iv. 2 he gives us:

“Julus, he who would with Pindar vie Soars, with Dædalian art, on waxen wings, And, falling, gives his name unto the bright Deeps of an ocean”;

for iii. 14 a nearer approach to the _Knife Grinder_ jingle:

“Nothing cools fiery spirits like a gray hair; In every quarrel ’tis your sure peacemaker: In my hot youth, when Plancus was the consul, I was less patient.”

Lord Lytton’s experiment is full of interest to Horatians—as, indeed, what translation is not?—even the worst, even the Rev. Mr. Sewell’s, may be of use in teaching the translator how not to do it—and his failures, which are many, are scarcely less instructive than his successes, which seem to us fewer than for so bold an essay could be wished; but both alike are suggestive of many possibilities. It is in the lighter odes that he is least satisfactory, and we doubt if these can be done full justice to without the aid of rhyme. Horace’s grace of form in these is so delicate and exquisite that it taxes all the resources and embellishments of our English verse to give any adequate idea of it. Take, as an illustration of Lord Lytton’s method, and as giving, perhaps, the measure of his success, his version of that delicious little landscape, _Ad Fontem Blandusiæ_ (iii. 13):

“Fount of Blandusia, more lucid than crystal, Worthy of honeyed wine, not without flowers, I will give thee to-morrow a kid Whose front, with the budded horn swelling.

“Predicts to his future life Venus and battles; Vainly! The lymph of thy cold running waters He shall tinge with the red of his blood, Fated child of the frolicsome people!

“The scorch of the Dogstar’s fell season forbears thee; Ever friendly to grant the sweet boon of thy coolness To the wild flocks that wander around, And the oxen that reek from the harrow.

“I will give thee high rank and renown among fountains, When I sing of the ilex o’erspreading the hollows, Of rocks whence in musical fall Leap thy garrulous silvery waters.”

This is better because more literal than Joseph Warton’s unrhymed version in the Miltonian stanza, with which it may be compared:

“Ye waves that gushing fall with purest streams, Blandusian fount! to whom the products sweet Of richest wines belong, And fairest flowers of spring, To thee a chosen victim will I slay— A kid who, glowing in lascivious youth, Just blooms with budding horn, And, with vain thought elate, Yet destines future war; but, ah! too soon His reeking blood with crimson shall enrich Thy pure, translucent flood And tinge thy crystal clear. Thy sweet recess the sun in midday hour Can ne’er invade; thy streams the labor’d ox Refresh with cooling draughts And glad the wand’ring herds. Thy name shall shine, with endless honors graced, While in my shell I sing the nodding oak That o’er thy cavern deep Waves his embowering head.”

It would almost seem as if the author of this version had taken pains to rub out every Horatian characteristic. The pretty touch of the _loquaces lymphæ_ is thus omitted, unless the first line be meant to do duty for it, while by such padding as “chosen victim” and “endless honors” Horace’s sixteen lines are diluted into twenty—a danger to which the unrhymed translator, constantly seeking by inversions and paraphrases to cover the baldness of his medium, is peculiarly liable. Whatever may be said to the contrary, rhyme compels conciseness, and helps to point quite as often as it entices to expansion. Prof. Conington’s version, in the same metre as Warton’s, but rhymed in alternate lines, will be found greatly superior to it, and is perhaps, on the whole, the best we have seen—better even than Mr. Martin’s, who cannot get his Latin into less than twenty-four octosyllabic lines. Instead of giving either, let us see if all that is essential in Horace cannot be given in the same number of lines of what is known as the Tennysonian stanza, which is somewhat less capacious than the Alcaics of the original, though, by a certain pensive grace, peculiarly fitted to render the sentiment of this delightful ode:

“Blandusian fount, as crystal clear, Of garlands worthy and of wine, A kid to-morrow shall be thine, Whose swelling brows, just budding, bear

“The horns that presage love and strife; How vainly! For his crimson blood Shall stain the silver of thy flood With all the herd’s most wanton life.

“The burning Dogstar’s noontide beam Knows not thy secret nook; the ox Parched from the plough, the fielding flocks, Lap grateful coolness from thy stream.

“Thee, too, ‘mid storied founts my lay Shall shrine: thy bending holm I’ll sing, Shading the grottoed rocks whence spring Thy laughing waters far away.”

Though terseness and fidelity are two of the chief merits claimed by the advocates of the unrhymed measures, it is just here that they oftenest fail; and Lord Lytton is no exception. Space permits us to give but few instances. “Trodden by all, and only trodden once,” is Lord Lytton’s version of _calcanda semel_, i. 28—seven English words for two Latin, and the sense then but vaguely given at best. _Feriuntque summos Fulgura montes_ is in like manner diluted into

“The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning Are its high places.”

Awkwardness of style, too, is a much more frequent characteristic of Lord Lytton’s renderings than we should look for either from his own command of style or the freedom which disuse of rhyme is claimed to ensure. For instance, in ii. 2:

“Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinions, Fame, the survivor,”

might surely have been bettered; and in the same ode a line in the stanza already quoted above, _Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum_, is translated, “Wider thy realm a greedy soul subjected,” which would be scarcely intelligible without the Latin. “Bosom _more seen through_ than glass” is by no means the neatest possible equivalent for _per lucidior vitro_, and such expressions as “closed gates of Janus vacant of a war,” “lest thou owe a mock,” “but me more have stricken with rapture,” are scarcely English.

Nevertheless, with all its faults and shortcomings, Lord Lytton’s essay is in some respects the most interesting translation of Horace that has yet appeared, and may pioneer the way to more fortunate results in the same direction. It has, at least, the _raison d’être_ which Mr. Matthew Arnold denies to such translations as Wright’s and Sotheby’s Homer; it has a distinct and novel method of its own, and does not simply repeat the method and renew the faults and virtues of any predecessor. The American edition, it is worthy of remark, is printed in the old-fashioned way, with the Latin text to face the English—an innovation, or, more properly, a _re_novation, which will no doubt be welcome to lovers of the Venusian, whose love has outlived their memory, and who, though loyal to the spirit of our poet, are no longer so familiar with his letter as in the days, the far-off sunny days, when Horace was the heaviest task that life had yet laid upon us.

We have dwelt upon this subject at somewhat greater length than we intended; for to us it is full of a fascination we should be glad to hope we had made our readers in some sort share. But it has also a practical side which the most fanatical opponent of the classics, the most zealous upholder of utilitarian education, must recognize and admit. As a means of training in English composition, as an aid to discover the resources of our own tongue, there is no better practice than translating Horace into English verse, with due attention to his epithets. That, perhaps, may serve in some degree to reconcile the practical mind to his retention in the modern curriculum, even though Homer be kicked out of doors and Virgil sent flying through the window; for a practical man is none the worse equipped for business in being able to say what he means in “good set phrase.” To be sure it does not ask the pen of an Addison to write an order for a “hnd. trces. lard,” but we dare say if Mr. Richard Grant White were called upon to make out a bill of lading, he would do it none the worse for knowing all about the English language that is worth knowing, if not more than is worth telling. There are mysteries in our English speech that the _Complete Letter-Writer_, or even the “editorials” of the daily newspaper, do not quite explore, and some of these our old friend Horace may help us to find out. _Fas est ab hoste doceri._

THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.

CONCLUSION.

Father Maurice sped upon his journey to Moynalty Castle. The dinner hour was eight o’clock, but he had delayed so long with his guest that it took the little pony her “level best” to do the seven miles within the necessary time.

“Av we wor wanst beyant the Mouladharb berrin’ groun’ I wudn’t care a thraneen; but sorra a step the little pony’ll pass it afther dark,” observed Murty Mulligan, bestowing a liberal supply of whip upon the astonished nag, whose habit it was to proceed upon her travels at her own sweet will, innocent of lash, spur, or admonition.

“Tut, tut! Nonsense, Murty! Push on.”

“It’s thruth I’m tellin’ yer riverince. We’re at it. See that, now—curse of Crummell on her! she won’t put wan foot afore the other,” adding, in a whisper full of consternation: “Mebbe she sees ould Casey, that was berried a Munda. He was a terrible naygur—”

“Jump down and take her head,” said the priest.

“Be the powers! I’ll have for to carry her, av we want to raich the castle to-night.”

Father Maurice dismounted, as did Murty, and, by coaxing and blandishment of every description, endeavored to induce the pony to proceed; but the animal, with its ears cocked, and trembling in every limb, refused to budge an inch.

“Och, wirra, wirra! we’re bet intirely. It’s Missis Delaney he sees, that died av the horrors this day month,” growled Mulligan.

“Silence, you jackass!” cried Father Maurice, “and help me to blindfold the pony.”

This _ruse_ eventually succeeded, and they spun merrily along the road, the terrified animal clattering onwards at racing speed.

“This pace is dangerous, Murty,” said the priest.

“Sorra a lie in it, yer riverince.”

“Pull in.”

“I can’t hould her. She’s me hands cut aff, bad cess to her!”

“Is the road straight?”

“Barrin’ a few turns, it’s straight enough, sir.”

The words had hardly escaped his lips when the wheel attached to the side of the car upon which the priest was sitting came into contact with a pile of stones, the car was tilted upwards and over, Father Maurice shot into a thorn hedge, and Murty Mulligan landed up to his neck in a ditch full of foul and muddy water, while the pony, suddenly freed from its load, and after biting the dust, quietly turned round to gaze at the havoc it had made.

“Are ye kilt, yer riverince? For I’m murdhered intirely, an’ me illigant Sunda’ shuit ruined complately. Och, wirra, wirra! how can I face the castle wud me duds consaled in mud? How can I uphould Monamullin, an’ me worse nor a scarecrow? Glory be to God! we’re safe anyhow, an’ no bones bruck. O ye varmint!” shaking his fist at the unconscious cause of this disaster, “its meself that’ll sarve ye out for this. Won’t I wallop ye, ye murdherin’ thief, whin I catch a hould of ye!”

“Hold your nonsense, Murty. How near are we to the castle?”

“Sorra a know I know, yer riverince; the knowledgeableness is shuk out o’ me intirely.”

“The shafts are broken.”

“Av course th’ are.”

“Here, help me to shove the car over to the ditch and pile the cushions under this hedge. God be praised! neither of us is even scratched.”

A carriage with blazing lamps came along.

“Hi! hi! hi!” roared Murty, “we’re wracked here. Lind us a hand! We’re desthroyed be a villain av a pony that seen a ghost, an’ we goin’ to dine at Moynalty Castle.”

The carriage belonged to Mr. Bodkin, the senior member for the county, who was only too delighted to act the Good Samaritan; and as he, with his wife and daughter, was bound for the castle, which still lay two miles distant, the meeting proved in every respect a fortunate one.

The worthy priest was received by his host and hostess with the most flattering courtesy, and by Miss Julia Jyvecote as though he formed part and parcel of her personal property. He took Mrs. Jyvecote into dinner, and said grace both before and after.

Father Maurice was positively startled with the splendor and exquisite taste of the surroundings. The room in which they dined—not _the_ dinner-room, but a delightful little snuggery, where the anecdote was the property of the table, and the _mot_ did not require to be handed from plate to plate like an _entrée_—was richly decorated in the Pompeiian style, with walls of a pale gray, while the hangings were of a soft amber relieved by red brown. The dinner was simply perfect, the _entourages_ in the shape of cut glass, flowers, and fruit—veritable poems—while the quiet simplicity and easy elegance lent an indescribable charm which fell upon the simple priest like a potent spell.

Every effort that good breeding combined with generous hospitality could make was called into requisition in order to render the timid, blushing clergyman perfectly at home; and so happily did this action on the part of his entertainers succeed that before the lapse of a few moments he felt as though he had lived amongst them for years.

Mrs. Jyvecote promised to send him flowers for the altar, and Julia to work an altar-cloth for him.

“I must go over and pay you a visit, father,” she said. “I am one of your parishioners, although I go to Mass at Thonelagheera.”

“I wish you would, my dear child; but I have no inducements to offer you, although at present perhaps I have.” And he narrated the arrival of the guest to whom Mrs. Clancy was playing the _rôle_ of _châtelaine_ during his absence.

“Why, this is quite a romance, Father Maurice. I must see your artist _coûte que coûte_, and shall drive over next week.”

But fate determined that she should drive over the next day.

When, upon the following morning, Father Maurice came to examine the condition of his pony, he found both the knees barked and the luckless animal unfit to travel.

“We couldn’t walk her home, Murty, could we?” he asked of his _factotum_.

“Och, the poor crayture couldn’t stir a step wudout tears comin’ to her eyes. Me heart is bleedin’ for her this minnit,” replied the wily Mulligan, sagaciously perceiving that so long as the pony remained at the castle he should abide with her; and as his reception in the servants’ hall had been of the same flattering description as that of his master up-stairs, he resolved to continue in such delightful quarters as long as he possibly could.

