other paintings on its walls having reference to the Holy Eucharist; just here we only call attention to the baptism of our Lord, which is represented in the space over the doorway. We do not know of any other instance of this subject having been painted in the Catacombs besides the two that we have mentioned, but it is quite possible that others may be hereafter discovered; but of baptism as a Christian rite, veiled, however, under its types and symbols, we have innumerable examples.

Few figures recur more frequently among the paintings in the Catacombs, and none are more ancient, than that of a man standing in an open box or chest, often with a dove, bearing an olive-branch in its mouth, flying towards him. When this was first seen after the rediscovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth century, men set it down to be the picture of some ancient bishop preaching in a pulpit, and the Holy Ghost, under the form of a dove, inspiring him as to what he should say, according to the legend told of St. Gregory the Great and some others. Nobody now doubts that it was intended for Noe in the ark; not, however, the historical Noe and the historical ark—for nothing could be more ludicrously false to the original—but those whom that history foreshadowed: Christians saved by the waters of baptism and securely housed in the ark of the church. Some persons, who seem to take a perverse delight in assigning a pagan rather than a Christian origin to everything in the early church, account for the difference between the Biblical and the artistic representation of the ark by saying that the Christian artist did but copy a pagan coin or medal which he found ready to his hands. It is quite true that certain coins which were struck at Apamea in Phrygia during the reigns of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philip the elder—_i.e._, at different periods in the first half of the third century—exhibit on one side of them a chest, with a man and a woman standing within it, and the letters ΝΩ, or ΝΩΕ, written on the outside; and that these figures were intended to be a souvenir of the Deluge, which held a prominent place in the legends of Phrygia. It is said that the town of Apamea claimed to derive its secondary name of κιβωτός, or ark, from the fact that it was here that the ark rested; and it is quite possible that the spread of Christian ideas, gradually penetrating the Roman world, and filtering into the spirit even of those who remained attached to paganism, may have suggested the making of the coins we have described; but it is certain, on the other hand, that we can claim priority in point of time for the work of the Christian artists in the Catacombs. The coins were struck, as we have said, in the beginning of the third century; the earliest Christian painting of the same subject is assigned to the beginning of the second.

But whatever may be the history of the forms under which Noe and the ark are represented, there can be no question as to their meaning. We have the authority of St. Peter himself (1 iii. 20, 21) to instruct us upon this point; and Tertullian does but unfold what is virtually contained in the apostle’s words when he says that the ark prefigures the church, and that the dove sent out of the ark and returning with an olive-branch was a figure of the dove of the Holy Spirit, sent forth from heaven to our flesh, as it emerges from the bath of regeneration. And if we quote Tertullian again as our authority, this is not because he differs in these matters from other Christian writers who preceded or followed him, but because he has written at greater length and specially on that particular subject with which we are now engaged. St. Augustine, writing two hundred years later, gives the same explanation, and says that “no Catholic doubts it; but that it might perhaps have seemed to be a merely human imagination, had not the Apostle Peter expressly declared it.” It is, then, from no private fancy of our own, but simply in conformity with the teaching of all the ancient doctors of the church, that we interpret this scene of a man standing in an ark, and receiving an olive-branch from the mouth of a dove, as expressing this Christian doctrine: that the faithful obtain remission of their sins through baptism, receive from the Holy Spirit the gift of divine peace—that peace which, being given by faith in this world, is the gage of everlasting peace and happiness in the next—and are saved in the mystical ark of the church from the destruction which awaits the world. And if the same scene be rudely scratched on a single tomb, as it often was, and sometimes with the name of the deceased inscribed upon the chest, we can only understand it as denoting a sure and certain hope on the part of the survivors that their departed friend, having been a faithful member of the church, had died in the peace of God and had now entered into his rest.

We pass on to another of the Biblical stories mentioned by several of the Fathers as typical of baptism; and we will select as our specimen of it a painting that was executed about the very time that Tertullian was writing his treatise on that sacrament. It is to be seen more than once on the walls of a series of chambers which open out of a gallery in the Catacomb of San Callisto, not far from the papal crypt. The first figure that greets us from the wall on the left-hand side as we enter these chambers is Moses striking the rock and the water gushing forth. Are we to look upon this as a mere historic souvenir of the Jewish legislator, or are we to see in it a reference to Christian baptism? The artist in the present instance does not allow us to doubt. Side by side with it he has painted a fisherman, and we need not be reminded who it was that compared the work of the Christian apostle to that of fishermen; and immediately he adds, with still greater plainness of speech, a youth standing in the water, whilst a man pours water over his head. Finally, he fills the very little space that remains on the wall with the picture of a paralytic carrying his bed, and it would be easy to show that the Fathers recognized in the pool of Bethsaida, to which place this history belongs, a type of the healing waters of baptism. Was it possible for the Christian artist to set forth the sacrament more unequivocally? There is no legend to interpret the painting, but surely this is not needed. The mystery is veiled, indeed, from all who were uninstructed; but it was perfectly intelligible to all the baptized; it was veiled under types and symbols taken partly from the Old Law and partly from common life.

We need hardly say that this same figure of Moses striking the rock occurs in scores of other places throughout the Catacombs; but we have selected this particular specimen, both because it appears with a more copious _entourage_ of other symbols determining its sense beyond all dispute, and also because it is here brought, as we shall presently see, into immediate proximity with the other sacrament, to which it is a necessary gate of introduction—the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. But before we pass on to examine the symbols of the Holy Eucharist, let us first inquire whether there is anything further about baptism to be gleaned from the Catacombs—not now from their paintings, but from their inscriptions.

We must remember that the most ancient inscriptions were very brief—very often the mere name of the deceased and nothing more, or a short ejaculatory prayer was added for his everlasting happiness. It is clear that we should search here in vain for any mention of the sacraments. By and by, when it became usual to say something more about the deceased, to mention his age and the date of his death or burial, or other similar particulars, perhaps room might be found also for saying something about his baptism. Accordingly, there are not wanting monuments of the fourth or fifth centuries which tell us that the deceased was a neophyte, or newly illuminated—which means the same thing: viz., that he had been lately baptized—or that he had lived so many months or years after he had received the initiatory sacrament of the Christian covenant. Occasionally, also, a faint reference may be found to another sacrament—the Sacrament of Confirmation. This was often, or even generally, administered in olden times immediately after baptism, of which it was considered the complement and perfection. “From time immemorial,” says Tertullian (_ab immemorabili_), “as soon as we have emerged from the bath [of regeneration] we are anointed with the holy unction.” Hence it is sometimes doubtful which sacrament is intended, or rather it is probable that it was intended to include both under the words inscribed on the epitaphs—the verbs _accepit_, _percepit_, _consecutus est_ (the same as we find in the fathers of the same or an earlier age), used for the most part absolutely, without any object whatever following them; but in one or two cases _fidem_ or _gratiam sanctum_ are used. An epitaph of a child three years old adds: _Consecuta est D. vi. Deposita viii. Kal. Aug._ Another says simply: _Pascasius percepit xi. Kal. Maias_; and a third: _Crescentia q. v. a. xxxiii. Accepit iii. Kal. Jul._ A fourth records of a lady that she died at the age of thirty-five: _Ex die acceptionis suæ vixit dies lvii._; to which we append another: _Consecutus est ii. Non. Decemb. ex die consecutionis in sæculo fuit ad usque vii. Idas Decemb._ This last inscription is taken from a Christian cemetery in Africa, not in Rome; but it was worth quoting for its exact conformity with the one which precedes it. In both alike there is the same distinction between the natural and the spiritual age of the deceased—_i.e._, between his first and his second birth. After stating the number of years he had lived in the world, his age is computed afresh from the day of his regeneration, thus marking off the length of his spiritual from that of his merely animal life.

A Greek inscription was found a few years since on the Via Latina, recording of a lady who had belonged to one of the Gnostic sects in the third century, that she had been “anointed in the baths of Christ with his pure and incorruptible ointment”—an inscription which probably refers to two separate rites in use among the Gnostics, in imitation of the two Christian sacraments. Of a Christian lady buried in Spoleto, her epitaph records that she had been confirmed (_consignata_) by Pope Liberius; this, of course, belongs to the middle of the fourth century. And we read of a boy who died when he was a little more than five years old: _Bimus trimus consecutus est_—words which were a veritable enigma to all antiquarians, until the learned Marini compared with them the phrases of Roman law, _bima trima die dos reddita_, _bima trima die legatum solutum_, and pointed out that as these phrases undoubtedly signified that such a portion of the dowry or legacy was paid in the second year, and such another portion in the third, so the corresponding words in the Christian epitaph could only mean that the deceased had received something when he was two years old, and something else when he was three; and although the particular gifts received are not mentioned because of the _disciplina arcani_, we can have no difficulty in supplying baptism and confirmation. De Rossi adopts this interpretation; indeed, it does not seem possible to suggest any other.

It seems, then, that there is not much evidence to be derived from the Catacombs as to the Sacrament of Confirmation; that, on the contrary, which has reference to the Holy Eucharist is most precious and abundant, and it is generally to be found in juxtaposition with monuments which bear testimony to the Sacrament of Baptism. The chamber in the crypt of Lucina which gives us the oldest painting of the baptism of our Lord gives us also what are probably the oldest symbolical representations of the Holy Eucharist; and certainly the chambers in the cemetery of San Callisto, in which we have just seen so many and such clear manifestations of the Sacrament of Baptism, contain also the most numerous and the most perfect specimens of the symbolic representations of the Holy Eucharist carried to their highest degree of development, yet still combined with mysterious secrecy. Before enumerating these in detail it will be best to make two or three preliminary remarks helping to clear the way before us. First, then, we may assume as known to all our readers, both that the doctrine about the Blessed Sacrament belonged in a very special way to the discipline of the secret, and also that from the very earliest times one of the most common names under which our Blessed Lord was spoken of was the _fish_, because the letters which go to make up that word in Greek were also the initials of the words Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. And, secondly, we must say a few words about the different circumstances under which a fish appears in the artistic decorations of the Catacombs; at least, of the different kinds of feasts or entertainments in which it seems to be presented as an article of food. These feasts may be divided into three classes: First, the fish merely lies upon a table—a sacred table or tripod—with one or more loaves of bread by its side, and not unfrequently with several baskets full of bread on the ground around it; secondly, bread and fish are seen on a table, at which seven men are seated partaking of a meal; and, thirdly, they are seen, perhaps with other viands also, at a feast of which men and women are partaking indiscriminately, and perhaps attendants also are there, waiting on the guests, pouring out wine and water, hot or cold. Paintings of this latter class have not uncommonly been taken as representing the _agapæ_, or love-feasts, of the early church. But this seems to be too literal an interpretation, too much out of harmony with the symbolical character of early Christian art. More probably it was meant as a representation of that wedding-feast under which image the joys of heaven are so often set forth in Holy Scripture; and in this case it is not necessary to suppose that there was any special meaning in the choice of fish as part of the food provided, unless, indeed (which is not at all improbable), it was desired to direct attention to that mystical food a participation in which was the surest pledge of admission to that heavenly banquet, according to our Lord’s own words: “He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.” However, it is not necessary, as we have said, to suppose this; it is quite possible that in these instances the fish may have been used accidentally, as it were, and indifferently, or for the same reason as it sometimes appears on pagan monuments—viz., to denote the abundance and excellence of the entertainment.

Paintings of the first class, however, are much too peculiar to be thus explained, neither is there anything resembling them in the works of pagan artists which could have suggested them; and those of the second class, we hope presently to show, can only have been intended to represent a particular scene in the Gospel history. It is only with paintings belonging to one or other of these two classes that we need concern ourselves to-day. And, first, of the bread and fish when placed alone, without any guests at all. In the crypt of Lucina it appears twice on the wall opposite our Lord’s baptism, and in a very remarkable form indeed. The fish is alive and apparently swimming, and he carries on his back a basket full of loaves, in the middle of which is a vessel of glass containing some red liquid. What can this mean? Nobody ever saw anything like it in nature. We know of nothing in pagan art or mythology which could have suggested it. Yet here it finds a place in the chamber of a Christian cemetery, and as part of a system of decoration, other parts of which were undoubtedly of a sacred character. Is this alone profane or meaningless, or does not rather its hidden sense shine forth distinctly as soon as we call to mind the use of the fish as a Christian symbol on the one hand, and the Christian doctrine about the Holy Eucharist on the other? The fish was Christ. And he once took bread and broke it, and said, This is my body; and he took wine and blessed it, saying, This is my blood; and he appointed this to be an everlasting ordinance in his church, and promised that whosoever should eat of that bread and drink of that chalice should inherit everlasting life. Here are the bread and the wine and the mystical fish. And was it possible for Christian eyes to attach any other meaning to the combination than that it was intended to bring before them the remembrance of the Christian mysteries, whereby death and the grave were robbed of all their gloom, being only the appointed means of entrance to a never-ending life? If anybody is tempted to object that the vessels here represented as containing the bread and wine are too mean ever to have been used for such a purpose, we must remind him that it had already been put on record by archæologists, before the discovery of this monument, that the early Christians in the days of poverty and persecution continued to use vessels of the same humble materials as had been used in the sacrificial rites of Jews and Gentiles before them, and that these were precisely such as are here represented. Nay, further still, that even when vessels of gold and silver had come into use in the church, still there were exceptional times and circumstances when it was lawful, and even praiseworthy, to return to the more simple and ancient practice. St. Jerome praises St. Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse in his day, because, having sold the church-plate to relieve the pressing necessities of the poor, he was content to carry the body of Christ in a basket made of wicker-work, and the blood of Christ in a chalice of glass. Most assuredly St. Jerome would have been at no loss to interpret the painting before us.

But let us now pass on into the cemetery of San Callisto, and enter again the chamber in which we saw Moses, and the fishermen, and the ministration of baptism, and the paralytic. Let us pursue our walk round the chamber, and immediately after the paralytic, on the wall facing the doorway, we come to the painting of a three-legged table with bread and fish upon it, a woman standing on one side in the ancient attitude of Christian prayer, and a man on the other stretching out his hands over the fish and the bread, as though he were blessing them. Can it be that we have here the act of consecration of the Holy Eucharist, as in the adjacent wall we had the act of baptizing, only in a somewhat more hidden manner, as became the surpassing dignity of the greater mystery? Nobody, we think, would ever have disputed it, had the dress of the consecrator been somewhat more suited to such an action. But his breast and arm and one side of his body are considerably exposed, as he stretches out his arm from underneath his cloak; and modern taste takes exception to the exposure as unseemly in such a time and place. We have no wish to put a weapon into the hands of the anti-ritualistic party. Nevertheless, we believe that it is pretty well ascertained that at first no vestment was exclusively appropriated to the celebration of Mass. We are not sure that Dean Stanley was in error when he wrote the other day that St. Martin, the Apostle of Gaul and first Bishop of Tours, wore a sheepskin when he officiated, and that “he consecrated the Eucharistic elements with his bare arms coming through the sheepskin.” And at any rate it is certain that in the days of Tertullian, to which the picture before us belongs, many ministers of Christ’s word and sacraments used the pallium as the dress most suitable to their own profession. The writer we have named published a short treatise on the subject, in which, with his usual wit and subtlety, he commends its use, and he concludes with these words: “Rejoice, O Pallium! and exult; a better philosophy claims thee now, since thou hast become the vestment of a Christian.” Forty years later a fellow-countryman of this writer, St. Cyprian, expressed a strong objection to the dress, both as immodest in itself and vainglorious in its signification. Thus everything conspires to support the interpretation which the picture itself suggests and the age to which it has been assigned; and we conclude with confidence that those who first saw it never doubted that it was meant to set before them the most solemn mystery of their religion.

They would have recognized the same mystery again without hesitation, under another form, in the painting which follows immediately afterwards, in which seven men are seen seated at a table, partaking of bread and fish. Our own thoughts, as we look at it, fly naturally to the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, where such an incident as this is minutely described after the miraculous draught of fishes which was the occasion of it. But unless we are very familiar with the writings of the Fathers, our thoughts would probably go no further; they would rest in the mere letter of the narrative; we should not penetrate beneath the surface, and see (as all the Fathers saw), in every circumstance related, a prophetic figure of the whole history of the church: first, the immense number of souls caught in her net, then the union of those souls with Christ, “the fish that was already laid on the hot coals” (_Piscis assus, Christus passus_), their incorporation with him through partaking of that living Bread which came down from heaven, and consequently their sure hope of abiding with him for ever in the world to come. This is no private or modern interpretation; it is drawn out at greatest length by St. Augustine; but it is to be found also in all other patristic commentaries on Holy Scripture; and the marvellous unity, not only in dogmatic teaching, but even in the use of allegories and artistic symbols, which reached from east to west in the ancient church, warrants us in assuming that it was not unknown to him who selected this scene as the central piece of decoration for the principal wall of this chamber.