“Poor Rosy!” he cried, affectionately scratching the pony’s forehead, “shure it’s yerself that wud dance on yer head for his riverince, av ye wor able; but yer bet up, poor little wumman, an’ it’s rest ye want for a cupple o’ days, anyhow.”

When Father Maurice mentioned the predicament he found himself in, Mrs. Jyvecote instantly proposed sending him home in the carriage, since he could not be induced to prolong his stay; but Julia insisted upon driving him herself to Monamullin in her basket phaeton; and so, laden with flowers, hot-house pines, grapes, a hamper of grouse and a brace of hares, and under solemn promise to make another visit at no distant date, Father Maurice turned homewards under the “whip” of his newly-found and exceedingly charming parishioner.

As they jogged along by the sad sea-wave she told him the entrancing history of her conversion—of her meeting with Cardinal Manning at a garden party at Holland House, and of a casual conversation which led to so much.

Father Maurice felt as if he had a white-robed angel by his side, and revelled in the absorbing narrative until the phaeton stopped at the cottage gate. The pony was duly stabled, and, while the priest set forth to attend to a sick-call, Miss Jyvecote proceeded to the chapel, where she encountered his artist guest.

Brown started, despite himself, when Father Maurice mentioned her name.

“A parishioner of mine, Mr. Brown.”

“I—I saw you in the church just now,” muttered the artist. “It’s an awfully seedy—I mean it’s a very quiet little place.”

“I could pray more fervently in a church like that than in the Madeleine,” she replied in a soft, silvery voice.

“The Madeleine is too rowy, too many chairs creaking, too many swells, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

Insensibly the drawl of society had come upon him, and the slanginess of expression which passes current in Mayfair and Belgravia.

“Miss Jyvecote is going to brighten me up, Mr. Brown; she is going to work me an altar-cloth,” exclaimed the delighted priest.

“And I am going to paint you an altar-picture, a copy of Raphael’s Virgin and Child—that is, if you will kindly accept it,” he added, blushing to the roots of his hair.

“Oh! how charming, how generous,” cried Miss Jyvecote.

“My dear Mr. Brown,” said Father Maurice, crossing the room and taking his guest by the hand, “I am deeply, _deeply_ sensible of the kindly, the noble spirit which actuates you to make this offer; but you are a young man, with a grand future before you, with God’s help, and by and by, when you have leisure, perhaps you will get a stiff letter from me calling on you to fulfil your promise. You’ll find me a very tough customer to deal with, I assure you.”

“He thinks I cannot afford it,” said Brown to himself; “and how delicately he has refused me!”

The entrance of Mrs. Clancy with a smoking dish of salmon cutlets turned the tide of the conversation, and in a few moments the artist found himself with Miss Jyvecote discussing the Royal Academy pictures of the last season, glorifying Millais, extolling Holman Hunt, raving over Leslie and Herbert, and ringing the changes over the pearly grays, changeful opals, amaranths, and primrose of Leighton. From London to the _salon_ is easy transition, and from thence to the galleries of Dresden, Munich, and Florence. She had visited all, and to a purpose. He had lingered within their enchanting walls until every canvas became more or less a friend. There was a wonderful charm in this meeting. To Brown Miss Jyvecote was a listener freshly intelligent, _naïvely_ sensible. To her the clever _critiques_ of this high-bred yet humble artist savored of a romance written but unreal. It is scarcely necessary to say that when people drop thus upon a subject so charming, so inexhaustible, so refreshing the old Scytheman is utterly disregarded, and the sun was already sinking towards the west when Miss Jyvecote’s phaeton came to the gate.

“Have you any of your sketches here, Mr. Brown?” she asked, as she drew on her yellow dogskin driving-gloves.

“Only a few that I dashed off on my walk hither from Castlebar.”

They were glorious little bits of weather-worn granite, brilliant with gray, green, and orange lichens; luminous green seas and black rocks basking in the sunlight; fern-crowned inlets and cliffs glittering with bright wild flowers. She gushed over them. What girl does not gush over the sketches of a tall, handsome, earnest artist?

“Oh! if I might dare to ask you for one of them, Mr. Brown.”

“Take all,” he said.

She would not hear of this.

“They are your working-drawings, Mr. Brown?” selecting one, possibly the least valuable.

“Will you not require an escort, Miss Jyvecote, on your lonely drive?”

“Escort! No. In the first place, I shall probably not meet a human being; and, in the next, I should only meet a friend were I to encounter any one. I fear my prolonged visit has spoiled your work for to-day, Mr. Brown.”

“My work! You will hardly guess what I am pledged to do and the work I am about to commence. It is nothing less than a copy of the picture of Daniel O’Connell which hangs over the mantel-piece. It is for Mrs. Clancy, who is to adorn her kitchen wall with it.”

“Surely you are not in earnest?”

“_Hélas!_ I am always in earnest, and so is Mrs. Clancy,” he added, laughingly narrating that worthy lady’s anxiety with reference to the artistic adornment of the back door.

“May we not hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Moynalty? Father Maurice has promised us a visit. I’m sure my father will call and—”

“Pray do not trouble him. I never visit, and, as my stay here is only one of sufferance, I know not the moment I may be evicted by my ruthless landlord.”

“You should make an exception in our favor, Mr. Brown. We can show you a Claude, a doubtful Murillo, and a charming Meissonier. Our flowers, too, are worth coming to see—that is, they are wonderful for Connemara. Father Maurice, you must ask Mr. Brown to come over with you on Monday.”

“Of course, my dear child, of course. He’ll be enchanted with the castle. You’ll come, of course, Mr. Brown?” turning to our hero, who, however, remained silent, although brimming over with words he dared not speak.

“Then it’s _au revoir, messieurs_!” gaily exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, as she whirled rapidly away.

It would have surprised some of the artist’s London friends could they have peeped behind the scenes of his thoughts and gazed at them as naturalists do at working bees. It would have astonished them to hear him mutter as he watched the receding vehicle: “This is just the one fresh, fair, unspotted, and perfect girl it has been my lot to meet. Such a girl as this would cause the worst of us to turn virtuous and eschew cakes and ale.”

* * * * *

Mr. Brown had confided in one man ere dropping out of Vanity Fair. To this individual he now addressed himself, requesting of him to “drop down to O’Connor’s, the swell ecclesiastical stained-glass man in Berners Street, Oxford Street, and order a set of Stations of the Cross. You don’t know what they mean, old fellow, but the O’Connors will understand you. Let them be first class and glowing in the reds, yellows, blues, and greens of the new French school of colors. I don’t mind the price. Above all things let them have especially handsome frames of the _Via Dolorosa_ pattern.” The letter went on to tell Mr. Dudley Poynter of his doings and the calm throb of the heart of his daily life. “There is not much champagne in it, Dudley, but there is a body that ne’er was dreamed of in your philosophy, or in that of the wild, mad wags of the smoking-room _clique_.”

Mr. Brown completed his copy of the Liberator, to the intense admiration of Father Maurice and the ecstasy of Mrs. Clancy. The worthy priest would not permit its being hung in the kitchen, though, but gave it the place of honor in the snug little sitting-room. It is needless to say that the entire population of Monamullin, including the cabin curs—who were now on terms of the closest intimacy with the artist—turned in after last Mass to have a look at the “picther o’ Dan.”

“Be me conscience! but it’s Dan himself—sorra a wan else,” cried one.

“I was at Tara, an’ it’s just as if he was givin’ Drizzlyeye [Disraeli] that welt about his notorious ancesthor, the impinitent thief on the crass,” observed another.

“Faix, it’s alive, it is. Look at the mouth, reddy for to say ‘Repale.’”

“There’s an eye!”

“Thrue for ye; there’s more fire in it than in ould Finnegan’s chimbly this minit.”

“Troth, it’s as dhroll as a pet pup’s.”

“Stan’ out o’ that, Mr. O’Leary, or ye’ll get a crack av his fist.”

“Three cheers for the painther, boys!”

These and kindred comments flung a radiated pleasure into the inner heart of the artist—that _sanctum_ which as yet was green and fresh and limpid—while the eulogies, however quaintly and coarsely served up, bore the delicious fragrance which praise ever carries with it like a subtle perfume.

“The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.”

Mr. Brown was enamored of his new existence—possibly with the child passion for toyland; but the passion endured, nevertheless, strengthening with each successive sunrise and maturing with every gloaming. An invitation, accompanied by a card, had arrived by special messenger for the artist, requesting the favor of his company, _et cætera, et cætera_, to which that gentleman responded in a polite negative, assigning no particular reason, but indulging in vague generalities. He had thought a good deal of Miss Jyvecote, and sat dreaming about her by the sea, his hands clasped around his knees and his beloved meerschaum stuck in his mouth—sat dreaming, and fighting against his dreams—fights in which fancy ever got the uppermost of the rude and real. A longing crept up out of the depths of his heart to see her once again, and to travel in the sunlighted path of her thoughts. One thing he was firmly resolved upon—not to leave Monamullin without another interview; though how this was to be brought about he did not very well see. Yes, he would see her just once more, and then stamp the whole thing out of his mind. He had been hit before, and had come smilingly out of the valley of desolation, and so he should again, although this was so utterly unlike his former experiences.

Father Maurice was charmed with his guest. He had never encountered anything like him—so bright, so genial, so cultured, so humble and submissive, and so anxious to oblige.

“Imagine,” said he in cataloguing his virtues to Larry Muldoon—“imagine his asking me to let him ring the bell for five o’clock Mass, and he a Protestant!”

The priest and his guest had long talks together, the latter drawing out his host—digging for the golden ore of a charming erudition, which lay so deep, but which “was all there.” Night after night did Father Maurice unfold from germ to bud, from bud to flower, from flower to fruit the grand truths of the unerring faith in which he was a day-laborer, the young artist drinking in the sublime teachings with that supreme attention which descends like an aureole. Father Maurice was, as it were, but engaged in thinking aloud, yet his thoughts fell like rain-drops, refreshing, grateful, and abiding.

The good priest, although burning with curiosity with regard to the antecedents of his guest, was too thorough a gentleman, had too great respect for the laws of broken bread and tasted salt, to ask so much as a single question. A waif from the great ocean of humanity had drifted into this little haven, and it should be protected until the ruthless current would again seize it to whirl it outwards and onwards. Miss Jyvecote betrayed her disappointment in various artless ways when Father Maurice arrived at the castle without the artist. “I’m sorry you didn’t fetch him along _bon gré mal gré_, father,” said Mrs. Jyvecote, “as papa goes to Yorkshire next week, and Juey can talk of no person but Mr. Brown.”

Miss Jyvecote blushed rosy red as she exclaimed: “What nonsense, mamma! You have been speaking a good deal more about him than I have. You rave over his sketch.”

“I think it immense.” Mrs. Jyvecote affected art, and talked from the pages of the _Art Journal_ by the yard. “His aerial perspective is full of filmy tone, and his near foreground is admirably run in, while his sense of color would appear to me to be supreme.”

“Come, until I show you where I have hung it,” exclaimed Miss Juey, leading the priest up a winding stair into a turret chamber fitted up with that exquisite taste which a refined girl evolves like an atmosphere.

“You have really hung my guest most artistically. And such a frame! Where on earth did you get it?”

“I—I sent to Dublin for it—to Lesage’s, in Sackville Street.”

“I have no patience with the fellow for not coming over to see this joyous place,” said the priest, “and I really can’t understand his refusal.”

Miss Juey couldn’t understand it either, but held her peace.

According to Murty Mulligan’s veterinary opinion, the pony was still unfit to travel.

“It’s meself that’s watchin’ her like a magpie forninst a marrabone; but she is dawny still, the crayture! an’ it wud be a sin for to ax her to thravel for a cupple o’ days more, anyhow, your riverince.”

“Why, her knees are quite well, Murty.”

“But she’s wake, sir—as wake as Mrs. Clancy’s tay on the third wettin’—an’ I’m afeard for to thrust her; more betoken, yer riverince”—in a low, confidential tone—“she’s gettin’ a bellyful av the finest oats in the barony, that will stand to her bravely while she’s raisin’ her winther coat.”

Mr. Brown asked Father Maurice a considerable number of questions anent his visit, and was particularly anxious in reference to the departure of Mr. Jyvecote.

“He told me himself that he would leave Westport to-morrow by the night train for Dublin, in order to catch the early boat that leaves Kingston for Holyhead.”

Upon the following morning the artist, slinging his knapsack across his back, started in the direction of the Glendhanarrahsheen valley.

“I want to make a few sketches of the coast scenery about May Point,” he observed.

“There is better scenery in the Foil Dhuv, about two miles farther on; and, bless my heart! you’ll be quite close to Moynalty Castle, and why not go in and see their pictures, your own especially, in such a grand gilt Dublin frame?”

Simple priest! Artful artist!

It was a delightful morning that was shining over Monamullin as the artist quitted it _en route_ to—May Point, of course. The sea, like a great sleeping monster, lay winking at the sun, and but one solitary ship was visible away in the waste—a brown speck in a flood of golden haze. If young gentlemen would only put the single “why?” to themselves in starting upon such expeditions, it might save them many a heartache; but they will not. Any other query but this one. What a talisman that small word in every effort of our lives!

Brown felt unaccountably joyous and brave, charmed with the present, and metaphorically snapping his fingers at the future. A morning walk by the deep and dark blue ocean summons forth this sensation. You bound upon air; champagne fills your veins; all the ills the flesh is heir to are forgotten, all the phantoms of care and sorrow are laid “a full fifty fathom by the lead.”

It is a glorious seed-time, when every thought bears luscious fruit.

He travels merrily onward, now humming a barcarolle, now whistling a fragment of a _bouffe_, until he reaches the gloomy defile known as the Valley of Glendhanarrahsheen. A turn of the sylvan sanded road brings him in sight of the lordly turrets of Moynalty; another turn, and lo! he comes upon no less a personage than Miss Jyvecote, who, with her married sister, a Mrs. Travers, are driving in the direction whence he had come. Juey was Jehu, and almost pulled the ponies upon their haunches on perceiving our hero.

“This _is_ a condescension, Mr. Brown,” she said, presenting him to her sister. “Will you take a seat?”

“Thanks, no; I am about to ascend that mountain yonder,” pointing vaguely in the direction of the range known as the Twelve Pins.

“Then we shall expect you to luncheon at two o’clock.”

“I’m afraid not. I purpose returning by the other road.”

“What road? There is no other road.”

“Across country.”

“Then you do not intend honoring us with a visit?” Her tone was vexed, if not haughty.

Now, he had quitted Monamullin with no other intention than that of proceeding straight to the castle, and yet he replies in the negative. Let those better versed in the mysteries of the human heart than I am analyze his motives. I shall not endeavor to do so.

“Don’t you think you are acting rather shabbily?” she said, preparing to resume her drive.

He laughed.

“_Au plaisir_, then!” And with a stately salutation, courteous enough but nothing more, she swept onwards.

He watched the phaeton go whirling along the white road and disappear round a huge fern-covered boulder, and his vexation with himself grew intolerable.

“What an ass, what a brute I have been! What could I have been thinking about? Was I asleep or mad? Invited to the house, I actually refuse to pay the stereotyped visit. Why a counter-jumper would know better. How charming she looked! And that delicious blush when she met me! She seemed really pleased, too. What can she think of me? My chance is gone.”

He seated himself on the stump of a felled tree in his favorite attitude, having lighted his pipe.

“Might I thrubble yer honner for a thrifle o’ light or a bit of a match?” asked a passing peasant.

“With pleasure; take a dozen!”

The man looked puzzled; he had never seen wax vestas till now.

“They look mighty dawny, yer honner.”

“Do you belong to the castle?” asked our hero. Somehow or other the castle and its inmates were ever uppermost in his thoughts now.

“Yis, sir.”

“Is Mr. Jyvecote at home?”

“No, yer honner. I met him this mornin’ at Billy’s Bridge, makin’ hard for Westport.”

The cards all in his favor, and he wouldn’t play his hand! What did it mean? Would he go up to the castle, and, announcing himself to the _châtelaine_, pay that visit which conventionality demanded? No; he had swung into another current, and he would not alter his course. It was better as it was—ay, far better. And there came a sort of desolate feeling upon him, smiting him drearily like a dull ache. Had he seen the last of her? Was his life henceforth to be unlighted by the radiance of her presence? Here, in the mystic silence of Glendhanarrahsheen, came the revelation. Here did his own secret surprise him. He had allowed the image of this fair young girl to twine itself around his heart, till he now felt as if he could fling aside pride, reserve, past and future, just to hear her voice once more, to feel the tender pressure of her tiny hand.

And so he sat there dreaming, and fighting with his dreams, until his tobacco “gave out,” and until, shaking himself together, he summoned a supreme effort to help him on his road.

“It won’t do to be caught skulking here,” he thought.

The soft white shingle drawn from the brown-black waters of the lake muffle the sound of approaching wheels, and, ere he can return to a coign of vantage, the phaeton flashes past.

I have already stated that my hero was a young gentleman of warm temper, great energy, and prone to sudden impulses and unconsidered actions, and on this occasion he was true to his nature, for he shouted “Stop!” with the authoritative tone of a post-captain on a quarter-deck.

Miss Jyvecote pulled up.

The artist, glowing with a fierce excitement, plunged down the road and came up to the vehicle.

“Miss Jyvecote,” he pants, his handsome face flushed, his eyes flashing, “I don’t want you to think me a brute. I do not know why I acted so rudely this morning. I left Monamullin on purpose to come and visit you. Father Maurice says that open confession is good for the soul. You have it now. _Do_, please _do_ forgive me.”

“Hand and glove,” she exclaims, holding out her coquettishly-gloved hand.

He jumped into the back seat, and, in a flutter of joyous commotion, was whirled to the grand entrance of the castle.

“You must first come and see _my_ picture, Mr. Brown,” exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, leading the way to the turret chamber.

There was a courteous flattery in this that caused the heart of the artist to swell in admiring gratitude.

Later on they visited the gardens and the conservatories, tasting green figs and toying with luscious bunches of bursting grapes; and by and by came the presentation to Mrs. Jyvecote, who complimented him in pre-Raphaelite terms upon his greens, grays, opals, and blues.

“We want some one to continue the fascinating pages of Hook,” she said, “and I feel assured, Mr. Brown, that next year’s Academy will see you ‘on the line.’”

After luncheon they repaired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Travers indulged in chromatic fireworks upon a superb Erard piano; and when she had risen the artist seated himself unasked, and sang a little love-song of Shelley’s in a baritone that would have pushed Mr. Santley _a l’outrance_. Song was one of Mr. Brown’s gifts, and his voice was cultivated to perfection. A deep, rich voice, sweet, sad words, with perfect enunciation of every syllable—_ma foi_, there are moments, and there _are_ moments, and this was one of the latter in the life of Julia Jyvecote.

He sang Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ as that sublime hymn has been rarely sung in a drawing-room—sang it with a religious fervor, and with a simple intensity of feeling that wrought its own magic. He _felt_ his success, and smiled gravely to himself as he bent over the instrument, playing the closing chords ever so softly, until note after note fainted in sheer melody.

He was asked for _Annabel Lee_—for “that love that was more than love”—but refused. He possessed Tom Moore’s secret, and, having produced the desired effect, faded out like his own last notes. Mrs. Jyvecote tackled him upon art, Mrs. Travers upon music, and Miss Jyvecote was silent. Somehow or other in talking to _her_ he was stupid and confused, while in conversing with the others he was at his best.

Pressed on all sides to stop for dinner and remain the night, he could scarcely refuse, although pleading dress and the probable anxiety of his host. The first point was settled by a declaration upon the part of his entertainers that it would be a treat to sit down in morning toilettes; the second by the despatching of a boy to Monamullin. Mr. Brown resigned himself to his fate and went with the stream.

How beautiful Miss Jyvecote looked in the mild radiance of the wax-lights which lit up the rooms at night—wax-lights everywhere—in the hands of Ninive dancing-girls, Dresden shepherdesses, oxidized silver sconces, and girandoles of quaint and cunning design. What rapture in being seated beside her, engaged in turning over the pages of a superb photographic album too heavy for her dainty lap, and resting upon his knees!

Why does he start and turn pale?

Why does Miss Jyvecote gaze at him, and with a merry laugh exclaim:

“Why, Mr. Brown, this photo is the very image of you.”

Beneath the photograph were the words:

“To Jasper Jyvecote from Ernest Noel.”

* * * * *

“Three days away from me! Why, it appeared three weeks,” exclaimed Father Maurice, as the artist returned to the cosy cottage of the amber thatch and snow-white walls. “I knew you would appreciate the Jyvecotes, and I felt that they would appreciate _you_. Have you taken any sketches?”

“One, the lake of Glendhanarrahsheen, which I mean to finish; and then, _padre_, I must say _adios_ to Monamullin for many a long day.”

“Tut, tut, tut, man! we can’t do without you,” said the priest; “and mind you, Mr. Brown, I’m sure the ladies at Moynalty would have their likenesses done, and give you a good deal of money for them, too—probably as much as five pounds apiece.”

“Five pounds apiece,” thought the artist, “and Millais getting two thousand guineas for a single portrait!”

“And I’m delighted to tell you, my dear friend, that your O’Connell has already got you a job. Mr. Muldoon—you might have noticed his shop nearly opposite the chapel, a most flourishing concern—is anxious to have his likeness done, and will have his wife and mother painted also, as well as his five children and his collie; and if his maiden aunt comes over from Castlebar he’ll throw her in, provided you can draw her chaise. So I think,” added Father Maurice triumphantly, “I have been doing good business for you in your absence.”

“Splendid, my valued host! But before I can touch these commissions I must finish the lake.”

“Of course, of course; there’s no hurry. But, mind you, Muldoon is ready money, and all you young fellows in the world require a little of that—not that you want it here,” he cried hastily, lest his guest might suppose that anything was required of him; “but when you take a day in Westport, or perhaps as far as Sligo, you’ll want many little things that couldn’t be had here for all the gold in the Bank of Ireland.”

The three days Mr. Brown had spent at Moynalty completely riveted the fetters which might have been easily burst ere the iron had grown cold. He endeavored to persuade himself that this visit was a mere romantic episode in the career of an artist—a thing to be talked of in the sweet by-and-by, and to be remembered as a delightful halting-place in the onward journey. He tried to fling dust in his mind’s eye, and but succeeded in closing the eye to everything save the glorious inviting present. He floated on from day to day in a sort of temporary elysium—why call it a fool’s paradise?—so tranquil that it was impossible pain or sorrow could be its outcome. An intimacy sprang up in this wild, strange, isolated place that a decade of London seasons could never have brought to ripeness, and he felt in the _entourages_ of the palatial dwelling as though he was in his own old home. He rode, walked, boated, drew, and sang with Julia Jyvecote. She, too, would seem to live in the present, in the subtle, delicious consciousness of being appreciated—ay, and liked. The small chance of ever enjoying a repetition of his visit lent a peculiar charm to every circumstance, and forbade those questionings as to who’s who with which the favored ones of fortune probe the antecedents of the standers at the gates which enclose the upper ten thousand.

From the accident of the photograph he was playfully christened Sir Everard, and it became a matter of amused astonishment how readily he accepted the title and how unvaryingly he responded to a call upon the name.

He quitted Moynalty in a strange whirl of conflicting thought.

“May we not hope to see you in London, Mr. Brown?” said Mrs. Jyvecote, graciously coming upon the terrace to bid him adieu. “We go over in April, and our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair. I know how sorry Mr. Jyvecote will be to have missed you, especially as he arrives here to-morrow; and I am also confident that he would be anxious to serve you—although,” she added, with a caressing courtesy, “a gentleman of Mr. Brown’s gifts requires no poor service such as we could render him.”

“How long do you remain in Monamullin, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Travers.

“Until I finish a sketch of the lake here which Miss Jyvecote intends to honor me by accepting.”

“Oh! then we shall see _much_ more of you.”

“I am compelled to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis upon the hope, Mrs. Travers. My working-drawing is here, and—”

“Then if Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed. I’ll drive my sister over to service next Sunday, and see how the priest, the painter, and the picture are getting on.”

It was a great wrench to the artist to tear himself away, and the _sans adieux_ that fluttered after him on the evening breeze seemed sad and mournful. Was the barrier between Mr. Jyvecote and himself utterly impassable? Could it not be bridged over? He could not assume the initiative. _He_ would see Jyvecote and his whole race in—Yokohama first; and yet what would he not do to gain the love of the youngest daughter of the house! Anything, everything. Pshaw! any chance of wooing and winning such a girl should be through the medium of his title, his position, and by passing beneath the yoke of society. What sheer folly to think of her from the stand-point upon which he had been admitted to her father’s house! As the artist he was patronized, as the baronet he could be placed; and yet to win her as the artist would just be one of those triumphs which lay within the chances occasionally vouchsafed by the rosy archer. She had been silent, reserved, and had seemed shy of him. She spoke much of a man in the Guards, a chum of her brother Jasper; possibly this Guardsman was _the_ man.

In musings such as these did Mr. Brown pursue his work, and the picture came to life beneath his glowing hands. The canvas, with all the necessary _et cæteras_, had arrived from Dublin, the good priest marvelling considerably at the pecuniary resources of his guest. “His little all,” he thought, “and he’s going to make it a present to my sweet parishioner.”

But a great surprise was in store for Father Maurice.

Mr. Brown had issued instructions to his London friend to forward the Stations of the Cross, free of all carriage, to the Rev. Maurice O’Donnell, P.P., Monamullin, Ballynaveogin, County Mayo.