Next after it he painted Abraham with his son Isaac, the ram, and the faggot for the sacrifice—a type both of the sacrifice on Mount Calvary and (in a yet more lively manner) of the unbloody sacrifice still perpetually renewed on Christian altars.

Thus there is the most exact similitude between the illustrations used to set forth the Holy Eucharist on the one wall and those of holy baptism on the other. Both sacraments are at the same time veiled from unbelievers, yet indicated to the faithful, by types taken from the history of the Old Law, by incidents belonging to the life of Christ, and by representations, sufficiently simple yet obscure, of the actual manner of their administration. And then the last wall was reserved for the setting forth of our resurrection, in the example of Lazarus, which was, in truth, the natural end and completion of all that the sacraments led to.

We have not left ourselves space to speak at length of the miracles of changing water into wine, or the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, as other figures of the Holy Eucharist often to be seen in the Catacombs. That they were painted there in this sense we cannot doubt, when we consider how they were connected with that sacrament in the sermons and catechetical instructions of the early church. In the first miracle the substance of water was changed into the substance of wine; in the second a limited substance was, by Christ’s power, so multiplied as to be made present in a thousand places at once, capable of feeding a thousand persons, whereas a minute before it had been only present in one place and was sufficient only to satisfy the appetite of one. The analogy is obvious; but these miracles do not seem to have entered so early into the system of decoration of the Catacombs (except in a very fragmentary and indirect manner), neither do they anywhere enter into so long and beautiful a series of mystical figures, as those others which we have been just now examining. Those form a series of rare and very special interest. They are repeated, as we have already said, in several successive chambers, whose date can be determined, by a number of concurrent indications, as not later than the first quarter of the third century. In these chambers the same histories and the same symbols are repeated in the same style, freely changed in their arrangement and in some accessories of the composition, yet constant in their hidden meaning and theological sense; and that sense is briefly this: the idea of a new life imparted to the Christian soul by baptism, fed by the Holy Eucharist, and continued uninterruptedly throughout eternity.

TWO MAY CAROLS. BY AUBREY DE VERE.

DARKNESS.

The authentic Thought of God at last Wanes, dimly seen, through Error’s mist: Upon that mist, man’s image cast Becomes the new God-Mechanist.

The vast _Idea_ shrivels up: Truth narrows with the narrowing soul: Men sip it from the acorn’s cup: Their fathers drained the golden bowl.

Shrink, spelled and dwarfed, their earth, their skies; Shrinks in their hand their measuring-rod; With dim, yet microscopic eyes They chase a daily-dwindling God.

His temple thus to crypt reduced, For ancient faith is space no more, Or her, its Queen.[32] To hearts abused By sense, prime truths are true no more.

Footnote 32:

Father Newman has, I think, remarked that in the Protestant scheme there is _not room_ for Mary.

LIGHT.

The spirit intricately wise That bends above his ciphered scroll Only to probe, and analyze, The self-involved and sunless soul,

_Has_ not the truth he holds—though plain; For truth divine is gift, not debt:— Her living waters wouldst thou drain? Let down the pitcher, not the net!

But they, the spirits frank and meek, Nor housed in self, nor science-blind, Who welcome truths they did not seek;— Truth comes to them in every wind.

Beside his tent’s still open door, With open heart, and open eye, The patriarch sat, when they who wore That triad type of God drew nigh.

The world of faith around us lies Like nature’s world of life and growth: Seeing, to see it needeth eyes And heart, profound and simple both.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER. FROM THE FRENCH.

NOVEMBER 16, 1869.

Thérèse has followed her sister.... At the last moment reason returned; she looked at her mother and said: “Here is Mad; give me your blessing!” O my God! it is, then, true—the nest is empty.

Kate, how are Berthe and Raoul to be consoled?

NOVEMBER 22, 1869.

Margaret is here again—a ray of sunshine after the storm, in this dwelling, twice visited by death. Oh! how we wept in embracing her. And with what affection she hastened to Berthe, this devastated, disinherited, wounded, and bleeding heart! “How shall we leave this cemetery now?” said my mother to Gertrude. Oh! I would wish to remain here with her. To return to Orleans, to find their traces everywhere, would be too much grief. What a crushing blow! What incredible, unforeseen suddenness! It is enough to take away one’s reason. Raoul speaks no more, hears no more, sees no more; Berthe is in tears: we have to console and support them. Help us with your prayers, happy Kate, who witness no death! In the middle of the park are two trees which Raoul planted on the day his daughters were born. They are to be transplanted to their tombs. Dear children, so united, so beautiful, and inseparable, even in death! O the mother! what sorrow is hers. Ought children to die before their mother?

Mme. de T—— is heroic in self-denial, and yet these deaths revive all her troubles. Ah! who could have foretold that my happiness would so soon have declined, and that God would so quickly have claimed his portion of our treasure! See, here are Gertrude and Berthe—two mothers without children: Ellen and Edith in eternity; Marcella at Naples. I now experience an indescribable apprehension, and count the beloved heads by which I am still surrounded.... I remember the L—— family, carried off in one year.

A radiant letter from Marcella, who does not yet know of our mourning. _Beati qui lugent!_ Let us love God, let us love God!

It is in him that I cherish you, my Kate.

NOVEMBER 28, 1869.

All our Ireland in letters of fraternal condolence. The saintly Isa speaks to me sweetly of the happiness of the souls thus called away, and exhorts me to perfect love. Lizzy invites me to cross the Channel to receive the consolations of those whom I consoled formerly. Sarah and the others comfort me in our beloved tongue. O Kate! it was so beautiful, our peaceful home, with its assembly of children and grandchildren, forming, as it were, a glorious crown around my venerated mother; and now a void has been made, the birds have spread their wings, and, like the dove from the ark, return no more.

O charming towers, silent witnesses of our happiness! O vast sea, coming to murmur at our feet! O flowers they loved! O thickets where their voices, fresh and pure, resounded! O lawn whereon they tried their earliest steps; dear abode which witnessed their growth! O forests through which they sped along, lively and swift of foot, in chase of butterflies or of their favorite dog! O solitary paths which they so often traversed to go and lavish on the poor their gold and their love!—speak to us of _them_, and of _them_ always.

Dear Kate, pray for the desolate parents. “All my future has vanished,” says Berthe. May God be with her! Everything else is very small in trials so great as these. My mother begs you to ask for fifty Masses at Fourvières; we have not the strength to write.

Life, the sunshine, and blue sky—all have disappeared. Adieu, dear sister.

DECEMBER 5, 1869.

Adrien is reading to us _Herminie de la Bassemoûturie_, a true narrative of a life of suffering and humiliation, borne with a courage so heroic and supernatural that one’s heart kindles at it. Margaret is going away, perhaps to-morrow. On the 30th Heaven sent Lucy a dear little daughter, who was baptized yesterday without any pomp. Gertrude was godmother, and the godfather is a brother of my pretty sister’s. They have called this little daughter of Brittany _Anne_—a good name.

_Dec. 6._—I have just returned from accompanying our friends as far as to D——. Emmanuel continued to send me kisses while the carriage went slowly away.... Dear Margaret! how much I regret her. Everybody loves her, wherever she goes. Now we are alone.... Johanna, Paul, and their children leave us this evening to spend some months at Paris. I never tell you about Arthur and Edward, whose vacation is over, and who are very good friends together. The _abbé_ remains with us, that we may not be deprived of daily Mass. From henceforth follow me in thought into the great drawing-room, once so bright with the dear young creatures whom I so loved, and there you will see, in her large easy-chair, my mother, whom grief has aged, with your Georgina on a low chair at her feet. Gertrude, with needlework in her hands, occupies the other side of the fire-place, Berthe is near her, then Adrien, René, Raoul, Edouard, and the _abbé_ round the table, near which is seated also the charming Lucy.

But a ray from on high pierces the sombre veils: our dear ones see God; they contemplate him in eternal ecstasy. I had bought at Orleans a poetic little picture—a lily broken on earth, which flowered again in heaven—and underneath it a verse of the beautiful lines by Mlle. Fleuriot on the death of _Alix_. How this lily recalls Picciola to my mind! René is working at a miniature which he intends to give to Berthe: in the foreground the twins are embracing a poor old man; in the distance are two lilies on a tomb and two doves taking flight. I am continuing the _History of the Popes_; it will be for Marguerite and Alix.

How I wish you were here! My heart aches for Berthe, formerly so happy, and so lonely now. Ah! what burning tears are those that spring from the hearts of mothers when God takes back from them the precious ones lent them for a day. O remediless grief, deep void, unfathomable abyss!

Yes, we shall remain in Brittany. The noise of the festivities of this world would be to us a martyrdom; but I am athirst for my Kate, and it seems as if I shall be stronger when her gentle hand has laid balm upon my wounds. René and I will be in Paris on the 23d for a few days.

Mistress Annah shed many tears at the moment of leave-taking. Margaret was pale and greatly moved; why should there be any separations, sister? Ah! doubtless because earth would be too delightful. May God be always with you!

DECEMBER 12, 1869.

Do you know that Overbeck is dead? Edith MacMoor sends me long and interesting details from Rome. Edith has taken up her abode in the city which is the fatherland of Catholics, and her old sympathy with me, she says, has reawakened before the _Sibyls_. Dear, ardent soul, always so amiable! O our artist, so beloved, so admired! The world is no more anything to me but a _Campo Santo_.

Have you heard of the _Pearl of Antioch_? I am reading this Christian romance with René.

On the 8th we observed as a special festival the opening of the great sittings of this Council which will crown with a new glory the reign of Pius IX. Our life is quite monastic: no more joyous laughter rings along the corridors; silence—the “first power in the world,” as the Père Lacordaire called it—dwells with us. We are in mourning for our beloved children, and these dark dresses are of a solemn sadness which strikes our visitors. Every day, no matter what the weather may be, René accompanies me to the cemetery. In spite of the cold, there are flowers, and this marble is almost _joyous_. The _Revue_ gives an interesting story—“Laurence,” an account of a young girl who wished to die because her sister, on whom she lavished all her love, had departed to heaven. I do not think that Thérèse wished for death, but think rather that Picciola asked of God that she might share her felicity.

Lucy is well, and thanks you for your sisterly prayers. We are expecting news from Margaret and Marcella. Mary and Ellen write regularly to Berthe and to me. Good and kind hearts, full of gentleness and affection!

Kate dearest, what do you say to my idea?—the adoption of these children would console my sister. Would it be well to propose it to her?

I find René changed. Pray for us.

DECEMBER 15, 1869.

Margaret sends me her Journal since the departure, every line of which is redolent of poetry and affection. Emmanuel is hourly asking for us. Marcella sends me pages bathed with tears: “Why did you allow me to go away, dear and generous friend? I feel that your soul would have taken refuge with mine in these sad days.”

Kate, what, then, is happiness, since it lasts so short a time?

Marcella is going to spend the winter at Rome; Anna continues to grow both taller and stronger, “but the departure of her friends makes her wish for heaven, and everything gives me the presentiment that in a few years my beloved one will enter a convent. You will scold me for thinking this so long beforehand, but you will agree with me that her piety is beyond what is ordinary. I have so unlearnt happiness that I live always in uncertainty.” A friend of Adrien’s tells him of the reception given at Naples to the happy family party: Mme. de V—— is allied to the Princess of X——. How fair a future has opened before my friend! “To return to Rome, where so many of my memories linger, was my earnest desire; blessed be God, who permits it to be realized!”

René is writing to you. Good-by for to-day, dearest sister!

DECEMBER 18, 1869.

Read an admirable pastoral letter by Mgr. Berthaud. “It is a fountain of living water, a springing fountain,” writes Louis Veuillot, who has the happiness to be in Rome.

Berthe yields to the entreaties of her mother, who begs her to go to her in her old castle on the banks of the Rhine. Lucy is going away at the same time to show her sisters the beautiful little Anna, her rosebud. I look forward with fear to the feeling of solitude which will seize upon us after they are gone. O my God! these will all return, but thou keepest thine angels.

The happy Karl sends the most fraternal letters that he has ever yet addressed to me. He is now in retreat, almost ready to mount the steps of the altar and accomplish Ellen’s last desire. “I am never lonely,” he writes. What ardor consumes him! How he burns to shed his blood for Christ! “My whole soul springs forth towards those disinherited souls who know not God! If you still take an interest in your unworthy brother, wish for him crosses, trials, sorrows, and persecutions. But I am not worthy to participate in the Passion of my Redeemer, and it may be that my cross may be the burden of a useless life.” Saintly friend! noble heart! His director, who is a relative of our good _abbé_, never wearies in his praises of Karl. According to all probability, he will set out for Marseilles the day after his ordination, where the first ship that sails will take him on board. What am I, my God, by the side of this brother left me by Ellen?

I am coming to see you, dear Kate, to refresh myself with you—a too rapid apparition, too fleeting a happiness, and one in which I scarcely can believe.

DECEMBER 22, 1869.

Dear Kate, this sacrifice must also be made. Yesterday a frightful accident threw us all into the greatest agitation. My mother’s horses ran away. The footman, losing all presence of mind with terror, leaped down and was killed by the fall. He was taken up quite mutilated.... Horrible! horrible! My mother has fever; we remain. The unfortunate Antoine will be buried to-morrow morning. He leaves three children. He was an excellent Christian, and was preparing to make his Christmas communion.... I am writing to Karl, and at the same time to the venerable superior to obtain permission for our friend to give us one or two days previous to quitting France and Europe.

My mother was coming back from the town, whither we had all gone to take those of our party who were leaving. René and I were to have taken our departure this evening. All in this world is nothingness, except the pure and holy love of God. I had so set my mind on this journey that I can only give it up by doing violence to my heart. But if the shock my mother has undergone should bring on an illness, I should never forgive myself for having gone away.

Pray, dear Kate!

DECEMBER 25, 1869.

My mother is better, dear sister, although the doctor condemns her still to repose. The good _curé_ is very unwell, and, since my mother would not have been able to attend the midnight Mass, the _abbé_ offered to say it at the parish church. Ah! if the twins had been here. We left the house at ten. What a night! What impressions! In a clear and calm night, with the sky spangled with thousands of stars, to go through hedge-bordered paths to this old Breton church, so vast and so full; the singing, the sounds of the organ played by René, the _Gloria in Excelsis_, so sweet and grand, the numerous communions, the dimly-lighted sanctuary—all these things had about them an indescribable old-world poetry, a certain interior and heavenly charm, which made me ask if we were not at Bethlehem, and if we were not suddenly about to behold with our bodily eyes, like the shepherds, the adorable new-born Saviour in the manger. “The Cedar of Lebanon is gone forth from the hyssop in our valley.” Lord Jesus, grant thy blessing upon France!

It is two years to-day since Ellen entered into glory. With what ecstasy _she_ must behold Karl at the altar! Dear Kate, I know not what atmosphere is surrounding me, but it seems to me that every sorrow brings me nearer to God.

My mother was visibly affected on reading your kind lines; how she loves us! Gertrude is more saintly than ever; her self-denial is increasing. She has owned to me that she never loses the presence of God. We five form a severe group, in which the highest questions are discussed. Gertrude is on fire when she speaks of charity. There is no sort of mortification in which she does not take delight; how I startled her yesterday by coming suddenly upon her as she was exchanging her shoes for those of a beggar! She fasted on bread and water the three last days of Advent, and has asked me if I would go with her barefoot to the crucifix on the mountain, the path to which is covered with brambles. You see she is a worthy imitator of the _Acta Sanctorum_.

_A Dieu_, best beloved!

DECEMBER 28, 1869.

Karl arrives on the 31st. Dear Kate, his letter showed me heaven. Good news of everybody, and my mother is in the drawing-room. So the year is about to end—this year, so eventful, and so plentiful in tears! O my God! how many loving looks follow me no more. In my meditation this morning I asked myself whether I am yet submissive and resigned. Alas! I truly wish whatever God wills, but I am weak.

Just now two little birds came and perched on my window, fluttering as if wanting to come in. I opened it gently and crumbled a cake for them, and the pretty little hungry creatures pecked up the crumbs gladly. Then they flew away, and I began to think of the two sweet birds which, almost before we were aware, have flown away also. I was so proud of this beautiful family, so happy to belong to it! Oh! you know well, Kate, that it is above all for the sake of the poor father, the sorrowing mother, that I regret these two attractive creatures! Raoul writes that Berthe is more calm, and he thinks she will remain some time where she is. What an image of death is this silence and the solitude that now surrounds us! I work hard, take long walks, teach two little boys their catechism, and yet, in spite of everything, as soon as René is no longer there, as soon as I recall the past, my heart is ready to break.