This order was promptly complied with, and a lovely autumnal evening beheld the whole village, curs and all, turn out to speculate upon the nature of the contents of four gigantic wooden cases which were deposited in the little garden attached to the priest’s cottage. It were utterly useless to endeavor to describe the _furore_ occasioned by the opening the boxes; the excitement rose to a pitch never realized in Monamullin since the occasion of the visit of the Archbishop of Tuam—the Lion of the Fold of Juda. Father Maurice fairly wept for joy; Mrs. Clancy insisted upon doing the Stations there and then; and as each picture was brought to light, from the folds of wrappers as numerous as those surrounding the body of an Egyptian mummy, a hum of admiration was raised by the assembled and reverential multitude. The good priest, never guessing the source from whence the splendid gift had emanated, endeavored to trace it to Miss Jyvecote—a belief which Mr. Brown sedulously sustained—and Father Morris, full of the idea, chanted whole litanies in her praises, scarcely ever ceasing mention of her.

“I’ll drive over to-morrow and tender her my most devoted gratitude. I’ll offer up Masses for her. I’ll—”

“She will be here to-morrow, father. Mrs. Travers is to drive her over. Don’t you think we ought to see about hanging the Stations? It will please her immensely to see them in their places in the church.”

A hanging committee was appointed and the work of suspending the pictures carried into instant execution. The mouldy little edifice was soon ablaze with gilding and glorious coloring, which, alas! but seemed to display its general dinginess more glaringly.

“My poor little altar may hide its diminished head,” said Father Maurice mournfully, brightening up, however, as he added: “But, sure, I’ll soon have Miss Jyvecote’s beautiful altar-cloth.”

The “castle people” arrived upon the following morning and were escorted by the artist to the church.

“You have come over upon an interesting occasion, Miss Jyvecote,” he said; “Father Maurice has received an anonymous gift of a set of Stations of the Cross, and he thinks that you can tell him something about them.”

Great was the astonishment of the simple priest when Miss Jyvecote disclaimed all knowledge of the presentation.

“Why, father, you must think me as rich as Miss Burdett-Coutts,” she cried. “These beautiful works of art have cost hundreds of pounds. Mr. Brown here will tell you how much they cost,” turning to that gentleman. How often a stray shot hits home! Mr. Brown had the receipted bill in his pocket at that particular moment.

“They are French,” he said, evading the question.

“Consequently more expensive, _n’est ce pas_?”

“They are not badly done.”

“They are on the borderland of high art, Mr. Brown. Why do you pooh-pooh them?”

Poor Father Maurice was fairly nonplussed. All his guesses anent the donor fell short, while his surmises died from sheer inanition. It could not be the cardinal. Might it be little Micky O’Brien, that ran away to sea and was now coming home a rich man? or Paudheen Rafferty, who was a thriving grocer in Dublin? For the first time in his life the parish priest of Monamullin felt uneasy, if not unhappy. What did it portend? Who could possibly take so serious an interest in the affairs of his little parish? Mr. Malachi Bodkin might have done so in the olden time, but the famine of ‘48 left him barely able to keep up Corriebawn. Sir Marmaduke Blake was a scamp who racked his tenants and spent his money in debauchery.

“I suppose I shall learn some day,” sighed the priest. “I must be patient, but I wish it was to-day.”

After luncheon—Father Maurice’s breakfast—the artist and Miss Jyvecote strolled along the shore. The sun seemed to shine with a certain sadness, the gray ocean to moan as if in pain, and the shadow of the “we shall not meet again” to hang over Julia and her companion as they seated themselves in a secluded nook surrounded by huge rocks—a spot in which the world seemed to cease suddenly.

“And so you think of leaving?” she said after a long silence, during which she drew eccentric circles in the sand with the tip of her parasol.

“My _kismet_ says ‘yes,’ Miss Jyvecote.”

“Does your _kismet_ say whither?”

“It points to that little village on the Thames called London.”

“We go to London next month, _en route_ to Egypt. My sister Gussie—you never met her—who has been in Italy with my uncle, is recommended Egypt for her chest. Papa received letters yesterday.”

“How long do you think you will remain in London?”

“Only a day or two.”

“Might I hope to see you?”

“Why not? Our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair.”

“Is—is Mr. Delmege, of the Guards, going to Egypt?”

She looked gravely at him, full into his eyes, as she replied, somewhat coldly:

“Not that I am aware of.”

His heart gave one great bound, as though a dull, dead weight had been suddenly removed.

“I hope to see your handicraft on the walls of the Academy when we return.”

“_Sabe Dios_!” he said, clasping his knees with his hands, and gazing out across the moaning sea.

“If you try you will succeed.”

“I have a very poor opinion of my own power of success in anything. I am colorless, purposeless.”

“Neither one nor the other. You have a noble profession, a glorious talent, and Father Maurice says you have a good heart. With three such friends as companions life is a garden of flowers.”

“And yet till within the last few days I have found it but a desert.”

Then silence fell upon both.

“Father Maurice will miss you dreadfully,” she murmured. She was very pale, and her dark eyes turned upon him with mournful earnestness. “He has become so much attached to you; and the poor little altar will miss your artistic grouping of the flowers. Do you know,” she added, “I shall say an _Ave Maria_ when I visit the little church, and for your conversion?”

“Is that a promise, Miss Jyvecote?”

“It is.”

“Will you also”—he stopped suddenly short, and dug his heel into the sand.

“The shay is waitin’ for ye, Miss Jewel, and Missis Thravers is roarin’ murdher,” cried Murty Mulligan, thrusting his shock head between a cleft in the rocks.

Brown sprang to his feet and offered Miss Jyvecote his arm. Neither spoke during the walk to the cottage. “If you should hear of me through your brother, do not think ill of me,” he whispered, as he handed her into the phaeton.

“What do you mean?” she asked in as low a tone.

“Promise me that you will not forget Brown, the poor artist.”

“It is scarcely necessary,” she murmured, as she gave him her hand.

There was a blank at the priest’s home when the artist left. Father Maurice missed him sadly—missed his hit at backgammon, his gay gossip, and his cheery company.

“He was a rale gintleman,” said Mrs. Clancy; “he wanted for to give me a goolden soverin—mebbe th’ only wan he had—but I tuk a crukked ha’penny for luck, an’ it’s luck I wish him wherever he goes.”

“He was the nicest man, an’ the nicest-mannered man, I ever seen,” chimed in Murty; “an’ I’m in dhread that I spoke too rough whin he offered me menumeration.”

“He promised to come here next summer, and he will keep his promise,” said the priest.

* * * * *

Mr. Jocelyn Jyvecote was seated in the study at 91 Bruton Street, engaged in perusing the columns of the _Times_. He had slept well, breakfasted well, and was thoroughly refreshed after his journey, as he had arrived in town from the East upon the previous day.

A servant entered with a card upon a silver salver.

Mr. Jyvecote adjusted his eyeglass and leisurely lifted the tiny bit of pasteboard. “What does this mean?” he cried, letting it fall again. “Is the gentleman waiting?”

“In the ‘all, sir.”

“Show him in.”

A tall, high-bred-looking young man entered. His face was pale and he somewhat nervously stroked a _Henri Quatre_ beard.

“May I ask to what I am indebted for this visit from Sir Everard Noel?” demanded Mr. Jyvecote haughtily.

“I shall explain the purport of my visit in a few words.”

“Pray be seated.”

“Thanks! Mr. Jyvecote, there was bad blood and bitter feud between you and my poor father about the Ottley Farm.”

“You need scarcely remind me of that, Sir Everard.”

“There is bad blood between us, Mr. Jyvecote. You claimed it in right of an old lease that could not be discovered when the case came before the court, and I retain possession of it by law. The last time that we met we met in hot anger, and—and I used expressions for which I am very seriously sorry. So long as that farm is in possession of either of us it will lead to bad feeling, and I came here to-day to tell you what I mean to do about it.”

A somewhat less stern frown appeared upon Mr. Jyvecote’s features as he listened.

“Last autumn accident threw me into the wildest portion of the west of Ireland, a place not unknown to you—Monamullin.”

“It is within seven miles of Moynalty Castle.”

“I am aware of that. I was the guest of one of the purest men that God Almighty ever made—Father Maurice O’Donnell.”

“Your estimate is just, Sir Everard.”

“His soul is in his work, and his simple heart is fragmentarily divided amongst his little flock. I found his church dingy, dilapidated, falling. He is worthy of a better building; he is worthy of anything,” cried the young man enthusiastically.

Mr. Jyvecote bowed assent.

“Well, sir, I purpose selling Ottley Farm, and devoting the proceeds towards building a new church for Father Maurice O’Donnell. I have an offer of three thousand pounds for the farm, and here are the plans, prepared by Mr. Pugin—pure Gothic,” extracting a roll of papers from his pocket and eagerly thrusting them into the hands of the other.

Mr. Jyvecote leisurely surveyed them, while the young man regarded him with the most eager scrutiny. Suddenly flinging them upon the table, Mr. Jyvecote rose, and, taking Sir Everard Noel’s hand, shook it warmly.

“Noel, you are a fine-hearted fellow, and a chivalrous one. There are not ten—pshaw! there are not two men in London who would patch up a feud as you are doing to-day. I am better pleased to see you in this fine form than the acquisition of ten farms. Give the dear old priest his church, and for my daughter’s sake—I am as stanch a Protestant as yourself—I’ll put up an altar. Come up-stairs now, and I’ll present you to her.”

At this particular moment Miss Jyvecote entered the study. Upon perceiving our hero she grew deadly pale and then flushed up to the roots of her hair.

“Mr. Brown,” she said holding out her hand.

“You are mistaken, Juey; this is an old enemy and a new friend—Sir Everard Noel.”

* * * * *

The church was erected at Monamullin and is a perfect gem in its way, the talent of “all the Pugins” being thrown into the design. At its altar Everard Noel received his First Communion, and at its altar he was united to Julia Jyvecote by the proud, happy, and affectionate Father Maurice O’Donnell.

“An’ only for to think o’ me axin’ a rale live baronet for to paint the back doore,” is the constant exclamation of the worthy Mrs. Clancy.

RECENT POLEMICS AND IRENICS IN SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.

It is not always easy to draw the line, either in theology or philosophy, that divides the part which has been dogmatically or scientifically defined from that which remains open ground of discussion in the Catholic schools. Occasionally we are aided and favored by a new definition, made with supreme and final authority by the Holy See, which adds something, not to the immutability of truth itself, which is eternally incapable of the slightest alteration, but to the quantity of science as fixed and immutable in the conceptions of the understanding intellect. The authority of reason may also suffice to add to the quantity of certain science by inductions from facts made evident by experience, which have the force of demonstration. But the dogmatic definitions are not so numerous and frequent as some minds, impatient of discussion and difference of opinion, may desire. Rational demonstration, though fully sufficient to define scientific truth and terminate doubt in the understanding of those who clearly and distinctly apprehend it, is not always understood sufficiently for this purpose even by all intelligent, educated minds, at least for a considerable period. Discussion on important points is not, therefore, terminated between different Catholic schools, and agreement in doctrine established, as completely and speedily as might be desired by those who have a strong sense of the importance of unity in theological and philosophical doctrine. Some, who are animated by a polemical spirit, are disposed to claim for the doctrines of their own particular school a greater amount of dogmatic or scientific authority than that which is generally conceded to them. They are disposed to amplify the import of decisions or declarations made by the authority of the church, to magnify the authority of great doctors and masters in Catholic science, and to extend as far as possible the claim of metaphysical or moral certitude for the doctrines which they advocate. Others are animated by a more irenical spirit. They desire to moderate polemical ardor; to control the zeal for the triumph of particular systems, and the exaltation of individual masters in wisdom, within reasonable bounds; to harmonize all branches of science with each other; to observe the just limitations of dogmatic or scientific certainty; to extend the range of rational science by calm discussion which has only the attainment of truth in view; and, without compromising orthodox doctrine, to leave open and free to argument all that domain which has not been closed in by any final definition of competent authority. The polemical and irenical tendencies are not in real opposition. They are elements capable of combination with each other. We do not believe that differences of opinion among Catholic schools will ever be entirely terminated or controversy cease. Yet there is always an increasing approximation toward unity, and the irenical spirit aids this movement by diminishing misunderstandings and moderating controversial ardor. The Holy See not only at times decides and terminates controversies by a judgment, but also, at other times, refuses to pronounce judgment, and admonishes those who seek to stretch too far the import of her decisions to respect the liberty of opinion and discussion which she allows.

We have an instance of this in the subjoined documents respecting the philosophy of the venerable and holy Father Rosmini—a system which has at present a considerable following and is in very decided opposition to the ideological doctrine of the Thomist school, as well as to other parts of the common, scholastic teaching.

ROSMINI’S WORKS, AND THE JUDGMENT OF ROME UPON THEM.

(The following is a translation of the official communication which appeared in the _Osservatore Romano_ of June 20, 1876.)

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MARQUIS:

In No. 136 of your esteemed journal, June 14, 1876, I have read with pain an article on a little work entitled “_Antonio Rosmini and the Civiltà Cattolica before the Sacred Congregation of the Index_, by Giuseppe Buroni, Priest of the Mission.”

You are well aware that the works of the distinguished philosopher Antonio Rosmini were made the subject of a most rigorous examination by the Sacred Congregation of the Index from 1851 to 1854, and that at the close of this examination our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., still happily reigning, in the assembly of the most reverend consultors and the most eminent cardinals, whose votes he had heard, and over whom he deigned, with a condescension seldom shown, to preside in person, after invoking with fervent prayers the light and help of Heaven, pronounced the following decree: “All the works of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, concerning which investigation has been made of late, must be dismissed; nor has this same investigation resulted in anything whatever derogatory to the name of the author, or to the praiseworthiness of life and the singular merits towards the church of the religious society founded by him.”

The author of the article referred to undertakes to discuss the meaning of the words _Dimittantur opera_, but, while professing to admit their force, he reduces it well-nigh to nothing. For he says: “We do not deny that _Dimittantur_ is in a _certain respect_ equivalent to _Permittatur_; but to permit that a work may be published and read without incurring ecclesiastical penalty has nothing whatever to do with declaring the work itself uncensurable.” Now, by these words one is led to suppose that the Sacred Congregation, or rather the Holy Father, by pronouncing that judgment, did nothing more than permit that the works of Rosmini may be published and read without incurring a penalty.

But I ask: What penalty did the editors and readers of Rosmini’s works incur before those works were subjected to so lengthened and accurate a scrutiny? None whatever. What, then, would the Sacred Congregation of the Index have done by such grave study and labors so protracted? Nothing whatever. And to what purpose would the judgment of the Holy Father have been given? To no purpose whatever. If, then, we do not wish to fall into these absurdities, we must say that the accusations brought against the works of Rosmini were false; that in these works nothing was found contrary to faith and morals; that their publication and perusal are not dangerous to the faithful. Who can ever suppose that the Holy Father has set free for publication works containing erroneous doctrines, and liberated the readers of them from penalty? To liberate from penalty the readers of books infected with error would be an act productive of greater injury than if a penalty were imposed or (assuming its previous existence) were maintained in full vigor.

I might touch on other points of the article in question, and show that its author has presumed to dive further than he ought into a matter which does not belong to him. But what I have said suffices to make it imperative on me to address this letter to you. As it may not be known to every one that the Master of the Sacred Palace does not, under existing circumstances, revise the journals, and as the character and fame of the _Osservatore Romano_ might lead to a belief that he (the Master of the Sacred Palace) has approved of the article in question, I think it necessary to declare to you that I should never have given my consent to the publication of the same. Nay, I have to request that you will not, in future, receive any articles either on the sense of the judgment _Dimittatur_, or against the learned and pious Rosmini, or against his works, examined and dismissed.

I take this opportunity to remind all concerned that the Holy Father, from the time of the issuing of the _Dimittantur opera_, enjoined silence, and this in order that no new accusations should be put forward, nor, under any pretext, a way made for discord among Catholics: “That no new accusations and discords should arise and be disseminated in future, silence is now for the third time enjoined, on either party, by command of His Holiness.”

Who does not see that the seeds of discord are sown by traducing the works of Rosmini either as not being yet sufficiently examined, or as suspected of errors which were not seen either before or after so extraordinary an examination, or as dangerous; or by using expressions which take away all the value or diminish excessively the force and authority of a judgment pronounced with so much maturity and so much solemnity by the supreme Pastor of the church?

By this it is not meant to affirm that it would be unlawful to dissent from the philosophical system of Rosmini, or from the manner in which he tries to explain some truths, and even to offer a confutation of them in the schools; but if one does not agree with Rosmini in the manner of explaining certain truths, it is not on that account lawful to conclude that Rosmini has denied these truths; nor is it lawful to inflict any theological censure on the doctrines maintained by him in the works which the Sacred Congregation has examined and dismissed, and which the Holy Father has intended to protect from further accusations in the future.

Believe me, etc., etc.,

Your most obedient servant, FR. FRANCIS VINCENZO MARIA GATTI, Of the Order of Preachers, Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace.

JUNE 16, 1876.

The following appeared in the _Osservatore Cattolico_ of Milan, July 1, 1876:

The Sacred Roman Congregation of the Index, by a letter addressed to His Grace the Archbishop of Milan under date of June 20, 1876, and signed by His Eminence Cardinal Antonio de Luca, Prefect of the Congregation, and the Very Reverend Father Girolamo Pio Saccheri, of the Friars Preachers, Secretary, and delivered by his grace in person to one of the responsible editors of this journal in the afternoon of Wednesday, July 28, has enjoined us:

“1. To maintain in future the most rigorous silence on the question of the works of Antonio Rosmini; because, in consequence of the authoritative decree of the Holy Father (_That no new accusations and discords should arise and be disseminated in future, silence is for the third time enjoined on either party by command of His Holiness_), it is not lawful—in matters pertaining to religion and relating to faith and sound morals—to inflict any censure on the works of Rosmini or on his person; _the only thing upon which freedom is allowed being to discuss in the schools and in books_, and within proper limits, his philosophical opinions and the merits of his manner of explaining certain truths, even theological. 2. To declare in an early issue of this journal that we have not rightly interpreted the sentence _Dimittantur_, which the Sacred Congregation of the Index thinks fit sometimes, after mature and diligent examination, to pronounce upon works submitted to its authoritative judgment.”

Full of reverence for the supreme authority of the Holy See, and wishing to be faithful to our duty as well as to the programme of this journal, we, the undersigned, responsible editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_, in our own behalf and of all who have written in our columns on the question aforesaid, intend to declare and do hereby declare in the most docile and submissive manner possible, that

1. As to the silence now imposed we repeat and confirm what we said on occasion of reproducing in this journal the letter of the Master of the Sacred Palace to the editor of the _Osservatore Romano_—viz., that it shall be observed.

2. The sentence _Dimittantur_, as used by the Sacred Congregation of the Index was not rightly interpreted by us.

ENRICO MASSARA, Priest, DAVIDE ALBERTARIO, Priest, Editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_.

MILAN, June 30, 1876.

Another and more recent instance is that of the controversy concerning the constitution of bodies. A letter of the Pope to Dr. Travaligni, president of a scientific society in Italy, commending the effort to bring physical and medical science into harmony with the scholastic philosophy, was interpreted as giving authoritative sanction to a certain doctrine of the Thomist school. A professor in the University of Lille wrote a letter to the Pope on the subject, setting forth the differences of opinion and the continued controversies respecting the constitution of bodies, and praying for a positive decision. In reply to this the professor and all others interested in these questions were instructed, in a letter written and published by order of the Holy Father, that the Holy See had defined nothing in the premises, and that a solution of difficulties should be sought for by scientific investigation and discussion. We have not space for the publication of this letter, but it may be found in one of the back numbers of the _Catholic Review_ of Brooklyn (Sept. 22, 1877).

As for the Rosminian philosophy, we agree personally with Liberatore and the Thomist school in rejecting it as scientifically untenable. Nevertheless, we have heretofore distinctly avowed that in a dogmatic aspect it is free from censure, and we are glad to see the matter placed beyond question, and the controversy relegated to its proper sphere as one debatable only on purely rational grounds. The other question is one which has been extensively discussed in our pages, and which we regard as extremely interesting and important.

The doctrine proposed and elaborately discussed in the articles formerly published under the title “Principles of Real Being” has been attacked by a very learned and able writer in a German periodical published at St. Louis, on dogmatic as well as philosophical grounds. This is a convenient opportunity to state that we have in manuscript a very long and minute defence and vindication of the doctrine advocated in these articles, written by their distinguished author, who is well versed not only in scholastic theology and metaphysics, but also in mathematical and physical science. We refrained from publishing his reply to the attack of his antagonist, partly because the discussion was too subtle and abstruse for our readers, and still more from unwillingness to engage in dogmatic controversy when there is a risk of perplexing pious minds. In matters really dogmatic and pertaining to Catholic doctrine we want no compromise or attenuation. We desire only the restriction of the argument from authority within its actual limits, that the discussion of matters purely philosophical may be carried on by rational arguments alone, without accusations of heterodoxy on either side. In respect to the essence and integrity of the scholastic philosophy according to the system of the two great doctors, Aristotle and St. Thomas, we are in hearty concurrence with the great intellectual movement of the revival and restoration of this philosophy as the only true and scientific metaphysics to its ancient dominating position. We do not, however, consider that a blind submission to the authority even of St. Thomas is reasonable. An author who, like Liberatore, professedly aims at nothing more than an exact exposition of the doctrine of St. Thomas undoubtedly renders a service to metaphysical science and its students. The writer of this article esteems very highly all the philosophical works of this distinguished Jesuit, and has used by preference, for several years, his _Institutiones Philosophicæ ad triennium Accommodatæ_ as a text-book of instruction. Yet we cannot approve of such a complete abdication of original and independent investigation and reasoning as a rule to be followed in philosophical teaching. We do not find that the system of the strict Thomists is proved in a manner entirely satisfactory and conclusive, in some of its details, particularly in that part which relates to the harmony of physical with metaphysical science. There is such a thing as progress and development in theology and philosophy. The opinions of private doctors are not final. Neither St. Augustine in dogmatic theology, St. Alphonsus in moral theology, nor St. Thomas in both these sciences and metaphysics, though declared by the Holy See doctors of the universal church, were competent to pronounce final judgments; since they were not rendered infallible by the superiority of their genius and wisdom, from which alone their authority is derived. Their private doctrine, inasmuch as it passes beyond the line of the Catholic doctrine contained in their works and having its own intrinsic authority, has only a claim to a respectful consideration, with a presumption in its favor. In the last analysis all its weight consists in the rational evidence or proof sustaining it, which is lessened or destroyed by probable or demonstrative proof to the contrary. The Jesuit school has always insisted on these principles. While recognizing St. Thomas as master, it has diverged from the teaching of the Dominican commentators on St. Thomas, both in theology and metaphysics. Whether Suarez and others diverged or not from the genuine doctrine of St. Thomas, in their controversy with writers of the Thomist school, is a matter of dispute. The question as to what is the real sense and import of the doctrine of St. Thomas or of Aristotle is distinct from the question of the material truth and evidence of any controverted proposition. The latter is much the more important of the two, and reason alone must decide it, so far as it can be decided, in the absence of any authoritative definition. If philosophy, therefore, is to make any progress, and if there is to be any real approximation to unity in philosophical doctrine among Catholics, the authority of reason and evidence must prevail over all human authority, and exclusive devotion to systems or great names must be abandoned, that truth may be investigated and brought to light.

The great motive urged by those who write in a specially irenical spirit is to strengthen the combination of forces in the Catholic intellectual army for the polemical contest against error and doubt. That the sophists of heresy and infidelity may be confuted and vanquished, that those who are erring and out of the way may be reclaimed, that honest seekers after truth may be guided to a successful discovery of this hidden treasure, is the great object of Catholic polemics. The great field of contest is the philosophical domain. It springs to view at once that agreement in philosophical doctrine is of the utmost importance for the success of the Catholic cause in this holy warfare. Among those who have labored most zealously and successfully toward this end, the distinguished Jesuit Father Ramière stands pre-eminent. In his most recent publication, _L’Accord de la Philosophie de St. Thomas et de la Science moderne au sujet de la composition des corps_, prepared with the aid of another Jesuit specially versed in the physical sciences, he has made a deeply-studied and masterly effort at harmonizing the peripatetic system with the results of experiment and induction in modern chemical science. It is the most subtile and acute piece of argumentation which has ever proceeded from his pen. The doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas has hitherto been generally supposed to be in a diametrical contradiction to that of modern chemistry in respect to the combination of elements in the compound substances. The peripatetic theory has been, on this account, abandoned by most of our modern authors and professors in philosophy. A few, however, among whom Liberatore and the editor of the _Scienza Italiana_ are conspicuous, have exerted all their power of subtile analysis to defend the Thomist opinion. Another recent writer, Dr. Scheid of Eichstädt, has endeavored to maintain the same thesis in the most exclusive sense, and attempts to prove that the Thomist theory alone is either compatible with the dogmatic definitions of the church or adequate to give a satisfactory explanation of the facts established by chemical and physical experiments. On the contrary, Dr. Frédault, who is a French physician and an advocate of the general doctrine of the Thomist school on form and matter, maintains that it is inadmissible in respect to the constituent elements of compound substances. In order to facilitate the understanding of the subject of controversy, we will cite from Father Ramière’s appendix a part of the _Exposé parallèle des deux systèmes_ prepared by a distinguished professor in a Catholic college of France at Father Ramière’s request.

_Peripatetic _Chemical School._ School._

I. WHAT IS A SIMPLE BODY?

It is a composition of It is a material first matter and substance endowed with substantial form. determinate forces.

II. WHAT IS A CHEMICAL BODY—FOR INSTANCE, WATER?

It is a composition of It is oxygen and hydrogen first matter and the combined in the aqueous substantial proportions of 88 to form. 11. The forces of the two components remain identical in the composition, although in the state of combination they do not manifest all their special characteristics.