“Take care, my dear daughter,” my mother says to me. “Strengthen your soul; throw yourself upon God.” And Gertrude: “The thought of God softens everything. He has permitted it—let us submit; let us live in heaven.”

Would that we could go thither together, dear sister!

Accept all my best wishes for the New Year—wishes for every day and every hour, for your earthly and eternal happiness.

JANUARY 5, 1870.

Dear Kate, how good God is! This is the cry of my heart, crushed beneath the weight of its gratitude. Karl has been our Good Samaritan. If Berthe and Raoul could only hear him! What unction in his words!

He made his appearance like the angel of Providence amongst us. It was in the evening. René had gone to wait for him; we had heard no noise, when the door opened.... It was he! There was a moment of emotion and tears, and when he consented to bless us, and I saw him in the light, I understood the words of Gertrude: “He has found true happiness.” Then his Mass the next day, the Communion, and Thanksgiving said aloud, the chanting of the _Magnificat_ and of the _Lætatus_—it was heaven. This impression still remains; thanks to a concurrence of circumstances in which I perceive the intervention of our good angels, the newly elect of the priesthood remains with us until the 20th—an unhoped-for and most precious favor. Alas! shall we see him again?

He has given me a little book which he had kept by permission of his superior; you are aware that this generous Karl despoiled himself of everything before giving _himself_ also to God. This _Basket of Eucharistic Flowers_ is full of sweetness to my heart. I find in it some verses on Picciola—not mine, but the flower—and the heavenly utterances of the pious Marie Jenna, my favorite poetess. Listen to this:

“Oui, cette vie en larmes est féconde; J’ai peu vécu, j’ai déjà bien souffert. Mon Dieu, j’ai soif, et les routes du monde Ne me sont rien qu’une aride désert. Mais à tes pieds mon âme se repose. O tendre Ami, Divin Consolateur, Qu’importe à moi de perdre toute chose, Si je te garde, amour de mon Sauveur!”[33]

Footnote 33:

Yes, this our life is plentiful in tears. Though I am young, still I have suffered much. My God, I thirst! and this world’s weary ways Are but an arid desert unto me. But at thy feet my soul finds her repose, O tender Friend and Comforter Divine! What matters it to me if I lose all, But still keep thee, my dearest Saviour’s love!

And this cry of the soul:

“Jesus, pour seul bonheur, ah! donnez-moi des larmes Que vous consolerez.”[34]

Footnote 34:

Jesus, for my sole happiness, oh! give me tears Which thou wilt wipe away.

JANUARY 10, 1870.

Karl has spoken to me much of you, dear sister. He wishes that his last sculpture in Europe should be for our chapel: René and his brothers have for some time past been working at a pulpit; the principal figure will be our missionary’s work. He has consented to let me prepare his baggage. Kate, I was complaining of our solitude, and now it has become sweet to me, because I love God more. Oh! what a blessing to the soul it is to love.

I am slipping these few words in with René’s, and send you a thousand loving messages.

JANUARY 14, 1870.

Impossible not to give you the history of our day, although it is very late. I wished to go to Auray with Karl, and my mother felt strong enough to go with us. On the way we met with a German, poor as Job, a true disciple of Luther, his Bible in his hand. His gentle and melancholy air interested us. We entered into conversation with him, Karl preached to him, he came with us to Auray, and when we came out of the church he told us that his mother was a Catholic, that the sight of our fervor had touched him, etc., etc. In short, we brought him back with us to the château, and Karl is going to catechise him and finish his conversion. You see the good Saint Anne has indeed had a hand in this. Is it not a charming episode?

15th.—Letters: 1st, Margaret, who sends you her heartful of good wishes; 2d, Marcella, with the chronicle of the Council and the account of an audience with the Holy Father; 3d, Lizzy, who wants to make me admire her Daniel; 4th, Lucy, who is impatient to come back, because her pretty Anne cannot be happy without us, says our amiable sister; 5th, my Kate. I mention all in chronological order; you know very well that you are first in order of affection. But how short it is, dearest! Tell me soon the reason of this brevity; you must have so much to say!

_A Dieu_, my dearest Kate. All and each of the happy inhabitants of my Brittany offer you their homage and respect.

JANUARY 19, 1870.

Well, dearest, he leaves us to-morrow—this friend, this good brother and generous priest. Our German is converted, but for reasons of prudence the baptism is deferred. The worthy man does not wish to quit us, and does his utmost to render himself useful. He is passionately fond of music, and teaches it to our pastors, who in return _strengthen_ him (as he says) in the catechism. How sadly we shall miss Karl! But then, souls, souls! Ah! I would not keep him back, even if I could.

I have had a strange dream. I was with you in your cell. You seemed to be asleep; I spoke to you, but you did not answer me. I went to kiss you, and in this kiss I felt so strange a thrill, as if your beautiful face had been of marble, that I woke, crying out in a manner which alarmed René. It is in vain that I say to myself again and again that it is but a dream; the impression remains—a profound terror, and an anguish which oppresses my heart. Write to me; reassure me, dear Kate. I have lost faith in happiness. What am I saying? So long as I belong to God, and nothing can separate me from him, shall I not have the only happiness worthy of the name?

Karl promises to write to us. He is going to China, that literary country, where barbarism and civilization are so strangely mingled. My mother, _the Adriens_, and we are putting together our savings to give them to the dear missionary, that with them he may have more facilities in his work of gaining souls. How I bless fortune on these occasions!

A thousand lovingnesses, dear sister—the dearest of sisters.

JANUARY 26, 1870.

We accompanied Karl to his ship, which I visited, and which we saw start on her voyage. Thus he is now between sea and sky, exposed to tempests. Oh! “how beautiful are the feet of those” who have left all—family, friends, country, repose, comforts, enjoyments—to go in search of the lost sheep. It seems to me that the angels of faith and love must spread their wings over the vessel and keep far away all contrary winds.... We seem as if impregnated with sanctity. Grief is a powerful lever to raise one to God and to transform souls!

You do not write. René is uneasy and tries in vain to conceal his anxiety from me. Did you receive his letter of the 24th? Dear Kate, if you are ill, send one word and we will hasten to you. O my God! Ill! You! Could it be possible? That terrible dream is always before my eyes. You will scold me, dearest.... Remember that for some months past I have suffered so much that even the thought of a misfortune overwhelms me.

Oh! may God guard you, darling Kate, my sister, my soul. Take care of yourself for the love of me.

My mother entreats you to write; she suffers on account of my anxiety. My God! grant that that may have been only a dream.

JANUARY 29, 1870.

Still nothing; perhaps your letter is lost.... May God protect you! The _Univers_ pleases me. Mgr. Berthaud has had a triumph at Sant’ Andrea della Valle—the dear church where we have prayed. “His imagery is rich and abundant,” writes Louis Veuillot, “because his faith keeps alive in him a perpetual enthusiasm for the works, the mercies, and the love of God. His thoughts are an endless song. What he says he sees; what he sees he admires and adores. External things, enveloped and, as it were, transpierced by the rays of the divine Sun, appear to him as magnificent as he describes them to be. Things are the works of God; men are the children of God, divinities in flower, called by their adoption to the ineffable glory of the divine union. As soon as they are in their way, their vocation, their order, their accidental defects are effaced; there is no more ugliness, there are no more rags, no more miseries—all is already transfigured, already at the attainment of its end, and the lyre, vibrating to the touch of a sacred enthusiasm, gives forth sounds at once vehement and sublime.”

What eulogy! What style!

Mgr. Mermillod made a magnificent discourse at Saint Louis des Français, on the perpetuation in the church of the Gospel scene of the Magi. “The action of God in the world, the redemption of souls, the perpetuity and definition of the truth, all repose upon these three great weaknesses: a Child at Bethlehem, a Host in the tabernacle, an aged man at the Vatican.”

Kate dearest, I admire, but nothing dispels my preoccupation, the dominant note of my thoughts—you! yourself! Why this silence? I must know it! Write to me; I am suffering....

JANUARY 31, 1870.

It is here, on my writing-table, this white page on which you have traced but one word.... “It was not a dream!” We start at once; this note will precede us by a few hours. Oh! live for me, my beloved sister; ask God to cure you.

My God, I have so often prayed thee to preserve her to me—to let her live as long as I!

* * * * *

JOURNAL OF GEORGINA AFTER HER SISTER’S DEATH.

FEBRUARY 15, 1870.

O amare! O perire tibi! O advenire ad Deum!

Still would I write to you, beloved sister who have left me! Oh! can this be possible? You, my Guardian Angel! It is in heaven that I now look for you, that I now behold you—in heaven, your true home—in heaven, where you have found again our mother. O my God! my God! Always shall I remember this last journey, of which you were the object; the anguish on the way, the haste to arrive, the chill that fell on my heart at the gate of the convent. Oh! you knew that I could not bear to see you suffer; and then, perhaps, you might think you would recover, for I cannot believe that you desired to die.... Ah! to see you dying; to embrace you, watch by you, hear the last effusions of that tenderness to which my mother had bequeathed me; to see this flame, which was my life, die out, and yet not die myself—Kate, Kate, I can think only, speak only, of you!

I have been very ill. I feel weak, very weak—almost discouraged to live. Tell me that you are not gone away; soul of my sister, speak to my soul! Oh! how it seems to me as if I had lost everything. You it was who gave so great an interest to my life, animating everything with your affection. And now....

FEBRUARY 28.

Dear Kate, obtain strength for me. I desire to live for René. Why did you not stay with us, my beloved? I have bitter regrets.... I should have wished to nurse you, to keep you here. O foolishness of love! what right have I to wish to keep you from your own country? Dear sister, the correspondence which was my daily delight must not end: I will write my journal for _you_. God, who is so good, even when he separates two hearts which were one, could not refuse anything to his elect. Ask him, then, my sister, that you may every day come to me, if even only for an instant. Oh! would that I could see you. It seems to me that with you all died; that nothing more will ever in this world smile on me, that the eternal mourning of my soul can never more be comforted. Our friends write to me. Margaret and Marcella weep with me. My mother, Adrien, Gertrude, and René are full of unspeakable tenderness and solicitude towards me; and yet I have scarcely any response to make them but my tears. All is night around me: the Sun has set.

Oh! speak to me, Kate—only one word, one vibration of your dear voice, one of your smiles. Is it true, my God, that for twenty-five days past this face so dearly loved has been covered with a shroud?

Is it true? Has death indeed come between us? Had we not enough of absence and of separation, that other mourning of the soul? I still hear her last word.... Oh! who will give me back my past joys, fled away, and the affection which enfolded all?

Adrien is reading me the _Beatitudes_, by Mgr. Landriot. There are some admirable conferences on the divine words, _Beati qui lugent_. “There are,” says the Père Lacordaire, “tears in all the universe; and they are so natural to us that even if they had no cause, they would flow _without_ cause, solely from the charm of that ineffable sadness of which our soul is the deep and mysterious well.” Again: “Melancholy is the great queen of highly sensitive souls; she touches them without their knowing how or why, in a secret and unexpected moment. The ray of light which gladdens others brings veils to them; the festive rejoicing which moves and delights others pierces them with an arrow. It is with much difficulty that God and our Lord can scatter from the heart which loves them these vain and chilling clouds; the suffering is so much the more difficult to vanquish from having a less real cause.”

Oh! the cause of my sorrow, can I forget it? Kate, obtain strength for me. How truly I feel you present!

MARCH 5.

We are come back to Brittany. They say that I have become a mere shadow. Kate dearest, I wish to be courageous, but my poor human nature gives way on this Calvary. O my memories! They are a golden book in which I read every hour, in which every leaflet recalls my other self, her devotedness and love. Your papers have been given to me—the private pages which God alone has read with me. How you have loved me! Dearest, I weep no more, except over myself. You were hungering for heaven, as were Mad and Thérèse, Ellen and Edith. Oh! gone—you also, you my guardian angel!

I wanted to write, to relieve myself a little; my heart swelled, and I could do nothing but sob. I have fearful moments. Oh! speak to me, Kate. Last night I seemed to witness your death again. Oh! those eyes, those eyes which I almost worshipped—I had to close them. Kate, what is happiness? Mine has fled away like a cloud, and I seek after it in vain.

I know that you are happy, and yet my selfishness grieves. Pray for your Georgina!

MARCH 8.

Strange blindness of heart! You were to me so sweet, so infinitely precious, that the thought of an _adieu_ without ever meeting here again had never occurred to me.

You were six years old when you imprinted your first kiss on the brow of your Georgina. Our most distant memories show me your beloved image. You never left me; the sight of you was a talisman that stopped my tears; your voice taught me my first baby-words. Oh! this union of ours from the very cradle was my mother’s pride—this mother, so beloved and so beautiful, who saw herself over again in you. You did not know that you were fair; you early disdained earthly frivolities; and how much it must have cost you, later, to remain in the world for me!

Everywhere you were surrounded by sympathy and respect; your sisterly devotion made you an aureole. Kate, who was like you?

Tell me that you hear me, that you see me every day. How shall I live without you? A great void has been made in me; my heart is like a desert. Ah! I loved you too well, and our God is a jealous God.

I adore his will, and, in spite of my inexpressible desolation, I kiss his divine hand beneath the blow which overwhelms me. I desire to become truly your sister by sacrifice and love.

Help me! I know not how to climb up Calvary!

MARCH 10.

No, I cannot believe that it is at an end; that I have no more a sister. At times I believe myself to be under the influence of a nightmare. My black dress—this sombre vestment which made me afraid—is become dear to me since I wear it for you; but ... what faintings of heart! In what an ocean of grief my soul is plunged!

To-day I wished to go out and visit my poor; my strength failed. Kate, sorrow is killing me.

MARCH 12.

An unexpected consolation—a visit from the Père de G—-. His touching, penetrating words roused me. Pardon me, Kate! I was cowardly. God forbids not tears, but he forbids despair. Alas! formerly I comforted others, and now I am unwilling to accept any solace in my trouble; I wish for no truce to my regret. Oh! be happy, soul of my sister. Obtain for me grace to love much, more than ever, all who suffer, all the elect of misfortune. The gentle Abbé Perreyve used to say: “The greater part of souls would remain closed to other souls, if they had not suffered; trial bruises them, and compels them to shed around them floods of love.”

I loved them already—these dear poor of the good God! But I feel that my time belongs to them, that I owe myself also to those who love me, and that it remains to me to pray and suffer while I love.

Help me, dear Kate, help me!

MARCH 15.

How kind René is, dear Kate, and how fraternal! He understands my wish to write to you still, to continue my life so violently cut in twain, and unceasingly to speak to you. I am stronger, but not yet resigned. Can one be resigned to such a loss?

I saw yesterday a young girl whom Gertrude knows, and who has opened her heart to me as to a friend. With what ardor of desire she dreams of the religious life! God permits her to be cruelly tried: her mother is utterly opposed to her departure. There are several other sisters, one of whom shares the aspirations of my new acquaintance. How they both suffer! Would that a heavenly light might illuminate the heart of their mother, who little comprehends the martyrdom of her children! How everything is at cross-purposes in this poor world! People are saddened by things at which they ought to rejoice, and _vice versâ_. Mothers, who have had experience of the cares and pains of marriage and the world—mothers, who know too well the sum of happiness that may be expected from even the best-assorted unions—make themselves miserable at the mere thought of their daughters’ union with God, as if he were not the Supreme Good, the Spouse _par excellence_, the faithful Friend, the plenitude of every virtue and of love! Ah! it is because everything in this world has its shades and its defects, and because few souls know truly how to love.

Thus is it that there is a mixture and alloy in my affection for you when I weep for you so bitterly, dear sister of my life!

Nothing can separate our souls. I am yours in life and death!

MARCH 18.

Berthe’s brother has just sunk under a malignant fever. The poor widow is ill of grief. Three such beautiful children, whom he loved so much—so many powerful bonds which bound him to this world so suddenly broken—all this makes the grief immense. Gertrude said to me: “Why, then, are those mourned for who enter the port—those who go hence to rest in God? They only who remain behind are really to be pitied.” Ah! what deadly affliction must not our friend feel, widowed of her happiness, which nothing can restore to her—nothing, until that hour when, delivered in her turn from this life sown with crosses, she too shall see God, and, with God, him whom she weeps!