III. HOW ARE THE SIMPLE BODIES EXTRACTED FROM A CHEMICAL COMPOUND?

At the moment of The force of the chemical decomposition the re-agent destroys the substantial form of the combination and union compound is destroyed of the simple bodies, and replaced by the dies, which return to substantial form of the their primitive state, components, which are and manifest anew their produced from their own proper forces in all proper non-existence their integrity. (_ex nihilo sui_); and the simple bodies recover their former proportions.

IV. WHAT IS AN ANIMAL BODY—THE BODY OF A MAN, FOR EXAMPLE—OR A PART OF SUCH A BODY, AS A BONE, ETC.?

This body is a The human body, like all composition of first bodies, is a matter and a composition of substantial form. In molecules and of parts man this substantial endowed with chemical form is the rational forces which are united soul, which gives to together by the mutual the matter its action of these forces; _corporeity_, or but, during life, these corporeal being. In forces are subjected such a way that a body, and subordinated to the taken in the vital force of the reduplicative soul, which penetrates sense—that is, inasmuch them, dominates them, as it is considered and unifies them in simply as body—is a their vital functions, composition of first and which gives to the matter and the soul, entire body the form of which latter gives to a human body, life, and the body its specific sensibility. material being. NOTE.—Form does not mean _figure_ but the determining principle of the specific nature which this organized body possesses as a human body.

V.—WHAT PRODUCES DEATH IN THE ANIMAL BODY AND THE HUMAN BODY?

At the moment when the Death consists simply in soul departs from the the separation of the body there is produced soul and body, and does in it a new substantial not exact the form, the _cadaverous_ production of any form, which by its substantial form. The union with the first chemical forces, which matter constitutes the are no longer dominated corpse. But when the by the soul, act dissolution of the freely, and the corpse proceeds dissolution of the gradually by the effect corpse is nothing but of corruption, the the natural result of cadaverous form is their action. succeeded by new substantial forms, produced from previous non-existence (_ex nihilo sui_), as numerous and different as are the substances resulting from corruption, the mephitic particles dispersed in the air being included.

The theory here presented under the name of the peripatetic, and claiming to be the genuine doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas, is frequently called the theory of _substantial generations_. Under that name it has been examined and opposed in the series of metaphysical articles in this magazine already referred to. It is necessary to explain, before proceeding further, that the term _matter_ in scholastic philosophy denotes, not the complete material being or body, whether simple or compound, such as oxygen, water, iron, etc., but merely one element or component of the material substance—viz., the common, indeterminate element, which is the same in all, having a potency or receptivity for every possible determination, but no fixed and necessary union with any. It is the principle of extension, but not extended; the source of inertia and all that is passive, yet not a solid atom; the subject of qualities and active forces, but itself possessing no quiddity or quality, and not having existence, or the possibility of existence, except as joined with its compart, the active and determining element, joined with it in order to make any single material substance. This active element is called the substantial form, which is equally incapable of subsisting alone, and therefore has no separate being, yet is capable of giving its first being to matter, and thus constituting with it material substance. According to the peripatetic theory, as stated above, in chemical combinations which produce a new, compound substance, such as water, nothing remains of the components except the material substratum or first matter. The determining form which gave this matter its specific being as oxygen and hydrogen are destroyed, and a new form, the aqueous, springs forth to give the matter a new first being and constitute the substance water. There is, consequently, in this and every similar case, the generation of a new substance, in which the matter is pre-existent, but the substantial form is educed from the passive potency of the matter, [ex nihilo sui], or from utter previous non-existence.

Father Ramière maintains that this theory is the creation of the commentators on Aristotle and St. Thomas, but does not properly belong to the system of either, and can be refuted by arguments drawn from the works of both these great doctors. This is rather startling and contrary to the prevalent supposition. The Thomist writers, many of whom are men of the most remarkably acute power of analysis and thoroughly conversant with the works of these great masters, honest also and candid withal, have certainly not imputed a theory to Aristotle and St. Thomas which is a pure invention, or without plausible grounds and apparent reasons. Father Ramière gives an explanation which is at least ingenious and merits consideration. In the first place, he argues that the two doctors of peripatetic philosophy did not reason from _à priori_ principles respecting the composition of bodies. They both taught that celestial bodies are composed of what they called _materia quinta_, which is incorruptible by reason of the inseparability of its form from the matter. The separability of matter and form in earthly bodies, therefore, belongs to them as a peculiar kind of bodies, composed from what were supposed to be the four simple elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The fact that these elements are transformed one into the other in the transmutation of substances led to the conclusion that there was a common substratum underlying all, which remained under different substantial forms. But since chemistry has discovered the really simple bodies which are not susceptible of mutual transmutation, and cannot be resolved into other substances by mechanical or chemical agents, Father Ramière argues that the very principles enunciated by Aristotle and St. Thomas respecting _materia quinta_ require that oxygen, hydrogen, etc., should be placed with it under the same category. Moreover, he maintains that the permanence of what we now know to be simple substances and irresolvable in combination, was really taught under another concept and with different terms by Aristotle and St. Thomas; that is, that certain virtualities were recognized as remaining and exercising an active force in the compound or transformed substance, which is incompatible with the supposition that only nude matter remains, acted upon by a wholly different and entirely new active force. In regard to the human body, in particular, he shows an incompatibility between the explanation of the cause of death which St. Thomas gives and the peripatetic theory. The reason of death given by St. Thomas is that contrary forces are combined in the human body which are dominated by the vital force of the soul only to a limited extent and with a limited duration. When, by the laws of nature, these contrary forces begin to free themselves from the dominating vital force, decay commences, and is continued until they have freed themselves to such an extent that they destroy the aptitude of the body for receiving the mode of being from the soul which is called sensitive life. The soul then necessarily ceases to inform the body, and the two comparts of the human substance or essence are separated. The soul, being a self-subsisting, incorruptible form, an immortal spirit, departs to the sphere of spirits, and the body is dissolved by the force of natural decomposition. Now, according to the peripatetic theory, the soul, being the only substantial form or active force in the body, giving to the nude first matter of the body its first being or physical, corporeal existence, must be itself the active cause of decay and death. This is contrary to the teaching of St. Thomas that the soul gives only life to the body, and, so far from ceasing of itself the vital influx, would continue to exert it for all eternity, and thus make the body immortal, if other and contrary forces did not work within the body to make it incapable of receiving this influx, and thus force the soul to abandon it to itself and to the power of death.

Father Ramière acknowledges that it is difficult to make all the texts of Aristotle and of St. Thomas harmonize with each other, and to bring out a completely distinct and finished theory from their writings. He advances a conjecture, with some plausible appearance of probability, that some texts found in the works of St. Thomas have been interpolated by disciples who were more zealous than honest in their efforts to maintain their own system. The same conjecture has been made heretofore in regard to passages relating to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Be this as it may, we think it is quite sufficient to explain obscurities of any kind which are found in the dogmatic or philosophical system of the Angelic Doctor, that he either had not time or any pressing motive for a thorough investigation and elucidation of the matters in question, or had not the requisite data before him for the deductions and conclusions pertaining to the case. It is more to the purpose to discuss the doctrine of the composition of bodies on its own merits, using all the facts discovered by experiment, and rational argumentation, aided by the light of all previous investigations, both physical and metaphysical. Left to its own intrinsic probability, the peripatetic theory is sustained by a kind of argumentation which seems to be more ingenious than conclusive. Several of its ablest advocates have acknowledged that it is incapable of demonstration. It rests its claim to acceptance chiefly on _aliunde_ considerations. And on the other side there are certain arguments which have not yet, so far as we know, received a satisfactory answer.

Father Ramière advances some of these with his usual subtlety and force, and at the same time with the most courteous moderation and respect toward his opponents.

It is admitted—as it indeed must be, for there is no escape from evident facts—that a chemical re-agent applied to a composite substance like water brings back the component elements in their former proportions. Water gives up its eighty-eight parts of oxygen and its eleven parts of hydrogen. What is the producing cause of these so-called new substantial forms which invariably make their appearance _ex nihilo sui_? When the soul, which is said to be the only substantial form of the body, leaves it in its nudity as first matter, without first being, quiddity, or quality, and, as it would seem, doomed to annihilation, what is the cause which produces the cadaverous form, that suddenly appears to actuate the matter and give it being as a corpse? Here Father Ramière has made one of his most dexterous logical passes—one which it will require great dialectical skill to parry. The editor of the _Scienza Italiana_ replies thus to the question as to where these forms come from:

“Certain forms do not come to the subject from an extrinsic cause, but spring up within the subject, by educing them (_traendole_) from the potentiality of the same subject.” Father Ramière desires to be informed “what is the object to which the active verb _traendole_ is referred; what is that which educes these forms from the potentiality of the subject?” If no sufficient cause can be assigned by which substantial forms are educed, the theory becomes untenable.

Father Ramière devotes a considerable part of his treatise to a consideration of the important question, What is the true sense of the proposition that the rational soul is the form of the human body? This proposition, maintained by Aristotle and received by sound scholastic philosophy, has been defined as Catholic doctrine by the Council of Vienne and by Pius IX. Father Ramière refers to Father Palmieri, S.J., the author of a recent philosophical text-book of high repute, who “proves that the Council of Vienne by no means intended to condemn a doctrine maintained at that time and since by perfectly orthodox theologians. The error proscribed by the council is that which ascribes to the human body another vital principle besides the rational soul.” The Catholic doctrine is that the soul is _forma corporis_, in the sense that it is the life-giving principle of the composite, corporeal, organic structure which constitutes the human body in its physical though incomplete nature, as one compart of the total human composite, or complete human nature. Father Palmieri calls the bodily part a complete substance but an incomplete nature, as likewise the spiritual part, which is the soul. Father Ramière adheres to the common terminology which denominates each part an incomplete substance. As considered in distinction from the soul, it lacks its due complement, the vital principle which makes it a living body and sentient. The soul also, as distinct from the body, lacks the complement of its inferior vital force, which is an eminent kind of sensitive and vegetative principle contained in the same subject to which the attribute of rationality belongs, and giving to the subject—that is, to the soul—an exigency for a body as its essential compart. The soul and body complete each other in the human essence or nature. The body is passive and inert in respect to every vital force and function, without the soul. The soul remains in a merely potential state in respect to its inferior faculties, when separate from the body. In the composite essence, the human nature composed of soul and body, the body stands in the relation of _materia_ to the soul, the soul in the relation of _forma_ to the body. Thus is constituted the human, rational _suppositum_ or _persona_, and the specific essence and unity of the human being, of man, according to his logical definition as _animal rationale_. We will let Father Ramière speak for himself, and explain at length in his own language what his own view is on this important topic:

“Between spiritual substance and body there is a complete opposition, and it is consequently absurd to suppose that a body can borrow from a spirit that by which it becomes body. Since the substantial form of a being is that which makes it formally to exist as such, the soul cannot be the substantial form by which a body exists as body, unless it is itself corporeal. It is the same with all forms essentially material, and consequently with all those which belong to the essence of the elementary substances. These forces, not being in the soul, cannot be destroyed when the elements pass into the body;[82] yet they no longer exist in their former state of independence. They are seized upon and controlled by the superior force of the soul, elevated in a certain sort above their natural condition, and employed as instruments of the vivification of the matter of the body. Heretofore these elements formed so many independent unities; henceforth they become fractions of a whole to which the soul must give the specific determination. Their entire force continues to subsist; their being is not destroyed; but, under the domination of a new form, it acquires a new formal existence. It is thus that the soul is the principle of the substantial unity of man. It does not destroy the variety of the elements, but it unites them; it does not suppress completely their mutual opposition, but tempers it so far as to establish a condition of harmony. There is really but one substantial form in man—the reasonable soul, because this soul alone gives to the entire totality of the human being its substantial determination; it alone reduces the diversity of elements to unity. It confers upon the body, by its union with the same, something which is not a mere accident but a new being, the being of humanity, which raises it above all purely corporeal beings, and constitutes it within the generic class of rational substances.