Kate, would that I could see you and embrace you again as in that last hour! Everywhere death, everywhere mourning!

MARCH 21.

Count de Montalembert died on the 13th of March. It is a great funereal date. May God receive him into his glory! I was just now hearing some beautiful pages by Alfred Nettement, dead also the 14th of November—dead in the breach, in those combats of pen and thought so worthy of admiration and of enthusiasm when their object is the defence of the church. Our dear M. de Riancey is also dead, faithful, to his last moment, to this proscribed monarchy, which sees its best defenders falling one by one. O my God! what losses. Kate, if I could forget you for a single instant, would not these deaths lead me back to the thought of you?

Adrien has given me _The Book of All who Suffer_, by M. Gautier. How well this good brother was inspired!

Marcella, Margaret, Lizzy, Isa, and so many other kind hearts write to me frequently, but nothing can replace my Kate!

APRIL 1.

Dear sister, I have suffered fearful pains for ten days past. My good René has been to me like a Sister of Charity. I am like Thérèse, I cannot live without my other _self_. Oh! to see you, to hear you, to kneel by you, and kiss your beloved hands.

Until now I did not know what separation meant. I remember with a sort of remorse how joyous my first letters were after that first farewell which was to be so soon followed by a farewell that seems eternal. I saw you as having attained the object of your dreams. I entered with glad heart into this new life where all was golden. Kate, I am ungrateful! God has permitted me to know no other troubles than those which should not be such to the Christian—death, the beginning of true life for those who love God. Help me, that I may be strong; my sadness clouds so many brows!

APRIL 8.

Nelly, who flattered herself that she would recover, has bid adieu to this poor world, in which she suffered so terribly, although possessing numerous certainties of happiness, if it be true that anything can be certain here below, even when one is only twenty years old.

My new young friend visits me often; her fervent piety and the ardor of her desires find an echo in my heart. You were thus, O sister of my soul! at her age, in that spring-time of life thrice happy and thrice blessed when one belongs to God.

APRIL 15.

The Duchess de Berry died on the 10th, at her castle in Upper Styria, far from Naples, far from France, far from her son. Yet another grand figure disappeared! Kate, do you remember our presentation to this heroine? But she is now with you, in the true fatherland of souls, far from agitations and sufferings. Call us, call us, all together—all our _corner of Brittany_; I, too, am athirst for heaven.

What a day was this Good Friday! Made four times the _Way of the Cross_ for the souls in purgatory. Is there any possibility that you are in that place of expiation, dear Kate? Oh! tell me, or rather assure me, that you are in heaven. Gaston yesterday asked his mother to show him Mme. Kate up in the sky; he believes that you have become a star. Charming belief!

APRIL 16.

A year ago, and I was full of joy and hope. O my happy days with my sister! you have for ever fled away.

APRIL 17.

God be praised! I saw you this morning.... Oh! do not let me be told that it is a dream. I _saw_ you, dear Kate; your beautiful hair falling over your shoulders, and you were smiling. Happiness enough for one whole day!

Christ is risen! The weather is splendid; we are in the full bloom of spring; bright sunshine, songs of birds, verdure everywhere; joy in our souls. Kate, I weep no more; you are in heaven!

APRIL 19.

Walk with Amélie, the future _religieuse_ of whom I spoke to you. She relieves herself a little to me of some of the desolation that fills her heart. She is not allowed to depart, and yet the delay requested is expired. Her grief makes my heart ache, and I would that it were given me to smooth for her the way to the cloister. For that I should be obliged to go out, to visit the mother; and as soon as I see any one I burst into tears. Do you blame me for the fidelity of my regrets? In listening to Amélie I understand what you must have undergone when once the Lord’s choice was clearly manifested. Pardon me for having wished still to hold you back!

Gertrude, our saint _par excellence_, speaks admirably of heaven. Lucy weeps with me, and makes her pretty Anne wipe away my tears. Kate, will you read this?

APRIL 26.

Minds are much occupied respecting the _plébiscite_. My politics are not of this world; I hear what others say, and that is all. Sister, what is earth? I fear and pity it.

Berthe is at Paris, somewhat preoccupied by present agitations. My poor soul passes through the most varying states: nameless anguish, indescribable discouragement, sweet and pure joys; one thing comes as a repose to the other, and life slips away.... Amélie came to me yesterday; she talked long of _her crosses_, glad to be understood, compassionated, and loved; she would willingly have remained with us for the night. Her home, where she was formerly so happy, appears to her now an insupportable place of abode, and her life, with all its struggles and contradictions, is a real martyrdom.

I read her, from the _Pilgrimages of Switzerland_, a beautiful page on Christian resignation. Oh! how I would wish to console others—I, who cannot be consoled, alas!

APRIL 30.

Kate, I have been dreaming of you. Why did you go away so soon, sweet sister, so beloved?

A cousin of Amélie’s died the day before yesterday, after two years of marriage. See how short a time human felicity lasts! Every terrestrial happiness reunited on this charming head for so short a time! Her poor mother had buried all her other treasures one by one, and concentrated her affections and her hopes on this idolized daughter, the only one spared to her, and who was to be stricken down after two years of so happy a union! Were these two souls truly religious? I know not. Ah! who will comfort the mother, if God is not her comforter? Alas! these rapid destinies, these human fragilities, these futures broken, these deaths, this mourning—will they not open the eyes of those who persist in not seeing? Amélie is always breathlessly eager to attain her object, and distressed at the hindrances which hold her back. How pitiful that difficulties so contemptible and vulgar should be raised in order to turn aside the flight of this poor soul from the heavenly Bridegroom! I can only conceive a mother with an absolute devotion, a complete self-forgetfulness, a perpetual _sursum corda_. But these miserable obstacles, these calculated delays, to enchain this dear Amélie in spite of her tears and ardent longings—how they make me suffer! It appears that for three years she has been soliciting her mother’s consent. My God, where are the hearts which see but thee in all things? Mme. de Vals[35] is overwhelmed by this catastrophe. All the family is in a state that breaks one’s heart. Oh! if these distressing scenes had only shown Mme. de Vals the vanity of earthly illusions; if she had only understood that we must cling to God above all!

Footnote 35:

The mother of the young wife who died.

Kate, my sister in heaven, pray for this friend of your Georgina, and pray also for me, who cannot live without my sister!

MAY 5.

The month of flowers, the month of songs, the month of the ever-blessed Virgin, comes to me with bright memories. My own Ireland, mother, sister, where are you? What cowardice is mine!

Brittany is smiling, rosy under a beautiful sun; the sea is calm and magnificent. I have just been leaning over my balcony and looking long at this grand spectacle: the blue sky, the green sea, in the grand and majestic silence of immensity. Was there not a Christian meaning in the words of the philosopher of antiquity who said: “God does all in silence”? How fine is this expression!

Dear Kate, bless me! I go out, move about, wish to be useful; I work with Gertrude, with my mother, with René. But I drag heavily the cross of your absence. I complain to God without ceasing. Love makes everything sweet and light: I have, then, no love?

From this month of May will date for your Georgina the adoption of a prayer, sweet among all others—the Office of the Blessed Virgin. Oh! these psalms, these hymns, these harmonious supplications—how sweet they are to my poor soul! I love especially the _Lætatus_. Lucy and René sing it with an expression which charms me. You, dearest Kate, have entered there, into the house of the Lord!

MAY 12.

I am reading the _Interior of Jesus and Mary_, by the Père Grou, the _Conferences_ of Père de Ravignan, and our dear _Review_. The letters on the Council interest me particularly. I try to imagine that I am reading them with you; that your dear head is resting on my shoulder.... Oh! the fair and happy times which return to my memory. We so loved the _Chansons de Gestes_, those pretty French ballads which my mother translated with so peculiar a charm! M. Léon Gautier has published a thoughtful and exquisite study on France under Philip Augustus; he brings on the scene the fair Aude, the _fiancée_ of Roland, who died on hearing of the death of her Paladin—I can understand love like this!—and the charming little Aelis, and Sibylle de Lusignan, and the Duchess Parise, and Aye d’Avignon, and the courageous Ameline, and Berthe, the wife of Duke Girart, and Guiboure, that magnificent type of the Christian woman! Do you remember, sister, Count Robert of Flanders refusing a crown because he was in haste to see his son again? the little Garnier nursing his father, stricken with leprosy? the mother of the sons of Aimon—Belissende and Heustace? How we had learnt to love those middle ages!

Pray for Amélie, dear Kate; she is so unhappy! O inestimable favor, priceless benefit, incomparable fidelity of the religious vocation! how little are you understood in this world.

It seems as if I heard you saying to me: _Speranza! Pazienza! Coraggio!_

MAY 16.

My soul is fallen again into an abyss of desolation. It is strange, and at the same time painful, these struggles between myself and myself; between nature which revolts and grace which submits. On this day four years ago where were we? Kate, help me!

MAY 28.

I have been travelling a little, and my moments have all been employed. René wants to give me change and distraction; but I cannot drag my thoughts away from these images of death. Hélène has written me a letter, saintly and sweet. Alas! who does not suffer here below?

JUNE 5.

I have just quitted Amélie, who is keeping her room from indisposition. Her mother is kind, I believe, but how severe in aspect! Berthe and Raoul arrived yesterday. Kate, I dreaded this meeting again, our hearts were all so sad! Berthe is more tranquil than I had expected; she has seen Mary and Ellen, the dear exiles! who showed her that they greatly desire to see us. Inspire me, dear Kate. Lucy is going away again; the house without children is like a heaven without angels. Johanna will not return for two months.

JUNE 12.

René would like to bring the two orphans himself. My mother approves. They will occupy the apartments of the twins. Kate, who will replace you?

More funereal letters: two friends of our dear ones who have flown away have also been summoned to their Father’s house. Happy souls! if they were prepared; but poor mothers whose joy they were!

JUNE 17.

Dear Kate, I thought I saw you yesterday evening.... A young and amiable religious, collecting for her poor, caused me a thrill. I calmed myself and conversed with her. Her life is admirable. But what emotion afterwards, and poignant grief!

Sister dearest, let me hope that you read these lines; that there exists a means of communication between heaven and earth; that you have not wholly quitted me! It was so sweet to write to you, to confide everything to you. I should like to write your life; to relate to myself the story of our childhood—that golden morn when so many smiles and joys surrounded us; but these souvenirs are so distressing!

JUNE 24.

Mary and Ellen are sleeping beneath those curtains of gauze which I have so often parted.

They are grown, and prettier than ever. With what grace they presented themselves yesterday! And already I am anxious; have they not been taken sufficient care of? I know not, but their almost constant cough oppresses me like a remorse; and to replace their mother....

JUNE 29.

Berthe loves our orphans, who rarely quit her. Gertrude draws me with her in her walks, in her life of devotedness and labor, and I let it be so. I am no more _myself_; my better part is wanting. Oh! you were my strength, my counsel, my happiness.

Feast of SS. Peter and Paul—a glad festival for the Christian. Louis Veuillot, who has the happiness of being at Rome, writes there charming, sublime incomparable pages; he counted on the _desired dogma_ being proclaimed to-day, but all is not so easy, even in the things of God. Anniversary of the death of _Albert_.

JULY 1.

Mary and Ellen are very attractive. Decidedly we shall keep them with us. Berthe sees in them a resemblance to her doves; my mother likes their smiles for the poor, for flowers, for every living thing, their precocious reason, and their already remarkable piety. Lucy is gone. What voids! and how different to '67, the happy year, at least during its first months! Trial, you used to tell me, is a grace; that those favored with the good things of this world ought to expiate their enjoyments. Kate, I submit!

JULY 4.

The letters of Marcella and Margaret are frequent. My friend beyond seas speaks of returning soon; she knows what a balm the sight, the beloved sight, of her brings. Marcella quits Naples and its blue sky no more; Anna writes to me of her joys, without suspecting what a price the health of which she is so proud cost us.

The _abbé_ takes in the _Univers_, rendered so attractive by the truly magic pen of the author of the _Parfum de Rome_. Finished _La Marquise de Montagu_, an interesting book, the style of a great lady of the seventeenth century. Reading is worth less than prayer, but both ameliorate exile.

René is carving an altar for the parish church. He and Adrien are making curious studies in the precious MSS. of the _Saint of the Sea-shore_. What splendid gifts God has bestowed upon this friend of my soul!

JULY 8.

The pious and learned editor of _Eugénie de Guérin_, who also revealed to the world the treasures of Cayla—M. Trebutien—is just dead. René assures us that _Eugénie_ must have opened to him the gate of Eden. Oh! I love to believe this. Amélie is at the height of her wishes: her mother has suffered herself to be vanquished by our united entreaties, and her entry into Carmel is fixed for the 6th of August. Another separation. God wills it thus.

JULY 14.

Marie Jenna, the sweet poetess, has written some noble pages on the regretted M. Trebutien. “It is the hand of a friend still trembling with emotion that has written this”; it is the first cry of affection and of grief, but of pure and holy affection, and of grief resigned and Christian in the highest acceptation of the word. “If this were a learned man, an antiquary, an artist, above all he was a soul—a soul, that masterpiece of God, that thing so fair that he himself delights in it, that he has profoundly loved, even when, having lost the attraction of innocence, she had no other attraction than misfortune. He was an ardent Catholic, he prayed, he loved God. He, who so hungered after justice, love, and beauty, could not but love God! The gifts of the understanding exercised over him an irresistible magic; but if he lived by intelligence, he lived still more by the heart. His friendship was full of strength and tenderness; he gave himself without measure.”

Ah! dearest Kate, I forget that you are no longer here. Ellen is extremely sympathetic towards me; she listens to me, speaking of you, for hours together. This morning, after a long account, in which her mother’s name and yours recurred a hundred times, she said to me with feeling: “I am going to pray God to put me soon where they are.”

O Blessed Virgin! may she stay with us.

JULY 18.

Arthur is ill. Johanna writes agitated and sorrowful pages. My saintly Kate, pray for us!

The rumors of war which have for some days been circulating are taking consistency. What is about to become of this poor country? Will the hour of vengeance strike, or will mercy again carry the day? Epidemic maladies and drought have already spread desolation everywhere.

Kate, I would fain penetrate into the future. O folly! What would it be, when I cannot even support my present grief?

René has had three attacks of fever. O this dear invalid, this son of liberty and space, restless as a lion! in repose. Dear, good friend! Come, then, and see him, dear Kate, when three times a day he attends to an unfortunate child whose wounds horrify everybody. “The hand of M. René passes over my sores like the wing of an angel!” What charming praise, and especially in Breton, in the mouth of this frightful little lad, who is distressed at his own ugliness! Gertrude is teaching him the catechism; Mary and Ellen prepare his meals with their little white hands. Ellen has lovely eyes of sea-blue, very dark.

JULY 24.

The _Univers_ of Wednesday, the 20th, is splendid: “The Infallibility is proclaimed! _Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia!_ The times are hard; war, pestilence, famine; but the year 1870 will be none the less immortal. This will be called the Century of Pius IX., the Pope of the Immaculate Conception and of the Infallibility.” Great joy in the Catholic world.

Here is war with Prussia—that power which, whatever may be said, is truly redoubtable. Happy the people whose history is wearisome! Misfortune to those who depart from the path traced for them by Providence! What a magnificent page might France have added to her history had she so willed! “Archimedes asked but a lever and a fulcrum to move the world,” said the Père Lacordaire at Notre Dame; “but in his time this lever and this fulcrum were unknown. They are known now: faith is the lever; and the point of support, the Breast of the Lord Jesus.”

Who, then, will lift this lever? My God! may they who seek thee find gladness and joy in thee. _Tristis es, anima mea!_

Arthur is better; our dear Parisians are returning to us; the horizon is so dark to those who see things rightly! Berthe is gone to the town for the funeral of a friend of her childhood who passed through the greatest trials in the world. She made a most edifying death, preserving the fulness of her faculties to the last, blessing her children, and putting all her soul into her last directions. And when she had said all, and was asked if she desired nothing, she answered with her failing voice: “I desire nothing but God!” The long agony of her heart, the suffering which has killed her, this painful martyrdom—all is over, and the Blessed Virgin, whom she so loved, must have welcomed her into glory. _Amen!_ The two little children, alarmingly pale, followed the coffin. How one would pity them, if God were not the Father of orphans!

Spain in a state of revolution. Queen Isabella has abdicated in favor of Prince Alphonso. Poor Spain! Where is Isabella the Great, the Catholic?

Adrien is reading to us the tenth volume of the _Histoire du Monde_, by De Riancey. The illustrious and lamented author wrote from Rome, after receiving from the Pope and the Comte de Chambord precious tokens of affection: “Now I am almost ready to sing my _Nunc Dimittis_, and there remain only the joys of heaven to be added.“ Dearest Kate, I said something like this when I still possessed you....

[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]

UP THE NILE. CONCLUSION.

The dignity of some of these half-clad Nubians is almost beyond conception. As we walked through the town of Korosko we saw numbers of elephants’ tusks, ostrich feathers and eggs, and great piles of gum-arabic. We told Ali to pick up a handful of the gum, and then demanded the price. With a shrug of the shoulders, the owner answered in the most indifferent manner: “Whatever you please.” Ali offered him one piastre. The merchant took out his purse and coolly handed a piece of the same value, saying: “If you cannot pay more than that for the gum, you must be very poor; take this for backsheesh.” “Well,” broke in Mr. S——, unable to restrain his indignation, “would you like us to give you two pounds for that handful of gum?” “Oh! no,” he replied quietly; “whatever you please.” He was finally satisfied with the amount first offered.

This Korosko is an important town; for from here the direct road lies across the desert to Aboo-Hamed, Shendy, Sennaar, and Khartoom. The bend in the river between this place and Derr is so great that the river flows south-southeast. Going up, we were detained some time. The north wind, which carried us up thus far, was now almost dead ahead, and we were obliged to wait till it died out. The temple at Wady Sabooah a few miles below is of the time of Rameses II. His favorite amusement, to judge from the figures on the temple walls, was to catch hold of a few score of his enemies by the hair of the head, all at once, and in one hand too, while with the other he knocked them about with a club. The old temple was afterwards used as a Christian church. In the time of the great temple-builder a figure of some god stood in the adytum; the Christians covered it with plaster (it was a bas-relief), and then painted on it a picture of St. Peter. The other figures are not altered, and the result is that the great Rameses is now making offerings to a Christian saint.

I was anxious to obtain a dress—a full dress—of a Nubian young lady. I did not propose to introduce this style at home—it would scarcely be suited to our winters, although it might answer in summer—but it would be a pleasant thing to show it, and, when some fair one should ask what it was, to reply: “Oh! that is a dress that belonged to a lady friend of mine in Nubia; she gave it to me to remember her by.” Just think how jealous all the men would be! Frank carefully treasures up a ribbon, and Charley considers priceless a lock of hair which his fair one has worn—small trinkets compared with mine, even if I cannot put mine in a locket. So I am bound to have one by fair means or foul.

The reader will probably be anxious to know what this dress is. Well, he must not be shocked; he must remember the climate is warm, and the immediate descendants of Eve set the fashion here. The full costume consists of a leather girdle, from which hangs fringe of the same material, about six inches long, ornamented with shells. I have one. It belonged to a very pretty, dark-eyed young lady of thirteen, from whom I purchased it as a curiosity. The girl’s wardrobe being unusually well stocked, she sold me her best for the small sum of six piastres.

The people are very much afraid of the evil eye, more dangerous on this account: that no one can tell who possesses it. Even some of the innocent howadjii may have it; if they look at any one who is near, he or she is instantly possessed by some spirit and becomes sick. But they have medicine; for they immediately send to some priest and inform him in what way the sufferer is afflicted. For a small fee he writes out a portion of the Koran which will cure the disease. This is enclosed in a leather bag and worn on the arm or around the neck. The disease is not only cured, if the extract be the right one, but all future danger from the evil eye is averted.

We have been visiting temples and tombs almost every day for the past week, and have been very much annoyed by the crowds that followed us and in many cases prevented us from properly inspecting. On Feb. 6 we visited the little temple of Baybel Welly. I put into operation a plan I had thought out last night. I wanted to try the effect of sarcasm on these half-civilized Nubians. The temple was very small and the crowd pushed in after us. We withdrew, and I then spoke in a quiet, dignified manner to the one who appeared to be the leader. “This temple is not large enough for both of us to visit at the same time. We will wait outside until you and your friends finish your examination, and then we will look at it. If you find anything particularly interesting, you will be kind enough to inform us.” At first he did not take the point; after a time a light broke upon him, and he replied: “You go in; I will keep these walluds out.” And he did so.

I have told of the presents we gave the crew. They made a common pool, a sort of joint-stock company on the mutual-benefit plan. Reis Mohammed was treasurer. They held a meeting and resolved to declare a dividend, after the manner of many modern railway dividends—for it was paid out of the capital. A very noisy confab prevailed for an hour or more; then votes were cast, and it was resolved “that the treasurer be instructed and empowered to purchase a calf at a price not exceeding seven dollars, said calf to be served up immediately for the use of the stockholders.” This should furnish a hint to antiquarians; perhaps they may be able to trace back the origin of our modern corporations to the old Egyptians. The similarity of management should afford some clue.

On the 10th of February we reached Philæ. On the mainland opposite is the small town of Belal. Here is an old mosque; from its minaret the first Moslem call to prayer in Nubia was made. It is February 12, and we are still lying at Mahatta, waiting for the Shellallee, to take us down the cataract. They will not come to-day, so we go to visit the quarries of syenite granite from which the obelisks were taken. Two of the party mount the diminutive donkeys; I want to oversee them, so I climb on a camel. He kneels for me to mount, and then rises at command. The camel rises with three distinct motions. I have said that he kneels for one to mount; this will hardly convey the proper idea. His legs are doubled underneath and his belly touches the ground. With the first motion he raises himself on his fore-knees, then straightens up his hind-legs, and then his fore-legs. The effect of this motion upon the rider is very curious. He is first pitched violently backwards, but before he has time to fall off is thrown forwards again; and just as he feels certain that he is about to dive into the sand, he regains his equilibrium, and off goes the camel. When he walks, the rider sways back and forth; his run is not unlike the trot of a horse.

An unfinished obelisk—one that has never been entirely detached from the rock—shows us the means employed by the Pharaos for cutting out these immense masses. Holes were cut along the whole line of the block a few feet apart. Into these wooden wedges, saturated with water, were firmly driven. The swelling of the wood, causing an equal pressure, split the rock in a straight line. Just above where we are moored is the body of a man lying in the water. His hands are tied behind his back—probably a slave from away up country, beaten to insensibility and then thrown into the river. Perhaps he stole a few piastres, or was not sufficiently quick in obeying his master’s commands. It is a sickening sight, this putrid, bloated corpse, so we ask Ahmud to have it taken out and buried. It was carried by the current into this little cove some four days ago; hundreds of people pass it daily, yet no one will remove it. Ahmud says it is the duty of the governor to bury it, and, unless he does so, the natives will let it remain until the fish and vultures eat it up. “If I see the governor,” continues Ahmud in the most unconcerned way, “I will speak to him about it.”

Early next morning the Shellallee assembled and preparations were begun. To make the descent it is requisite that the water should be smooth and not a breath of wind stir the air. The day was all that could be desired; so at six A.M. began the charge of the black brigade. On they come from every quarter; every rock sends forth two or three. We have sixty or seventy on board. Ali says that most of them come to get a place to sit down and smoke their chibouks. There is the usual amount of talking, and at a quarter to seven we cast loose from our moorings and stood out into the stream. God’s flag was tied to a post on the port side of the quarter-deck—a red flag with two yellow stars and a diamond, the latter representing the sword of Mohammed, and over all the sacred name “Allah.” This was placing the dahabeeáh under the divine protection to ensure a prosperous descent. Our old friend Nogood was with us, seated by the flag, smoking a long pipe and reading the Koran. Another sheik was seated on the opposite side telling his beads. Four men stood at the helm, and two at each oar. To judge from the noise and excitement, you would be led to think that no boat had ever descended the cataracts before. Ahmud was so nervous that tears came into his eyes. The balance of the Shellallee squatted on the deck, lit their chibouks, and never moved until we hustled them off at Assouan. The current carried us swiftly on to the west bank, and we neared the great gate. A piece of wood was thrown overboard; it was a guide to the steersmen. Now all was quiet; not a word was uttered on board. The rowers stopped, the howadjii held their breath; a moment more we rounded the corner almost at a right angle, and shot into the great rapid. The boat grazed the rocks on the port side. The waves dashed over the bow. Directly ahead the rocks rise perpendicularly to the height of twenty feet. The howadjii shudder; surely we will be dashed to pieces. Before we have scarce time to think, before we are at the bottom of the rapid, the rudder is jammed hard to starboard, the boat swings round at a right angle; we are in smooth water—we have descended the cataract in safety. This rapid is two hundred feet long between the rocks, about seventy feet broad, and falls from six to seven feet. Old Nogood springs up now with astonishing activity, and snatches the turban from Reis Mohammed’s head. This is his perquisite. It is the custom for the head sheik to take both tarbosh and turban from the captain’s head when the descent is safely accomplished. This was all very well when these descents were first made, there being then some doubt as to their safe accomplishment. Now numbers of boats are taken down every year and an accident rarely happens. This custom should be done away with—at least, so thought Reis Mohammed; for he put on the oldest tarbosh he had, and it was so bad that Nogood would not take it. Every one shook hands all around. One of the Shellallee cut his foot very badly; I put court-plaster upon it, and then bound it up with my own handkerchief. He smiled and asked for backsheesh.

About nine we reached Assouan. Every one wanted backsheesh, even those I told about who sat on the decks smoking chibouks, and had never raised a finger to help us. Finally we got rid of them all. What a relief it was to be alone again with our little family!—for we are coming to love our sailors; they have been with us so long, and, in spite of their few faults, they are a good set and we have had no serious trouble with them. There is a modern temple at Kom Ombos, about thirty miles below Assouan, built by one of the Ptolemies about one hundred and fifty years before Christ. It is interesting, and, notwithstanding its recent construction, we examined it with care. There is another of these Ptolemaic temples at Edfoo, one of the most interesting temples on the Nile. True, it is far younger than Karnak, but then it is the best-preserved temple in Egypt. As a perfect specimen of an Egyptian temple, complete in all its parts, it stands unrivalled. Let me go into details here and describe this temple. It will give an idea of all the others; for the temples of ancient Egypt were all constructed on the same plan, except rock-hewn Ipsamboul, which has been described before. The Egyptian temple was not a place of public worship, like a Greek or Roman temple, or a Christian church. It was an edifice erected by a king in honor of some triad of divinities to whom he wished to pay special homage in return for benefits conferred or in hope of future favors. A rude brick wall surrounded the whole enclosure and shut out from the vulgar gaze all that took place inside. This wall is almost entire at Edfoo, but a small portion of it having been destroyed. A gateway admits us into the enclosure, and we pass through an avenue of sphinxes to a second gateway with its propyla, or immense pyramidal tower, on either side. Over the gateway is a winged scarabæus in high relief. The pyramidal towers are covered with intaglio sculptures representing the king holding a brace of his enemies by the hair, and about to knock off their heads with a club. Flag-staffs were attached to the outside of these towers, rising many feet above their summit. Entering a large hypæthral hall through this second gateway, we see before us the portico of the temple itself. We enter this between two columns; from these to the side walls are screens reaching about half-way to the roof. A little further on we reach the sanctum sanctorum—a magnificent monolithic chamber of polished gray granite, in which was kept the hawk, the emblem of the god Horhat, who was the principal divinity of this temple. The rest of the naos, or portion of the temple behind the portico, and in which this sanctuary was placed, was cut up into a number of small chambers used for religious purposes. Within the enclosure was the temenos, or grove, thickly planted with trees, and near at hand was a lake. The whole length of this temple, including the gateway and wall of circuit, is four hundred and fifty feet. The breadth of the propylon—the inner gateway with its pyramidal towers—is two hundred and fifty feet and its height one hundred and fifteen feet. The sculptures all over the walls are extremely interesting. Some give the names of the several chambers of the temple, and their dimensions in cubits and parts of cubits, so that the modern measurements can be compared with the ancient ones. Others give valuable information respecting the ancient geography of Egypt.

During the reign of Psammenitus, son of Amasis, a most remarkable prodigy befell the Egyptians, says Herodotus; for rain fell at Egyptian Thebes, which had never happened before nor since, to my time, as the Thebans themselves affirm. For no rain ever falls in the upper regions of Egypt, but at that time rain fell in drops at Thebes. In the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four the same remarkable prodigy befell the Egyptians, say I; for rain fell at Egyptian Thebes. If we did not know the dignity and sober character of that ancient traveller, we might suppose a sarcastic witticism lay hid in the closing part of the above story. See how cautious he is: the rain fell in drops. Well, that is precisely the way it fell when we were there. And the drops could be counted. There was no shower. The dust was not even laid. But it rained. I saw it—perhaps the first time in three thousand years. It is no small affair for a man to be able to say to his grandchildren in years to come: “It rained when I was at Egyptian Thebes—in drops, you know.”

Ten days tied up at Luxor, measuring the columns of Karnak, looking at the endless procession of gods and warriors, and going far into the mountain-side to search for the sarcophagi of Egypt’s long-departed rulers. The ruins of Thebes are familiar—at least to every one who has read any of the numerous works on Egypt; so I will not describe them. There is one place, however, not mentioned in the guide-books about which I will say something. Behind the temple of Dayr el Medeeneh, on the western shore, there are several mummy-pits. Mr. S—— and I determined to visit them. We descended a well about ten feet deep, at the bottom of which we found a narrow passage, so low that we were obliged to crawl. This led into a large chamber filled with bodies. Ali begged to accompany us, but, when he caught sight of the first body, he beat a hasty retreat to the upper air. Truly, it was a solemn, ghastly sight. The mummies were piled up to what depth no one knows; as they then were they had filled up the room to a level with the narrow passage, forming a floor over which we walked. The Arabs had been there hunting for scarabæi and other antiques to sell to travellers, and in so doing had handled the corpses without care or ceremony. Here was a man standing on his head with his feet resting against the wall; there a woman broken in two, the legs placed astride the neck; corpses all around in every conceivable position—grinning, staring corpses, enough to give one the nightmare for weeks to come. Beneath this top row they were placed in layers. I found the body of a young woman well preserved, and with hair banged across the forehead, like the French style of a few years ago. I carried the body out to show it to the rest of the party, thinking somewhat of bringing it home. “Desecrating graves,” “robbing sepulchres,” and words of like import met my ears, and, feeling somewhat abashed, I took the body back, but detached the hair and brought it with me. In this pit we found numbers of the small clay figures of Osiris. They were rudely made—for these were the fellaheen, or lower class, who were thrown into a common pit. They were embalmed in the cheapest way, which was done, according to Herodotus, by thoroughly rinsing the abdomen in syrmæa, and then steeping it with natron for seventy days.

The boy who owned my donkey was sick, so Fatma, his little black-eyed sister, attended for him. She was a pretty, bewitching little creature, yet of a marriageable age—thirteen, I think. Day after day she ran behind my donkey, urging it on, and occasionally coming up alongside to make some pleasant remark and disclose teeth like Oriental pearls. When we were parting I gave her a small present and asked her if she would go with me to America. “Certainly.” And the little one jumped and clapped her hands with joy. “Do you know where America is situated?” I asked. “Not exactly, but down the river, somewhere near Alexandria, is it not?”

Here we are at Keneh, and when we see a fine large house, in appearance not unlike a provincial theatre, we naturally ask who inhabits it. The consuls of France and Prussia—the lion and the lamb lying down together. Here they live together in the same house on the best of terms, just as if King William had never marched into Paris or Napoleon III. had not surrendered at Sedan. We did not meet them, but very probably they were like Ali Murad—natives, with a faint idea that there had been some misunderstanding between France and Prussia; but then they were not concerned with that, so they smoke their pipes together and let the outside world take care of itself. Passing Sheik Selim’s place on March 9, we stopped and sent some of the sailors with presents. We arrived at Bellianeh, whence we proposed to visit the interesting temple of Abydos. We rode for six miles through rich fields of grain, principally wheat, and reached the modern village of Arabat, called by the Arabs Madfuné (the buried), from the ancient buildings that until recently lay all around covered with desert sand. On entering the town we saw a gang of men working at excavations under the charge of an overseer, who quickened their movements with a bamboo. We saw pictures of this on the tombs four thousand years old. A fine-looking man, with an immense red turban on his head, broke from the gang, rushed up to us, threw himself on the ground, embraced our feet, and piteously implored us to take him away. He was a sheik of a neighboring village, he said, and had been torn from his family and pressed into service. In proof of this he produced a long document, about as intelligible to us as the hieroglyphics on the temple wall. It was done by order of the viceroy, so we could not interfere, and he went reluctantly back to his work. His appeal to us angered the overseer, who struck him a fearful blow with the bamboo that felled him to the ground. Said—good-hearted Said—took the man’s part, and for a time it looked as though we were going to have a lively row. But it all evaporated in talk; the overseer promised not to beat him any more, and then he and Said became the best of friends.