“The modern theory, understood in this sense, is in perfect agreement as to its substance with the peripatetic doctrine, and safe from all the dangerous tendencies imputed to it. There is no just cause for repeating any longer the accusation heretofore made against this theory that it suppresses the substantial unity of bodies, since, as we have shown, so far from destroying this unity it presents it as it subsists in various grades, proportioned to the relative degrees of perfection in substances, much better than the other systems. There is even less foundation for the pretext that the theory in question is in opposition to the definitions of the church regarding the union of soul and body in man. What, in fact, do these definitions affirm? That the soul is the true form of the human body, which it informs and vivifies, not accidentally or mediately, but immediately and essentially. Now, all this is perfectly verified in our theory, which supposes that the body receives its life, its specific nature, its existence as human body, without any interposing medium, from the soul. Moreover, its union with the soul, so far from being regarded as accidental, is shown to be, on the contrary, substantial, in whatever aspect it is considered, whether on the side of the soul or on the side of the body: on the side of the soul, which without this union would be unable to exercise several faculties proceeding from its essence; on the side of the body, which receives from this union the substantial complement of its elements. When, therefore, we examine closely that argument which is the strongest, if not the only, one sustaining the contrary theory,[83] we perceive that it resolves itself into a mere equivocation. The partisans of this theory, who sometimes reproach their adversaries with equivocating in respect to the words ‘substantial and accidental,’ do not perceive that they themselves commit this fault. They confound that which is indispensable to a being that it may exist, with that which is indispensable to it that it may possess the integrity of its nature. Union with the body is not essential to the soul in the former sense, as all acknowledge, but it is certainly not allowable to conclude from this that it is purely accidental to it. We may very justly call substantial, and even essential, all that which is exacted by the nature of anything. Now, union with the body is certainly exacted by the nature of the soul, which differs mainly from pure spirits by this exigency. Nothing could be more contrary to the principles of scholastic philosophy than to regard that property pertaining to the soul which adapts it to be the form of the body as a simple accident; but if this is an essential property, union with the body cannot be considered as purely accidental, even admitting that the body is composed of elements endowed with their proper forms. Let us apply the same reasoning to the elements, which are themselves made in order to unite themselves with other elements, as the soul is made in order to unite itself with the body; and by this simple distinction of the two senses of the word _substantial_ we shall eliminate the doctrinal misunderstanding which makes a division between us.

“How, then, could it happen that this division has been so long continued? It is because the distrust of the defenders of traditional philosophy has been provoked by the presentation of the theory at the present day generally adopted by scientists, as an innovation. This distrust will have no longer any object, and harmony cannot fail to be re-established, from the moment when it shall be recognized that the modern experimental science is in perfect harmony with the principles laid down by Aristotle and accepted by St. Thomas.”

The professor of physics who prepared the _Exposé_ given in Father Ramière’s appendix presents very distinctly and strongly what is the common sentiment, especially of those who are devoted to the study of physical science, in our modern Catholic schools:

“The peripatetic system on the composition of bodies is rejected by the greater number of Catholic philosophers, because this system, considered metaphysically, sustains itself solely on _equivocations and the begging of questions_ (Card. Tolomei), and _has no demonstrative_ _force_ (P. Zigliara); considered psychologically, it gives a handle to materialism; considered in the aspect of the chemical sciences, it is in evident contradiction to their experimental facts; considered historically, it has been, so far as its psychological part is concerned, always combated by the school of Alexander de Halès, St. Bonaventure, Scotus, and the Franciscans; was condemned in the thirteenth century by all the doctors of the English universities, together with a majority of those of the Sorbonne; and in the eighteenth century was commonly repudiated by all the schools, with the exception of the most rigid Thomists.”

There is certainly no chance whatever that this theory will ever regain any considerable sway from the mere weight of authority which belongs to it from the traditions of the past. As Father Ramière justly remarks:

“We must not forget that the present discussion appertains to the purely scientific order, and must consequently be definitively decided _not by authority but by reason_. So long as the rational arguments which overturn the theory contrary to our own have not been refuted, nothing will be gained by the effort to prove from a literal interpretation of some texts that this theory belongs to St. Thomas. The only interpretation admissible in this case is the rational interpretation, which clears up obscure texts by the perfectly clear principles which the holy doctor loudly proclaimed. It is thus that we explain many difficult passages in the works of the eagle of Hippo; and those who act otherwise, far from proving in this way their respect for him, really inflict an outrage on his memory by putting him in opposition to himself and to the truth. Let us not do a similar wrong to St. Thomas. As he was always attentive to correct himself even to the end of his short career, we can be sure that, if his mortal existence had been prolonged to our day, he would not have failed to clear up that which remained in obscurity in his writings, and to complete, by the aid of new discoveries in science, what was necessarily incomplete in his theories. Let us act in the same manner, and not fear to show ourselves more faithful to the spirit of the doctrine of St. Thomas than to the letter of a certain number of texts found in his writings.”

Father Ramière could not have expected to put an end to the controversy by his short essay, and, in fact, the only immediate result of Dr. Frédault’s larger work and his own briefer piece of argument has been to call forth rejoinders from the _Scienza Italiana_ and the _Civiltà Cattolica_. Some of the advocates of the peripatetic theory are unquestionably as well versed in the physical sciences as their opponents. Their studies in chemistry and other branches of science have made them dissatisfied with the prevalent modern theories on the constitution of bodies, and they have for this very reason sought for a more philosophical doctrine in the ancient metaphysics. It is not to be supposed that they will yield to anything short of cogent reasoning, or that any agreement in unity of doctrine can be produced, unless some really solid, satisfactory, and conclusive theory is presented with such convincing proof and evidence that it must command general assent. Until this is done there is no choice except to continue the discussion. If it is interminable, then all sides must agree to differ, and in such a case it is quite natural to fall back on the authority of great men who are supposed to have been gifted with extraordinary perspicacity of intellect, and to have seen into things more clearly and deeply than modern men are able to do, perhaps by the aid of supernatural light. If the constitution of bodies is an impenetrable mystery, we must be content to remain in our ignorance, and accept whatever formulas of metaphysical or physical statement seem to us the best expression of the vague and confused notions we possess. We are not quite prepared to accept this situation as inevitable, and it is certain that not only on the European continent, but in England and America also, the reviving interest in metaphysical studies and the necessity of combating materialism will stimulate an effort toward a more perfect evolution of the truth contained in the ancient philosophy by the help of mathematical and experimental science. It may be asked what metaphysics and theology have to do with these matters, which seem to belong to the domain of physics. We reply to this question in the words of Father Ramière:

“The question what is in general the nature of material beings, and what is in particular the nature of man as appertaining by his corporeal part to the material world, does not belong, at least exclusively, to physics; it is also within the domain of philosophy and theology. The special object of physics is the study of the sensible properties of bodies, the observation of the phenomena by which the different forces with which they are endowed manifest themselves, and the determination of the laws which regulate the exercise of these forces. The investigation of the essential properties which enter into the very idea of body and distinguish it from spiritual being belongs to metaphysics. And since, in man, the body, united with the spirit, participates in its destiny; since, in Jesus Christ, the corporeal world has been associated to the divine dignity, theology cannot give us a perfect knowledge of our destiny and our deification by the divine Person who assumed humanity, without availing itself of the aid which is furnished by an exact notion of the nature of bodies.”

It seems to us that the real point of difficulty and of controversy respecting the “nature of bodies” lies deeper than any of the questions proposed by Father Ramière, and that the whole discussion must start from this point in order to be thorough and decisive. It is no solution at all of the question, What is the nature of corporeal being? to tell us that bodies are material substances endowed with determinate forces, or composites of such substances. The drop of water, mechanically divided, gives us only minuter and minuter molecules of water. But since, chemically divided, it gives oxygen and hydrogen in composition with each other to form these minutest molecules, there must be in each of these molecules others of such minute quantity as to elude experiment, which are composed of still smaller distinct molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. One of these molecules of oxygen, considered apart from all other corporeal beings, must be itself constituted by smaller molecules or of some more simple elements. We must come at last to these simple elements, and ask the question, What constitutes the entity and first actuality of these elements? Boscovich and Leibnitz, two of the most original thinkers of modern times, both of them well versed in mathematics as well as eminent in metaphysics, have presented the theory of simple monads, which are dynamic centres radiating in space upon each other the active forces which produce extension, quality, motion, and every kind of material substance with all their specific differences. Father Bayma, in his remarkable work _Molecular Mechanics_, has presented the hypothesis that these simple elements are each separately endowed with only one force—that is, either the attractive or repulsive. The laws of molecular mechanics have been exposed in this treatise with rigid and complicated mathematical demonstrations. The metaphysical part of this hypothesis has been fully developed, so far as its primary and essential principles are concerned, in the pages of this magazine. The arguments by which this hypothesis is sustained and the contrary ones overturned we have never seen fairly and distinctly answered. Certain objections are made, such as these: that a force is not a being in itself, but needs a substance to support it; that dynamism takes away the reality of matter, that it makes material substance like spiritual substance, that it gives no basis for extension and continuous quantity, etc. We think there is some misunderstanding of terms and concepts in the minds of those who make these objections. We understand in this theory such terms as “active force” to denote not an attribute or product without subject or cause, but a principle from which force proceeds, which is also a passive principle upon which active force terminates. It is a real being, simple, unextended, not a body or a spirit, having position but not quantity, marking by its existence a point in space, the first element of the primary composite body or molecule, distinguishable in respect to its matter and form, but not separable, any more than the centre and circumference of a circle are separable. It is a substance, standing _in se et per se_, in respect to existence, but expressly created for entering into composition with similar entities, in order to make bodies with the various attributes and accidents, active powers and passive potencies, which experience shows them to possess. It is not a spirit, because it has no capability of consciousness, intelligence, or volition, but is simply determined by its grade of being to act in space by means of motion. It is _ens mobile_, and the beginning of physical quantity, as the point is the beginning of abstract quantity in geometrical science. As to the difficulty of conceiving how extension arises without a first material _continuum_ to begin with, we think this objection is counteracted by the arguments proving that such a _continuum_ is an absurdity and an impossibility.

The great desideratum in the question of matter is to find the invariable and indestructible element, which remains, and will forever remain, the same amid all transmutations of bodies, the ultimate substance endowed with a perpetual existence _in se_, and competent from its potency and active power to be the principle of every possible combination and mode of being within the limits of the purely corporeal essence. Such a principle seems to be furnished by the theory of Boscovich and Leibnitz, as corrected and developed by Father Bayma. The simple beings endowed with attractive or repulsive force proceeding from a centre which marks a point in space, and having both a form and a material principle which are naturally inseparable, are capable of existing, each one alone by itself, and absolutely indestructible, except by annihilation. Though utterly useless and inoperative, except as existing in multitude and mutually acting on each other in their chemical and mechanical combinations they furnish the substratum of every kind of matter and form which can be predicated of corporeal being as _ens mobile_. The primary molecules of the simple bodies formed by the first combinations of simple elements are so firmly bound together that no power of which man can avail himself suffices to separate them, and we may suppose there is no power in nature which can break up their unity. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that God can make bodies of any magnitude or composite perfection which are likewise incorruptible, in accordance with the ancient conception of _materia quinta_, or celestial, incorruptible bodies. The reasoning by which this dynamic hypothesis is sustained and contrary theories refuted seems to be extremely probable, and even, in certain parts, demonstrative, from its premises and _data_. If these include all which must be included, and nothing pertaining to the essence and integrity of the matter of demonstration is left out, the hypothesis is sufficient to account for all which must be accounted for, and by its simplicity recommends itself to the mind as proposing enough, and no more than enough, for a distinct notion of the nature of body and its specific difference from soul and spirit. Just here, it seems to us, comes in the need for more full explanation and evolution of the theory, and a more minute discussion between its advocates and those who advocate the theories of the rigid peripatetic system or the system favored by Father Ramière. We would like to see a more complete proof given that all which can be predicated of material substance, as such, can be referred to its nature as _ens mobile_, and accounted for by the two primitive forces of attraction and repulsion.

Especially when we consider the phenomena of organized, living bodies, vegetable and animal, the most important questions arise, demanding from each one of the different philosophical schools the answers which they are able to furnish, and an exposition of the way in which they seek to harmonize this particular portion of their respective systems with the first principles of philosophy, of physics, and of theology. The notions of potential matter and substantial form assume here a new import and present difficulties of the first magnitude, the solution of which in one way or another introduces most considerable modifications into the metaphysics and the theology of each different party in the controversy.

What is the principle of vegetable life and reproduction? If all the facts and phenomena of vegetable life can be explained by the laws of molecular mechanics and chemistry, the need for a distinct, simple form, vital principle, or vegetable soul, is removed; otherwise the hypothesis fails to meet the exigency of the case, and the reasoning of the peripatetic philosophers remains, in this respect, unanswered.

The question of the animal soul stands by itself, and is more important. Molecular mechanics and chemical combinations cannot produce a sentient subject or account for the sensible cognition which animals possess. There is certainly in the animal a distinct form giving to animal nature a potency and a power not reducible to attraction and repulsion between molecules, not a modification of mobility and motion. The ingenious scholastic theory gives us a formula which answers very well as a verbal statement of the difference between the irrational and the rational soul, between the brute and man. According to this theory, the animal soul is not a substance, is not capable of existing _in se_, depends on the body and is destroyed by its death, is not immediately created, but is educed, _ex nihilo sui_, from the potentiality of matter by the physical agencies and laws of generation. What is startling and puzzling about this theory is that it makes an organized, material body exercise sensible cognition. The soul is a mere substantial form, higher than the aqueous or igneous or cadaverous form, but of the same genus. It is educed from the potentiality of matter, and therefore matter is in potency to the sentient faculty, as it is in potency to have quantity, figure, color, and weight. Second causes suffice to evolve from its potency this new form of being in which it can see, hear, feel, imagine and remember, simulate many of the processes and actions of rational beings, enjoy and suffer, recognize friends and enemies, invent stratagems, play tricks, exercise courage, fidelity, fortitude, and constancy in affection, and show forth all those remarkable phenomena which make the animal, in one point of view, the greatest marvel of creation. If the animal soul is not a distinct substance, immediately created and having existence _in se_, the peripatetic theory, pure and simple, with all its mysteriousness, is preferable to any other, and its failure to give demonstration and satisfy the _ingenium curiosum_ of many searchers into the secrets of nature is a necessary consequence of the impenetrable mystery which shrouds the essence of material being.