These workmen are not paid very much—five cents a day; but their work is not very heavy—at least, as they do it. One man fills a small basket with earth, then sits down and smokes a cigarette. The basket is dragged about twenty feet, emptied out, then he has a little talk with some of his friends. We were looking for the celebrated tablet of Abydos, but the passage-way was so filled up with sand that we could not approach it. This tablet is called the new one, although M. Mariette supposes it to be the original of the fragmentary one found in the temple of Rameses II. at this place and now in the British Museum. It contains figures of Sethi and Rameses offering homage to seventy-six kings, their predecessors, beginning with Menes and ending with Sethi I., and has been of incalculable benefit to the historian. But we are going farther back than Menes, for there is the Kóm es Sultan, the Holy Sepulchre of the ancient Egyptians—the tomb of Osiris. It is not a natural tumulus, but is formed by the heaping up of tombs during many ages one upon another. Are they not the tombs of those rich Egyptians that Plutarch tells of who came from all parts of the country to Abydos to be buried near Osiris?

A few days after we were strolling along the east bank when we came upon a Coptic church. Entering, we saw a novel rendering of the legend of St. George and the dragon. I have said before that St. George is the patron saint of the Copts, and here they turn the dragon into a Turk, substituting a real enemy for a mythical one. St. George, on a spirited steed, is frantically endeavoring to pin a Turk to the earth. He has his lance run through the neck, but the Turk is a tough fellow and is fighting so hard, while the horse is balancing himself in the most incredible manner on one leg, that it is a question which will get the upper hand.

As we run close to the bank scores of urchins salute us with that now familiar cry, “Backsheesh, howadji”—“Alms, O shopkeeper”—not that they took us for shopkeepers, but then these were the first to travel for purposes of trade; and when others, travelling for pleasure alone, came after them, no distinction was made by the natives, but all were classed in the same category. Everywhere in the East, from the poorest beggar to the sultan himself, is heard the same demand, “Backsheesh, howadji”—from the great ones couched in hidden terms and well-set phrases, but as well understood as the outspoken clamor of the rabble. After careful study and deliberation I have classified the different uses of this phrase. I have divided them into eleven different demands, expressing the following ideas: First, the distant or dubious demand. This is made by small urchins from the bank as we sail by. The tone of voice indicates that they doubt very much whether they will receive anything, but deem it worth while to make the attempt, although sometimes a quarter of a mile of water separates us from them. Second, the salutative demand from older ones. As we ride or walk through the country we meet an Arab. “Naharak Saiid” (May the day be good to you), say we. “Backsheesh, howadji,” he replies in the same salutative tone, and moves on. Surely he cannot expect anything; he does not even stop. Third, the imperative demand, growled out in a fierce tone by half-grown boys—your-money-or-your-life demand of highwaymen. This is always unsuccessful. Fourth, the curtailed demand from over-lazy ones, as this: “Backshee, howadj”—a very indifferent one. Fifth, the plaintive demand—the fourteen-children and seven-year-widow story listened to by tender-hearted people. Sixth, the non-expective demand, a mere matter of form, and surprise exhibited if complied with. Seventh, the interrogative demand—to wit: “Did it ever occur to you, O howadji! that a small present would be acceptable to your petitioner?” An idea similar to this frequently crossed the howadji’s mind. Eighth, the confidential demand from the donkey-boy when near the end of a trip. In a low whisper, and with a knowing look: “Howadji and I understand one another; it is all right; about two piastres will do.” Ninth, the future demand: the praises of the donkey are sounded when starting out; professions of fidelity and attachment on the part of the attendant are loud and constant; he will show you everything, and—“Backsheesh kabeér dahabeeáh” (Much backsheesh on the return to boat), in a matter-of-course tone. Tenth, the infantile demand, from imps scarce able to talk: “Backtheeth, howath”—most successful of any. Eleventh, the fraudulent demand, practised principally in Nubia. A mother holding an infant in her arms: “Backsheesh for the baby, O howadji!” and when the kind-hearted traveller places a coin in the little dimpled hand held out to receive it, the mother takes possession of it for her own use. When the traveller approaches a town, every child is snatched up into some one’s arms—it is immaterial whether the mother gets her own child or some one belonging to another—and presented to him.

Little Saida, our gazelle, broke her leg at Thebes; we sent for the barber, who is doctor also, to bind it up. He performed the operation in a bungling way, and mortification set in a few days after. She had become a great pet, and was beginning to know us and eat from our hands. So we concluded it was best to kill her, as she was suffering very much. Wishing to preserve the skin, she was hit on the head with an axe, so as not to injure it. After the skin had been removed we offered the body to the crew for a meal. Reis Mohammed threw it overboard, saying that it was not killed in the proper way for them to eat: it should have been shot, or else the throat cut, after repeating certain passages from the Koran. It is strange to see how obedient these Arabs are to the sacred writ. They are fond of meat, but do not have it very often. On one occasion we were lunching in a temple. When we had finished, some fine slices of ham were left. I gave them to Ali for himself and the two sailors who were with us, and whose lunch had consisted of dry bread. Without a moment’s hesitation he threw them to a dog who was near us, saying that it was good food for dogs and Christians, but not for Arabs.

On the summit of the rocks of Gebel Aboofayda, near their southern end, are the caverns of Moabdeh, commonly called the crocodile mummy pits. We stopped and procured some fine specimens—small crocodiles which had been treated as gods five thousand years ago. Every one in this country seems to know every one else. It seemed to me that, when our crew wanted to see any one, they simply called out the name—Ali, Mohammed, or whatever it was—and he soon appeared. When purchasing goods it makes no difference whom you pay, whether owner or not, provided you pay some one. Many people marvel how the old Egyptians transported their obelisks and colossi from the quarries at Syene to their destination several hundred miles down the river. Back of the Christian village called Ed Dayr en Nakhl, on the east bank nearly opposite Rhoda, are a number of grottoes cut into the mountain-side. In one of them is one of the most interesting paintings found in any of the Egyptian tombs, which will enable us to understand how these immense masses of stone were conveyed from one place to another. We had great difficulty in finding this grotto; for, although it is mentioned in the guide-book, the natives seemed unaware of its existence. At last we found it, away up on the mountain-top, the entrance so filled up with débris that we were obliged to crawl in. But we were well paid; for we saw the famous painting of “A Colossus on a Sledge,” which, as far as I am informed, is the only one of the kind in Egypt. The person represented by the colossus was called Thoth-ôtp, and was of high distinction in the military caste. He is styled the king’s friend, and one of his children was named Ositarsens, after the king. This grotto was his tomb. The figure is seated and placed upon a sledge, being firmly secured to it by ropes. One hundred and seventy-two men, in four rows of forty-three each, pull the ropes, attached to a ring in front of the sledge, and a liquid—most probably oil—is poured from a vase by a person standing on the pedestal of the statue, in order to facilitate its progress as it slides on the ground—or more probably on a tramway made for the occasion, though that is not indicated in the picture. Some of the persons engaged in this laborious duty appear to be Egyptians; others are foreign slaves who are clad in the costume of their country. Behind the statue are four rows of men, three in a row, representing either the architects and masons or those who had employment about the place where the statue was to be conveyed. Below are others carrying vases filled with water, and some rude machinery connected with the transportation of the colossi, followed by taskmasters with their wands of office. On the knee of the figure stands a man, who claps his hands to the measured cadence of a song to mark the time, and to ensure a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together. Before the statue a priest is presenting incense in honor of the person it represents. At the top are seven companies of men—a guard of honor, or perhaps reliefs for dragging the sledge. Beyond are men slaying an ox and bringing the joints of meat to the door of the building to which the statue was to be transported. From this we may judge with tolerable certainty how the great obelisks were conveyed to the temples before which they were set up, and how the great stones of the Pyramids were transported from their mountain-beds.

We are now rapidly sailing down stream and nearing civilization. In a few days we reached the lofty cliffs of Gebel et Tayr, which rise abruptly from the river to a height of several hundred feet. On its summit stands the Coptic convent of Sitta Mariam el Adra (Our Lady Mary the Virgin). As we approached several of the monks jumped into the stream—not from the top of the cliff, however—and swam out towards us. They seized hold, jumped aboard, entirely naked, and saluted us with “Ana Christian, ya howadjii” (I am a Christian, O howadjii!) Of course we could not resist this appeal, but a few paras satisfied them, and, putting the coins in their mouths, they swam back to shore, to sit like birds of prey waiting for their next victims—for they never miss a dahabeeáh that passes. This Gebel et Tayr—“The Mountain of the Bird”—has a strange legend attached to it. It is said that all the birds of the country assemble annually on this mountain, and, having selected one of their number to remain there till the following year, they fly away into Africa, and only return the next year to release their comrade and substitute another in his place.

A funny accident happened to Reis Ahmud. We had grounded on a sand-bank, where we remained sixteen hours, and the usual means were being employed to pull the boat off. An anchor was thrown out some seventy feet ahead in the direction of the channel. A rope was attached to this, and the other end carried through a pulley on the deck. The entire crew pulled upon this rope, when it became entangled in a block on the starboard side. Reis Ahmud went forward to release it, and, without slackening the rope, he began to pry it with a long pole. The strain on the rope was of course very severe. He succeeded in raising it over the block, but it acted like the string of a bow, and Ahmud, being in the place where the arrow usually is, was struck by it. He was shot directly over the top of the kitchen, and plunged headlong into the water on the other side of the boat as though he had been shot out of a catapult. The expression of fear, terror, and uncertainty as to what struck him, shown plainly in his face as he went flying over the boat, pole in hand, was most ludicrous. Fortunately, he was not hurt. A bad fright and thorough ducking will teach him to avoid strained ropes in future. Some statues, a few fragments of granite, and some substructions are all that can be seen of the ruins of a city which, if there is any truth in the descriptions given of it, must have exceeded any modern city as much as the Pyramids exceed any mausoleum which has been erected since those days (Curzon). So one day was enough at Memphis, and still on to the south we sailed. Now the great Pyramids loom up in the distance, and at ten of the morning of March 30 we reach the iron bridge at Cairo, our long Nile journey over. That night we left our dahabeeáh, and bade farewell to our crew. I have travelled far and wide throughout this world of ours, but I know of no trip that has afforded me more real satisfaction and pleasure than these four months on the Nile. The expense is not very great; a party of four can contract with a good dragoman to supply boat, crew, provisions, and everything necessary for the voyage for from five to six pounds sterling a day. The winter of 1873-'74 was cold for Egypt. The superintendent of the viceroy’s sugar-works at Rhoda informed us that it was the coldest winter known in Egypt for seventeen years. See what a cold winter is in the Orient—for these observations I took myself: Average thermometer from December 20, 1873, to March 28, 1874, sixty-nine degrees. Highest thermometer during same period, eighty-two degrees on February 21, 1874; lowest, February 8, 1874, sixty degrees. The observations were taken in the cabin—in the shade, of course—at noon of each day.

MAY.

The month of Maia—Cybele’s Roman name[36]— Ere Rome was Christ’s. And ’twas for Vulcan’s priest To kindle at her shrine the rosy flame On sweet May-day. Womb’d in the fruitful East, Not vainly Westward, as the myths increased, This purer rite, nor unprophetic, came: A flower that should be gather’d for the feast Of Truth—with more that erst deck’d Pagan shame. Not now the mother of vain gods[37] we pray, But Her, the God-Man’s Mother, ever a maid: And still to her this fairest month of May Assign—our hearts upon her altar laid, That her chaste love, descending with its fire, May purge them from the dross of base desire

B. D. H.

Footnote 36:

Maia, or Majesta: not to be confounded with Maia, the mother of Hercules.

Footnote 37:

Cybele was the “Mater Deûm” of the Greeks and Romans.

THE FRENCH CLERGY DURING THE LATE WAR IN FRANCE.

The war of 1870 between France and Germany has taken the place, in the minds of the French, of those other, not more glorious, but more successful, wars with which the very word “war” was formerly associated. They were used to think of nothing but triumphs; individual losses were swallowed up in national exultation; and they connected with the memories of the two Napoleons the peculiarly French axiom that there existed no such word in their language as “impossible.” _That_ is still true to-day, notwithstanding the reverses through which they have passed; for moral heroism stands upright on a lost battle-field as well as on a triumphant one, and the nation can say with its chivalrous monarch of old: “All is lost, save honor.” If the discipline was faulty, if the management was indiscreet, if the government was weak, if circumstances were contrary, there was still individual courage, and not only among the soldiers, but among all classes. The very misfortunes of the country roused the spirit of women, priests, students, exiles, of the weak and the poor, the secluded and the helpless; never was there such spontaneous truce to all differences, such generous sacrifice of personal comforts and, what is more, of personal antipathies; all good men and true shook hands across the barriers of politics, religion, and caste, and, with one mind and heart, did each his best in his own way for his suffering country. Of course there were cowards, time-servers, and place-seekers, making profit out of their fatherland’s necessities, getting into safe, so-called official, berths, and generally skulking; but they were not the majority, and it is superfluous to ask here if every nation has not its scum.

The part which the French clergy took in the war of 1870 exceeds that taken by them in any previous war, when some few members of their body acted as salaried chaplains to the troops. Even during the “wars of religion” under Henry IV. of France few priests accompanied the troops; the _abbés_ of Turenne and Condé’s times were officers and gentlemen rather than pastors and nurses; during the wars of the great Napoleon public opinion would have frowned down their services; and the successful wars of the Crimea and of Italy under the late emperor, though they stirred the clergy more, were yet _too_ successful to vie as a field of action with the ever-present needs of city and country parishes. But the last disastrous conflict was emphatically a _home_ war; each family in the quiet hamlet where his cure of souls lay came to the parish priest, asking blessings for its departing members and prayers for its dead ones; each wife and mother claimed his comforting words and poured her sorrows and fears into his ears; soldiers on the march made his presbytery their natural home, slept and ate there, asked him for common little necessaries, and made sure of getting no denial had they asked for anything he possessed; boys whom he had christened came home to die, and it was he who gave them the last sacraments and read the burial service over their graves; in a word, he lived on the battle-field even while still cooped up in his village. It was not strange, then, that he should easily take one step further, and go himself to share abroad the same danger whose face was so familiar to him at home. A German historian, writing of the late war, says that there was more patriotism found among the French clergy as a class than in any other class in the whole nation. General Ambert, a soldier and a civil servant, has gathered together[38] many interesting episodes of the war relating to the heroic behavior of the priests, who from the beginning came eagerly to ask leave to act as chaplains for the love of God and their neighbor only; for when war was declared there were but forty-six accredited chaplains in the whole army. Not only parish priests presented themselves, but also hundreds of monks, brothers, and confraternity-men; every order was represented—Jesuits, Capuchins, Dominicans, Benedictines, Carmelites (the most distinguished of whom was Père Hermann, who died at Spandau), Trappists (of whom one convent alone furnished thirty-five), Cistercians, Oratorians, Lazarists, Redemptorists, Christian Brothers (of whom nineteen died during the war, besides those who were the victims of the Commune), and other brotherhoods, old orders and new, their members drawn from all classes, from the Legitimist nobleman to the peasant and the artisan, from the doctor of laws or of theology to the brother-scullerer or porter. One day in mid-winter, during the armistice, the Christian Brothers had been for more than twelve hours unceasingly at work digging in the snow for the bodies of the French dead of Petit-Bry, Champigny, and Croisy. Two Prussian officers, at the head of a detachment of their men, were doing the same for the bodies of the Germans. It was a bitterly cold night, the wind blew the flames of the torches about, and nothing was heard but short, business-like sentences, the sound of pickaxes breaking the ice, and that of the carriers’ feet as they bore the dead away on rough litters. The Prussian officers looked admiringly at the silent brothers, and one said to the other: “We have seen nothing so fine as this in France.” “Except the Sisters of Charity,” answered the other.

Footnote 38:

_L’Héroïsme en Soutane._ By General Ambert. Paris: E. Dentu, Palais Royal. 1876.

One day Brother Nethelmus, of St. Nicholas’ School, Paris, was wounded by a ball, which proved his death-blow two days later, and hardly was he buried before a young man asked to see the superior, and said to him very simply: “I am the younger brother of Nethelmus, and have come to take his place.” “Have you your parents’ consent?” asked the superior. “My father and mother blessed me before I left, and bade me come,” said the youth, as if nothing was more commonplace.

The service of the wounded was the priests’ favorite field of work, and it was in this that they most frequently met death themselves. The Abbé Géraud, after the defeat of Mans, being chaplain of the Vendean _francs-tireurs_, was seeking out the most dangerously placed among the wounded. The latter had in many cases been abandoned by the drivers of their ambulances, who, in the general rout and panic, had unharnessed the horses and run away. On one of these carts were two soldiers and two officers of “Mobiles”—one of whom tells the story—all badly wounded and trembling with cold and ague. Many a man ran past them, intent on his own safety and heedless of their piteous appeals, and the men despaired of help, when they saw a priest running quickly towards them with cheery looks and words, telling them he was looking for them. The first thing he did was to take off all his available clothing to cover the men and warm them a little; then, stopping some of the runaways, he begged, promised, and reproached so effectually as to induce several to help him. “Push the wheels, my fine fellows,” he cried, as he harnessed himself to the shafts, and from the battle-field he drew the cart to a village, where he never rested till he had begged for his charges food, coverings, and straw, and at last a horse, with which he drove them to the nearest hospital. He continued his labors throughout the war. The Abbé de Beuvron, who has lived with the soldiers for fifteen years in various times and climates, tells us of the priests at Fröschwiller, who, after confessing and anointing the dying placed in the village church, saved the wounded while the building was in flames, and persuaded the Prussians who guarded the wells to let them have a few drops of water for the sick; this blockade lasted for four days, after which fifteen Alsatian peasants were condemned to be shot for having mutilated the bodies of some Prussian soldiers. This system of shooting the first-comer for a crime committed by an unknown person was one of the most cruel features of the late war. These poor wretches, taken at random—some mere boys, some old, infirm men—were tied with their hands behind their backs to one thick rope which kept them all on a level. The Protestant clergyman, who had himself gone to the general and asked the lives of these men, came to beg M. de Beuvron to intercede for them; he was equally unsuccessful, and, when he begged as a Catholic priest to be allowed to see the condemned, the general smiled and said: “You are welcome; I will give you an escort.” But on addressing the poor men the priest found that they understood no French, and he could not speak German. He pointed to heaven, and spread his hands while he gave them absolution, and they, with one accord, fell on their knees, sobbed and prayed, and bowed their heads. This solemn, silent service seems to us as noble as the most magnificent of triumphant processions, with chants and rejoicings, and imperial _cortége_ following—this, the last moment between time and eternity, between faith and vision.

It is M. de Beuvron who has said with truth: “It is the country parish priest who makes Catholic France.” And Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia echoed this sentiment when he said at an official dinner in 1872, at the table of the Bavarian ambassador: “There is in France but one class that is noble and patriotic, earnest, courageous, worthy of respect, and really influential, and that is the clergy. Impossible not to admire it as it appeared on the recent battle-fields.” Some of these heroic men preserved their incognito; one is mentioned by the London _Times’_ correspondent who followed the Saxon regiments. “There is a man,” he writes, “whom I have noticed, since Sedan until the struggles before the walls of Paris, constantly following the wounded. He has neither horse nor conveyance, but, stick in hand, he follows the track of the army, and, with the consummate finish of the man of the world and the tenderness of a woman, he attends and comforts the dying. He is a French priest, a Benedictine.... The other day I met him suddenly on a field of battle, and he asked me to direct him to where the wounded were. He had walked twenty miles that day. No government pays him; he is a volunteer in the best sense of the word.... He is in the prime of manhood, of handsome build, distinguished-looking, and with no less than courtly manners.” Another unknown volunteer, but a layman, was found dead at Forbach. No one had seen him till the day of the battle, and he wore a dark dress and cap and a fancy rifle. At the moment when the battle began he suddenly joined a brigade and fought like a hero. His purse held a large sum of money in gold, and his linen, unmarked, was remarkably fine, while round his neck was a medal hanging by a silken ribbon. There was nothing to identify him.

But to return to our parish priests, of whom many refused rich rewards and promotion after the war, as M. du Marhallach, who, though he accepted the Legion of Honor, declined the bishopric of Quimper, and, when his townsmen forced him to represent them in the National Assembly, managed to resign before long and return to humbler scenes of usefulness in his country parish. If a book were to be filled with incidents of the devotedness of the country priests, there would yet be ten times as many unknown and unrecorded. As the Prussians entered the village of Verrey, slaying all in their way—men, women, and children—the _curé_, M. Frérot, was almost ubiquitous among the dying. He was wounded twice with bayonets, and, as he retreated into his garden, the soldiers fired and wounded him twice more. He dragged himself to the doctor’s, where some wounded were being attended to, and got his wounds dressed, when the doctor, taking the flag of the Geneva Association with him, undertook to get him safe into his own (the doctor’s) house, where some of the wounded had been carried for safety. The enemy, heedless of the flag, fell upon him again with ball, bayonet, and gun-stocks till he fell down insensible. He died a few days after, glad, as he said, if his death could be in any way useful to his country. Useful! Yes, as an example; but how many precious lives are lost thus, while vile, worthless ones preserve themselves! One can only compare the pouring out of such blood to the “waste” of the precious ointment which our Lord so highly commended.

The Abbé Miroy, of Cuchery, near Rheims, died another kind of death: he was judicially murdered for having allowed arms to be hidden in the barn of his house. When asked for this permission, he was in the first agony of grief at the news of the death of his parents at a hamlet burnt by the Prussians. However, whether responsible or not—and probably as a Frenchman he saw no harm in passively helping in the defence of his country—he was shot at Rheims, at daybreak, on a bleak February morning and a Sunday. It was during the armistice. His people put this inscription on his tomb-cross: “Here lies the Abbé Charles Miroy, who died a victim to his love of country.”

M. Muller, parish priest of Sarreguemines, when asked for the keys of his church, flatly refused to give them up, and, on being threatened, answered:

“How many shots do you fire on a condemned man?”

“Eight and the '_coup-de-grâce_.’”

“Very well, then, before you cross the threshold of my church to desecrate it fire these eight shots and the _coup-de-grâce_ at me; for you shall only step in over my dead body.” There were many like instances; for the priests knew well that the enemy delighted in wantonly outraging the most sacred feelings of the people by profaning and robbing their churches. A barbarous story is told (General Ambert vouches for it) of the treatment undergone by the aged Abbé Cor, of Neuville in the Ardennes, who had considerably delayed the march of the Prussians by certain information given to the French, and who, notwithstanding his age (he was more than eighty), was tied to a horse’s tail and dragged along for a good distance, with another rope tied to his leg, with which a soldier pulled him up whenever he fell. At last the soldiers got tired, and threw him into a ditch, and, marvellous to relate, he recovered. One of his parishioners cried out in pity: “O father! what a state you are in.”

“Oh!” he answered cheerfully, with a twinkle in his eye, “it is only my _old_ cassock!”

The parish priest of Gunstatt was brought before an improvised council of war just after the battle of Forbach; what was requested of him the book does not say, but his answer just before he was shot points to something evidently against his country’s interests: “I prefer death to the crime of betraying France.”

If these facts, which speak for themselves, allow us to make any commentary, we can think of none so appropriate as this: how does this France contrast with the feverish, theatrical, rationalistic, immoral France presented to us by a certain wide-spread form of French literature? No country is so libelled by its own writers as France. Granted that many novels represent “life as it is,” yet it is not the undercurrent of life, not the life of the majority. It is the artificial, sensational, exceptional life of large cities and of reckless cliques; and, besides this, novels have a trick of magnifying this diseased life into illusive dimensions. It fills the eye of the foreigner, it shapes his judgment, it draws his curiosity, till the sober, prosaic, quiet, respectable, and vital life of the country fades out of his memory. He forgets the _vie de province_, the impoverished gentlemen living in dignified retirement, like Lamartine and his mother at Milly, like the family in one part of a _Sister’s Story_, like Eugénie de Guérin with her homely, housekeeping cares; the cosey homes of the middle classes, their precise, thrifty, cheerful ways; the family bond that enables different families to live patriarchally in a fellowship which few Anglo-Saxons would or could imitate; the peasant-proprietors with their gardens and little farms; the healthy rural, natural life that is everywhere, and even _in_ cities; the kindliness, the simplicity, and the innate refinement which ought to make many a traveller of the Anglo-Saxon race blush for his surliness and brutal, superficial, haughty way of setting down every foreigner as a monkey or a barbarian.

Among the country priests there were not only heroes, but strategists. Towards the beginning of the war a French column was on its way to join the main body, and had to retreat through a hilly, wooded, and unknown tract to avoid being surprised by the enemy. No one knew just what to do or advise, and the little maps were very unsatisfactory. The general stopped at a Lorraine village and sent for the authorities. The mayor and most of the inhabitants had fled in anticipation of danger; only the _curé_ was left, with a few sick and old people. He was over seventy himself, tall and large, his hands and face swollen and his feet protected by huge wooden shoes. The general did not hope for much advice from him, but the old man sat down and explained that he was gouty and unable to get about, but knew the country. When the general had joked about this impromptu council of war, and the priest in return had reminded him how often the church had had occasion to help the army before, they examined the map together, and the _curé_ took a pencil and quickly drew certain lines in a most business-like manner, calculating how long such a road would take to traverse, how much headway would be gained over the enemy, what points would be a safe resting-place for a few hours for the tired troops, the route which, believing the bridge to be destroyed, the Prussians would probably follow, the houses where the general would find willing and able contributors to the necessities of his men—in a word, every chance and every detail that an accomplished commander would have thought of. Then he asked for four soldiers, two to be placed in the steeple to look out for the Prussians and toll the bell the moment they came in sight, and thus give the understood signal to the column at its masked resting-place; and two to watch with him at the entrance of the village.

“_Monsieur le curé_,” cried the general, “you are a hero!”

The old man sneezed violently—he took snuff—and laughed as well, as he said: “_Mon général_, the seminaries are full of such heroes as _I_ am. It is no heroism to love one’s country. Now, when you have given your orders, I shall carry you off to the presbytery and give you a roast chicken and some good omelet; and I think Turenne would have been glad sometimes to barter a few of his laurel branches for an omelet.”

The priest and the two soldiers had a long and cold watch through the night. At three o’clock in the morning the latter were getting tired, but the old man said: “Hist! do you see something over there?” The men peered through the dark and saw nothing; there was a wide circle of old trees and a road across—a well-known spot, the Fontaine wood. But the priest both saw and heard, or else he guessed by instinct. “See, they are creeping nearly on all fours behind the trees; now they stop to listen, they are gathering together. There is an officer speaking to them in whispers. It is time to ring the bell. Go now, children.”

“But how can we leave you alone?” said the soldiers.

“Never mind me; God will take care of me. Your general’s orders were to leave the moment the bell rang.” And as his companions withdrew he rang his little bell and the church tocsin immediately answered. Its sound was nearly drowned by the discharge of the Prussian rifles. The old man knelt down and began the Lord’s Prayer; he had not said the second line before a ball hit him and he fell. The French column escaped without the loss of one man; and when the general reported to his superior in command, the latter, lighting a cigar, said: “That priest was a brave fellow.” But the general was to meet him once more. The _curé_ was not killed, but was afterwards condemned to be shot, which sentence was commuted to exile on account of his great age; and when he met his old friend, who believed him dead, he greeted him with the cheerful question: “Well, how did you like my omelet?” The other caught him in his arms and repeated with as much tenderness as admiration: “You are a hero!”

The next story we choose from the many related by Ambert is one of pure Christian self-sacrifice, and one that has its daily counterpart in hospitals and plague-stricken cities, even in peaceful times. Small-pox in an aggravated form had broken out among the French troops, and, on the approach of an infected battalion of Mobiles to a village not far from Beaune, a _gendarme_ was sent on to bid the inhabitants lock their doors and keep out of the way, while the sick were taken through to an isolated camp-hospital at some distance. There were hardly any able-bodied men left in the village, as they were off harassing the Prussians and watching their movements, and the women, in their loneliness, felt a double fear. The patients came. A death-like silence prevailed; no face was seen at door or window. The sick men dragged themselves slowly and painfully along, asking for nothing, touchingly resigned to their lot of lepers and outcasts, though many of them were raw recruits of a few weeks only, whose homes were in just such villages as the familiar-looking one they were crossing now. They had passed the last houses, but at the door of one a little apart from the rest one soldier fell, and, seeing how hopeless it was to urge him further, a sergeant placed him on the doorstep and knocked at the door for help. No answer; and the battalion resumed its march, while the sergeant went back to tell the mayor. When he was out of sight a man and two women came hastily and furtively out of the house, carried the unconscious soldier some distance to the foot of a tree, and there left him. The sergeant had found the parish priest on his way back from a sick-call, and asked him to tell the mayor, as he was in a hurry to join his regiment. They came to the house, and, not finding the sick man, asked the owner where he was; the man half opened the shutter and pointed in silence to the tree. Without even seeking help, the priest, finding the soldier still alive, carried him home in his arms and laid him on his own bed. The hubbub was great in the parish; the old housekeeper indignantly remonstrated, but the priest gave her a few clear and severe orders as to her own liberty of staying away, and the substitute whom he had the means of sending for to replace him in church, also the manner of bringing him his food once a day, and then went out to speak to his excited parishioners. “There,” he said, pointing to a placard on the wall of the mayoralty, “you read 'Liberty, fraternity, equality.’ Am _I_ to be deprived of the _liberty_ of helping my neighbor? Is he not our _equal_, and does not _fraternity_ require that we should give him every chance for his life? I cannot forget that the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”

“But he does not even belong to the parish!” murmured the crowd.

“In such times as these,” said M. Cloti with enthusiasm, “all France is my parish, and every brave fellow who dies for you is my parishioner.”

And for sixty-five days and nights he watched the stranger, Jean Dauphin, made his bed every night, cooked his food, mixed his medicines, swept the rooms, and scarcely slept or ate himself. The doctor had insisted on the utmost cleanliness, but said that, with all precautions possible, only a miracle could save the soldier’s life. Charity wrought the miracle, and by the fortieth day the patient was sitting up listening to the priest reading to him. Only one person in the village caught the disease—the daughter of the man who had spurned the soldier from his door; and, though she did not die of it, she lost her beauty for ever. Some months after the doctor asked the priest if he knew at the time that he was risking his life, and that there was but the barest chance of escape for him. “Yes,” said M. Cloti simply, “I knew it.”

A terrible barbarity was the occasional punishment of the _bastonnade_—a kind of “running the gauntlet.” This occurred once at the village of Saint-Calais, where the enemy found some guns hidden in the belfry, and one hundred and forty-five male inhabitants, including the mayor, Baron Jaubert, and the priest, were seized. They were compelled to walk slowly between a double row of Prussian soldiers armed with clubs and sticks, and received merciless blows on their bare heads, their shoulders, back, arms, and legs. The number being odd, the priest was placed last and alone, so that both rows were able to reach and torture him. He fainted, and was given a glass of water, after which the torture began again; and when he fell the second time, his head was found to be split in five places, and his body was thrown aside for dead. He recovered, however, after a long and severe illness, but the baron died of his wounds. One priest, at Ardenay, was maltreated and imprisoned and finally carried away to Germany for having kept on his steeple a tricolor flag which had been there since 1830. Some priests whom one can forgive for their patriotism, but who were perhaps too forward, as ministers of peace, to foment war, used to go on the battle-fields and search the bodies of the dead for cartridges for the living; but these instances of enthusiasm were exceptional, and it should be remembered that some among the clergy were old soldiers.

Among the prisoners of war the priests found ample room for their ministry. Some of the clergy were themselves prisoners, while some left their country and volunteered for this special service. There was much to do. Besides saying Mass and administering the sacraments, there were the ignorant to instruct, the scoffers to convert, the young to protect, and the intemperate to reclaim. In that forced idleness many gave themselves up to drunkenness and grew reckless and desperate. This sin, which in our time seems to have sprung into new life and strength, showed itself lamentably strong among the captives, and the priests, to counteract it, had to attend not only to the spiritual needs of their charges, but to invent amusements and occupations to wean the soldiers from gross self-indulgence. Father Joseph, a missionary and military chaplain, published an interesting work on the prisoners, their behavior, pastimes, etc., the statistics of their captivity, their treatment, and such little things. During the war, more than 400,000 were taken prisoners. Letters with contributions came constantly through and from the country _curés_. Father Joseph, who was stationed at Ulm, quotes many of these letters, of which the following is a specimen: “I venture to recommend to your care one of my parishioners, made prisoner at Strasbourg. I recommend his soul to you—for it is his most precious possession—but also his bodily wants; I am afraid he is in need of clothes. If your circumstances allow it, be kind enough to give him what is needful; if not, set the whole to my account, and I will reimburse you. Our country will bless you for your charity.... May our soldiers, whom so many have labored to demoralize, be led to understand these truths; for then only will they be worthy of victory.” This dignified attitude of resignation to the hard lesson God allowed the unsuccessful war to teach France specially characterized the clergy of all ranks, but it did not take one jot from their eager and hot patriotism. Another country priest, over eighty years of age and nearly blind, begins by excusing himself on that score for his bad handwriting, and, mentioning one of his flock among the prisoners, says: “The poor boy must suffer terribly. Help him and comfort him; I shall look upon all that you do to him as done to me. It is long ago since it has been dinned into the people’s ears that we are their foes, while in truth they have no better friends; we are accused of not loving our country, while, on the contrary, we are her most devoted sons.... I fear that my age will prevent me seeing the end of her troubles, but it will be a comfort to me in death that to my latest breath I shall have labored in her service.” Charitable committees abroad and at home, mostly under church superintendence, sent food, money, and clothing, books, papers, games, etc., to the prisoners. Mgr. Mermillod’s committee at Geneva, and those of Lausanne and Bordeaux, chiefly distinguished themselves; but in this work religious fellowship overcame national prejudice, and the clergy and sisters of the Catholic Rhineland cordially helped their so-called enemies. They vied with the French in ministering to the prisoners in the several cities where the latter were confined; but not only they, for there were numberless Germans, both civil and military, who behaved generously, kindly, and delicately towards the prisoners.

We have already mentioned the terrible custom of choosing at random hostages or victims in reprisal for the acts of some unknown men. This took place once at Les Horties, a village where, despite the Prussian sentries, two hot-headed youths succeeded in picking off three German soldiers. The shots were returned, but the agile youths got away unscathed. A detachment was sent forthwith into the village, with orders to seize the first six men they happened to meet. This was done, the hostages guarded by the Prussians, and the mayor given till eleven o’clock the next morning to give up the real offenders, under penalty, if it proved impossible, of seeing the six men shot. Those who had fired on the Prussians were strangers, who hovered constantly on the outskirts of the enemy, accomplishing, most likely, some vow of vengeance for a wrong done by soldiers to some near and dear to them. There were many such. Heaven forgive them! for they brought untold sorrow on the heads of families like their own, whose death they were so blindly trying to revenge. It was out of the mayor’s power to give up the culprits, and no prayers or tears made any impression on the Prussian officer in command. The women’s lamentations were terrible; the men’s despair appalling. One of them, a widower of forty with five children, was all but out of his mind, blaspheming horribly and crying out: “Yes, yes, it was my three-year-old Bernard who fired on the wretches. Let them take me and my five boys, and let the rest go!” The priest, M. Gerd, was unable to comfort him, and slowly left the school-room where the poor victims waited their fate. Going to the headquarters of the German captain, he said: “I believe you only wish to shoot these men as an example; therefore the more prominent the victim, the greater the lesson. It cannot matter to you individually _who_ is shot; therefore I have come to beg of you as a favor to be allowed to take the place of one of these men, whose death will leave five young children fatherless and homeless. Both he and I are innocent, but my death will be more profitable to you than even his.” “Very well,” said the officer, and the _curé_ was bound with the rest of the men, and the man he had saved left him in tears. The night passed, and, like the martyrs of Sébaste, whose fortitude was strengthened by the young heathen who joined them in the stead of one of themselves who had faltered, these unhappy men were transformed by the priest’s words and examples into unflinching heroes. The hour came, and he walked at their head, saying aloud the Office of the Dead, the people kneeling and sobbing as he passed, when the condemned met a Prussian major who was passing by chance with some orders from the general. He was struck by the sight of the priest—an unusual one, even during this “feast of horrors”—and inquired into the matter, which seemed less a thing of course to him than it had to the captain. He countermanded the order and referred the whole thing to the general, who called the _curé_ before him. It ended in the former saying that he was unable to make an exception in any one’s favor, but that for _his_ sake he would pardon every one of the hostages, and, when the priest had left, he turned to his officers and said energetically: “If all Frenchmen were like that plain parish priest, we should not have long to stay on this side of the Rhine.”

But here is another story, very like this one and more tragic, which has not come within Ambert’s knowledge, and to which we are indebted to an English novelist, who, vouching for its truth, has worked it into a recent tale. Neither name nor place is given, but it runs thus: The same thing happened as at Les Horties, and a certain number—I forget how many—male inhabitants were condemned, all fathers of families. After vain appeals for mercy from the priest, the mayor, the old men, and the women, the former called all his people into the church, which had been pillaged and half burnt some time before. He went into the pulpit and held up a common black cross; it was the only ornament or symbol left of the simple village church treasury.

“My children,” he said in a voice trembling with sobs, “you know what has happened, and how many hearths are going to be left desolate. Here, in God, in Christ, is our only comfort and our only strength. I have no ties but such as bind me to each one of you equally. I have but one life to give, but I will gladly take the place of one of these fathers of families, and trust to God to protect you when I am gone. Now, if any of you feel that God will give you grace to die in the stead of any other of your brethren, say so, and God bless you!” He knelt and bent his head on his clasped hands in prayer; silence, only broken by suppressed sobbing, filled the church. The women were in agonies of weeping; the men’s faces worked as if in some mighty struggle. Presently one young man rose up and said: “Father, I will follow you; I have neither wife nor children. I will take such a one’s place.” And then rose another youth, giving up all his hopes of the future for the sake of another of the victims; and the women crowded round them, blessing them, crying over them, pressing their hands, and calling them heroes and deliverers. Those for whom no substitutes had appeared caught the high spirit of the occasion, and bore their fate like Christians and men. No Providence interposed in this case, and the priest was allowed to consummate his sacrifice. Such courage was more than human.

The part taken by the sisters of various orders in the scenes of the war and the Commune was one which neither France nor Germany will ever forget. They shared every danger to which the soldiers themselves were liable, even that of being shot in cold blood, which was the fate of four sisters at Soultz, near Colmar, on the Rhine. They were found nursing the wounded, and the Prussians accused them of advising and encouraging the inhabitants to resist. There was no inquiry, no form, but a few of the scum of the invading army dragged the women away at once, set them against a wall, and shot them. During the retreat after the battle of Reischoffen a Sister of Charity made her way among the disorganized troops, seeking some one to help. Balls and shells were whizzing past, and frightened horses wildly galloping by. A cry was heard as a man fell mortally wounded, and the sister stopped, knelt down, and began her work; but hardly a minute after a ball struck her and carried off both her legs. She fell in a swoon by the soldier’s side. M. Blandeau, who tells the story, did not know her name; he only says pointedly: “She was a Sister of Charity.” An officer of the French Army of the Rhine gives an account of a Trinitarian nun, Sister Clara, who the night of the 16th of August, 1870, after a bloody battle, was tending the wounded in a barn; they were in such pain as not to be able to bear being carried to a safer place, and all they cried for was “Water, water!” Every five minutes the nun went quietly in and out, under the fire of the enemy, to fetch as much water as her scanty number of vessels would hold; you would have thought she was armor-plated, to judge by her calm and smiling demeanor. The next day began the dreary retreat towards Metz; the wounded were heaped on carts and wagons, and there again was Sister Clara, comforting, helping, encouraging the men, giving water to one, changing the position of another. She left on the last cart, holding against her breast the head of the nearest wounded man; but not half a mile further the column was made prisoner by a detachment of Uhlans, the ambulances cut off, and in the _mêlée_ a shot struck and killed the sister, who was probably buried by and among strangers. At Forbach the superior of the Sisters of Providence, whose house was a hospital and asylum at all times, was killed by a shell, and at Metz no less than twenty-two Sisters of Charity died either from wounds, disease, or exhaustion in the service of the soldiers. At Bicêtre, during the siege of Paris, eleven died of small-pox in one day, and a request having been made for the same number to supply their place, thirty-two presented themselves at once. At Pau, at Orleans, at Mans, at Nevers, and in numberless other cities, as well as in impromptu hospitals, canvas towns, villages, and battle-fields, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Sisters of Charity, the Visitation Nuns, and other orders too many to mention distinguished themselves. Many sisters were forced later on to accept the Legion of Honor, but a far greater number of those who deserved it did not live to have it offered. At the siege of Paris their courage seemed absolutely superhuman. An officer once met near Châlons, on the road to Paris, a blind and wounded soldier led by a Sister of Charity. He was an old veteran from Africa, without relations, of a terrible temper, and with not much religion. The Prussians had left him on the road, finding him an encumbrance among the prisoners. The sister found him and undertook to lead him to the _Invalides_, where, she said, he had every right to claim a home. In all weathers this strange couple plodded along. She begged food and shelter for him, and always gave him the best; but he was fractious and not very grateful. One day the weather was a little finer, and he heard a lark sing; he seemed quite touched and happy. The sister asked him to kneel down and repeat the “Our Father” after her, and he did not refuse. This was the beginning of his conversion. But the Sister now grew ambitious, and wanted to restore his physical sight to him as well as his spiritual; so she said: “We will not go to the _Invalides_ after all, but I will take you to the best surgeons and the most famous oculists in Paris, and beg them, for the love of God and their country, to do their utmost to cure you; and if God sees fit to let them succeed, you will promise me to be a good Christian as long as you live, will you not?” Three months later the soldier was as hearty as ever and had recovered his sight, while the sister had long been at work in a country school; but at Notre Dame des Victoires may be often seen a veteran praying on his knees before the grated door of the shrine—praying for his deliverer.

The Pontifical Zouaves formed a volunteer regiment of their own during the war, and fought like lions; most of their members were the descendants of old French families whose sympathies are with the last of the exiled Bourbons, and who, while they reject the empire and the republic equally, and keep out of the way of office or active employment of any kind, even to the prejudice of their career and to the point that many of their young men are forced to make a life for themselves in foreign service or by emigration, yet are full of real love of their country. The virtues of such enthusiasts always come out in adversity, while in prosperity their attitude of aloofness may seem rather childish. In the last war they fought nobly. Plenty of Breton peasants joined them; they have nearly the same traditions and fully the same faith; in fact, they have long been natural allies.

The incidents of the Commune—a period so much more terrible and shameful than that of the war—have been so often and fully described that we will not add much to this sketch by going over the fearfully familiar subject. Every one knows the phase of rabid feeling which came uppermost among the Communists: the hatred of God, religion, and priests—even a more rabid feeling than that entertained towards owners of property. The clergy were thus forced to be prominent in that national delirium: the chief victims were ecclesiastics. In Paris and other places it has been noticed that a certain class of lazy, good-for-nothing men live from hand to mouth around the barracks and the churches, living on the alms of soldiers and priests, inventing excuses to account for their indolence, cheating and lying and taking ravenously all they can get. When a revolution comes, these men become denunciators, assassins, and leaders. It is they who cry the loudest against the army and the priesthood—the “butchers” of Versailles and the “hypocrites” in cassocks. Raoul Rigault spoke their sentiments when he said to the porter of M. Duguerry’s house (the famous parish priest of La Madeleine, shot with Archbishop Darboy at La Roquette): “God! you fool!” (the man had exclaimed, as is the custom, innocently meant, in France, '_O mon Dieu!_') “Hold your tongue; how dare you speak of God! Our revolution is against your God, your religion, and your priests. We will sweep all that rubbish away!” And, by way of contrast to this plain confession of faith, here are the words of M. Duguerry in prison to his biographer, the Baron de Saint-Amand: “My dear friend, if I knew that my death would be of any use to the cause of religion, I should kneel down and beg them to shoot me.” But it is not necessary to multiply quotations to show the intense hatred of the Commune towards religion and its ministers. Holy Week in 1871 was indeed the _Passion_ Week of many of the latter. The devilish conduct of many women recalled the worst excesses of the Reign of Terror. A woman with a military cap on rode at the head of the escort of the hostages, three of them Jesuit Fathers, who were taken from La Roquette to Belleville to be shot. She swore and yelled and gave orders, insulting the priests especially. On the Boulevards, as the condemned passed, riots took place, and disorderly crowds nearly killed the prisoners in their impatience. Women again were prominent, brandishing guns, knives, and pistols, throwing bloody mud on the priests, and blaspheming as badly as any man; it would have been safer to run the gauntlet of a crowd of maniacs let loose from the asylum. Mgr. Surat was killed in the streets on another occasion by a young girl of sixteen, who deliberately put a pistol to his forehead. “Mercy, mademoiselle!” cried the priest quickly; but with an untranslatable slang play on his words[39]—equivalent, say, to “You shall have it hot and peppery,” or some such phrase—she drew the trigger and stretched him dead at her feet. The Abbé Perny, in his evidence before the council of war, says: “I have lived among the savages for twenty-five years, but I never saw among them anything to equal the hatred on those faces of men and women as we passed them on our way from Mazas to La Roquette.”[40] Father Anatole de Bengy, a Jesuit, was a remarkable man who had been military chaplain in the Crimea, and was volunteer chaplain of the troops during the last war till the siege, when he attached himself to the Eighth Ambulance. He had a singular power of commanding the love, obedience, and confidence of others; he was brave and good-tempered, and such a thorough soldier that Marshal Bosquet said of him: “Upon my word, if there are many Jesuits of that kind, _I_ say hurrah for the Jesuits!” His letters are full of pleasantry and life. He tells his friends how he helps “our poor soldiers,” and jokes about his tramps with “his bundle on his back,” which phrase, he says, “always rouses a certain pity in the listener; but indeed, my dear Aymard, the bundle (_le sac_) does not deserve its bad name: it urges the body forward, and its inconveniences are fully made up for by the advantages it gives rise to. Some thinker should undertake the Praise of the Bundle, and rehabilitate it in the eyes of pilgrims.” The words of this manly and brave priest at the funeral of Commander de Dampierre would serve as his own eulogy: “The fountain-head of duty is in the three world-famous words, _God wills it_.” When his name was called at La Roquette, on the list of condemned, the Communist official stumbled over it, and Père de Bengy stepped briskly forward, saying: “I know my name is on the list—Bengy; here I am.” M. Crépin, a shoe-maker, who was condemned, but saved by the entrance of the troops, saw the butchery of Belleville, and in his evidence said: “Let no one speak ill of the clergy before me again! I have seen them at home now; I know them by experience; I have witnessed their courage and been comforted by their words.”

Footnote 39:

_Tu l’auras maigre et non pas gras_ (_grasse—grâce_).

Footnote 40:

At Ménilmontant a woman named Lefêvre proposed, amid cheers and bravos, to undermine the Cathedral of Notre Dame, fill it as full as it would hold with priests and nuns, and blow it up. At a club-meeting another woman—Leblanc—cried: “We must flay the priests alive and make barricades with their carcasses”; and at Trinity Church a woman argued thus on the existence of God: “Religion is a farce got up by men, and there is no God; ... if there were, he would not let me speak so. Therefore he is a coward, and no God....” And there were other and even more revolting things said and done.

The Dominicans of Arcueil transformed their school into an ambulance during the siege, and Père Bengy happened to be chosen chaplain. But the Commune was to elicit greater sacrifices. The monks might have left, but did not, and reopened their hospital for the wounded wild beasts, whose curses sounded upon their watchers even from their sick-beds. The Geneva flag was hoisted, and the Sisters of St. Martha acted as domestic servants, besides many other women and girls. There were twenty wounded in the hospital on the 19th of May, 1871, when the Commune arrested the inmates of the house, thirty-eight persons—priests, lay brothers, tradesmen and servants in their employment, some of them foreigners, nuns, married women and widows, two young girls, and a child of eight years old, daughter of the tailor, who was afterwards shot with the priests. The latter were, with a devilish show of mercy, offered their liberty if they would take arms against the Versailles troops, and, when they refused, they were condemned. Their death took place a few days later, and the shooting was not done with military precision, but bunglingly, so that the victims were rather butchered than shot. After the bodies had ceased to breathe they were savagely mutilated, the heads and larger bones hacked with axes, and the flesh pierced with bayonets. Some of the priests managed to escape in the crowd and smoke, all of them wounded, however; and one was saved by a woman who hurriedly threw her husband’s clothes to him. According to the saying of a National Guard who escorted the Belleville victims to their death, and who, on being asked by a passer-by, “Where are they taking those men to?” answered gravely, “To heaven,” the road these priests walked was truly the “narrow road that leadeth to salvation.”

Surely, if any class of French citizens did their duty in troublous times and deserve well of their country, it is the clergy.

DE VERE’S “MARY TUDOR.”