If the animal soul is a substance, we must admit a grade of being between the corporeal and the rational natures, an inferior kind of spirit, similar to the human soul in respect to that which makes it fit to be the animating principle of an organic body, destitute of intelligence and incapable of activity independent of its bodily organs, yet, as a substance in itself and a simple being, not destructible by corruption. It is a maxim in philosophy that there is no destruction of anything once created by annihilation. It continues to exist, therefore, after the death of its bodily compart. If the _anima belluina_ is imperishable, what becomes of it when the animal dies? Even the human spirit, though capable by its intellectual faculties of living a separate life, has an intrinsic exigency for a body which it can animate; much more, then, the _anima belluina_, which is a principle of animal life and activity, and nothing more. There is nothing superfluous or useless in nature, yet this kind of soul, continuing to exist without a body, is a useless thing. Moreover, although the more perfect animals manifest qualities which can easily be taken to indicate the presence of a vital principle which is a distinct substance, what shall we say of those which can be divided into sections, each of which continues to live; and of those which approach so near to the line of demarcation between animal and vegetable life that the difference between the two seems to reach a vanishing-point, and they shade into each other by nearly imperceptible gradations?

This is enough to show how serious is the task of reconciling philosophical parties, and settling the disputes about the constitution of bodies, matter and form, and all their cognate topics, and making a perfect synthesis of physics and metaphysics. Mathematics come in also, with the consideration of quantity, space, infinites and infinitesimals, demanding a place in a really complete synthetical exposition of fundamental and universal philosophy. There is room enough for a great genius who shall be a continuator of the work of St. Thomas. If such a man should arise, he would need to have all the intellectual gifts and all the knowledge of a great metaphysician, a great mathematician, and a great physicist, combined under one form. There has been but one Aristotle and one St. Thomas, and we cannot tell whether or no any other man like them, or even equal to Suarez, will be granted to the science of philosophy. It seems that we need some man of that kind to deal with the obscurities and ambiguities, the new aspects and new relations of scholastic metaphysics, and with the peculiar mental attitude and habits of thought and expression belonging to our own time. The English-speaking part of the educated world certainly needs the service of some really original thinker, as well as learned and acute expositor, to make all that is certain or highly probable in the Thomistic philosophy thoroughly intelligible, and to accomplish whatever is requisite and possible in advancing this philosophy toward a desirable completion. Able and learned expositors of the ancient philosophy are not lacking in Italy and Germany, but it seems to us that some higher degree of original power of thought and expression than is found even in the most eminent of these authors is desirable for the masterly handling of certain questions of present controversy.

Father Ramière considers that the time has come to hope for and attempt the construction of “the majestic temple of Catholic science, whose base is laid in the infallible dogmas of faith and the immovable principles of reason, whose stories are erected by the co-operating labor of observation and reasoning, whose circuit embraces the entire expanse of human knowledge, in which facts and laws, experimental and abstract sciences, the truths of the natural and those of the supernatural order, complete, strengthen, and embellish each other by their mutual agreement.” That “complete synthesis, to which all the particular sciences are attached as branches of a tree to the trunk,” he considers to have been fifty years ago apparently impossible, though the conception of it may have been latent in some minds, but at present to be really within the power of combined and rightly-directed intellectual effort to achieve.

So far as essentials are concerned, we are convinced that the learned and pious Jesuit is not without a solid ground for his enthusiastic prognostication of the advancement of Catholic science. In respect to the special topics of which we have been writing in the present article, we are not very sanguine of a speedy adjustment of the controversies which divide Catholic philosophers and others, whether physicists or metaphysicians, who investigate and argue upon the nature of material substance. There is yet a good deal of discussion and controversy to be gone through, and we confess we are in doubt how far it will ever terminate in a conclusive and final result. There are limitations to human knowledge which are not precisely determined. The space of the unknowable lies around our restricted sphere of the known and the knowable. Happily, it is not necessary for the substantial solidity and practical utility of rational metaphysics and ethics, much less for theological certainty in the matters of real moment, that all the interesting and abstruse questions of controversy between different schools should be decided. Apparent “antinomies of reason” may furnish a pretext to the sceptical and captious, but they prove only the limitation of intellect and reason, our imperfect and inadequate conceptions of the terms and premises which we reason about and from which we draw conclusions, and the defectiveness of language as the medium of thought. The certainties of reason, of history and experience, of the judgments of the human conscience, of divine revelation, of Catholic authority, of the common sense of mankind, are amply sufficient for refuting every kind of infidel or heretical error which cloaks itself under a scientific pretext, and for proving and defending all that belongs to sacred dogma in faith or morals, or is in proximate connection with it. Unity and harmony in these things need not be disturbed by differences and discussions respecting all manner of scientific questions. We understand that this is what Father Ramière principally aims at, and he himself gives a good example of free and earnest controversial discussion conducted in the irenical spirit. We have always found his writings luminous, interesting, and profitable. We trust that he and his _confrères_ will continue their labors in the same direction. We shall look also with great interest for the arguments by which the learned writers for the _Civiltà Cattolica_ and _Scienza Italiana_ and other advocates of strict Thomism maintain their own opinions. The Sovereign Pontiff, in his recent letter to the rector of the University of Lille, has declared that he desires all learned Catholics “should with one accord, _although they follow different systems_, turn all their energies to put down materialism and the other errors of our age.” This shows that, in the judgment of the Holy Father, agreement in these matters of actual difference is not a necessary condition precedent to combined and successful polemics against materialism and the other dangerous errors of our time. The Holy Father also exhorts “all whom it may concern” not to “scatter their forces by disputing with one another on questions which are matters of free opinion.” We understand this to mean that discussions should not degenerate into disputes of that kind which is hostile to the spirit of unity and charity, and not that discussion should be altogether abandoned. For, in another paragraph, he exhorts learned Catholics to “keep within the bounds of moderation and observe the laws of Christian charity while they discuss or attack systems in nowise condemned by the Apostolic See.” This may suffice for the present, and we trust that our readers who hold metaphysical articles in aversion will tolerate this one, in consideration of the long time they have been spared a similar trial of their patience.

TOTA PULCHRA.[84]

Can God so woo us, nor, of all our race, Have formed one creature for his perfect rest? Must the Dove moan for an inviolate nest, Nor find it ev’n in thee, O “full of grace”— In thee, his Spouse? Or could the Word debase His Godhead’s pureness when he fill’d thy breast, Tho’ Moses treasured up, at his behest, The typical manna in a golden[85] vase? Who teach that sin had ever aught in thee, Utter a thought the demons may not share— Not tho’ they prompt it in their fell despair: For these, while sullenly hating the decree That shaped thee forth Immaculate, “All Fair,” Adore it still—and must eternally.

THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD ORGAN.

In one of the least-visited churches of Ghent stands the most curious and characteristic thing in it—its organ: a contrast to the defaced wood-work and mouldering Renaissance plaster, to the unused and deserted chests in the vestry and the few benches in the choir. The paintings, the removable carvings, even some of the monuments, the choir-stalls and the stained-glass windows, disappeared long ago; the very name by which the church goes in the popular speech is ill-omened and mysterious. Old women cross themselves and shake their heads as they whisper the name of the Apostate’s church, and tradition tells the rare inquirer that this was a private chapel, the property of a once renowned family, noble and brave, but fierce and fanatical, well known in the town annals for centuries, and only struck from the roll of citizens and householders at the end of the great Flemish struggle of the sixteenth century, when the Protestants left Spanish ground for ever and found a new country in Holland. The disappearance of all valuable objects in the deserted church is ascribed—and perhaps truly—to many combining causes. Some were destroyed during the occasional image-breaking raids that distinguished the wars of the Reformation; some were sold or carried off by the family whose property they were, some confiscated or stolen by the triumphant Spanish government, or by no less indignant relations of the family, who, remaining behind, were anxious to prove by deeds their freedom from complicity with the apostate and fugitive Stromwaels. Such were the fragments of information to be picked up by any one in whom the simple people of the neighborhood had confidence; but whether every fragment was historical is another question. The church was in a lonely quarter of the town, the least altered by progress, where stood only small shops supplying the local wants, which in such populations and such places vary very little from those of five or six generations ago. A few spacious, comfortable houses showed among more cramped and less ornamented ones, but the aspect of all, if rather dead-alive, was very picturesque. The church stands in a narrow street and far from the house of its patrons, now used as a storehouse by the few wholesale dealers of this quarter, who each have one floor. In the attics live a few workmen and one or two nondescript, eccentric, and inoffensive persons, supposed to be pensioners of one of the dealers. One of these is a bookworm and supposed to know much of local legends and history. Being very poor, he frequents only the public library and such private ones as are accessible gratis to students; and when he wants to preserve information which he cannot purchase in the shape of printed books, he copies it assiduously on miscellaneous paper, recruited from old ledgers, bank and register books, large parcels, etc., besides the little he buys or has been given to him. His notes thus present a very curious appearance, which he sometimes complacently connects with the possible researches and comments of scholars of two hundred years hence. One of his many little sheaves of manuscript came into my hands not long ago while I was poking about the neighborhood, looking for anything out of the way, and I was induced to go and see him. He was very shabby and commonplace, and a good deal smeared with snuff; neither his appearance nor his home was in keeping with the outward look of the houses, and there were no artistically-dilapidated surroundings to fill out the romantic sketch which my imagination had made before I was introduced to him. Travellers seldom mention their disappointments, and always make the most of their agreeable surprises, so that stay-at-home people are often deluded into a belief that every one on the European continent is more or less like a Dresden figure or an actor in a mediæval play. My friend, however substantial the entertainment might be which his manuscript and his narrative gave me, was decidedly a failure personally, but none the less was he to me a very important and, in a degree, even an interesting vehicle of information. A free translation of his manuscript is all that I can give; as to his absorbed manner in speaking, his evident interest in the past, and his self-forgetfulness when he got upon the subject of the stories he had dug out or pieced together from ancient papers, and his own impressions concerning whatever was uncertain—these it is impossible to convey to others. He asked me first whether I had examined the organ in the chapel. I had done so, and found its case a very beautiful piece of carving; the keys were kept speckless, and the front contained a remarkable group of figures, carved in wood and painted, representing our Lord and the twelve apostles. The instrument stood in a high tribune looking into the choir, and reached by a separate staircase, narrow and winding. A carved railing gave this tribune something of the look of a balcony, but it scarcely projected forward into the chapel; the carved front of the organ and the gilt pipes were visible from below, and a tapestry curtain hung from an iron rod on each side of the instrument, concealing the back entrance into the tribune. The peculiarity about this organ was that it was all but dumb, and had never given a satisfactory sound since its maker had bid it be silent. It emitted some doleful sounds, if struck, but for all musical purposes it was useless. The situation it was in, and the defects in its interior, besides a third reason still unforgotten by the popular mind, accounted for its having been left when the rest of the church treasures were carried off. As a relic of antiquity it was valuable, exhibiting as it does the state of mechanical art at the beginning of the sixteenth century; but it was still more interesting as the tangible proof of a story connected with its maker, the organist of the church in 1505. This my old friend of the attic had written out in the queer-looking manuscript I have mentioned.

* * * * *

Nicholas Verkloep was born a servant of the Stromwaels, and brought up in their household in the very house where I read the story. His parents kept the outer gate, and the boy passed through the usual stages of service common to lads of his position, now a favorite, now a butt, according to the humor of his master and each member of the family, but all the spare time at his command was devoted to music. He haunted the churches, and begged his way into choirs and libraries, learnt all the church music he could pick up by his ear, the hints of choristers, and the few explanations in the manuscript chant-books of the time, and at last begged to be allowed to blow the organ-bellows at the family chapel. Meanwhile, he joined in the services, and drew on himself the notice of the old organist, who grew so fond and proud of him that he taught him all he knew, taught him to play the organ, and asked the Count Stromwael to allow him to bring the boy up as his successor. Nicholas was fifteen when this request was granted, and henceforth he nearly lived in the chapel. Not only the music of the organ fascinated him; he grew absorbed in studying its mechanism, and would crouch for hours within the instrument, getting his eyes used to the darkness, and learning by heart the “feel” of each piece. This developed all sorts of oddities in him: he grew absent-minded, and often unconsciously moved his fingers as if at work. Soon after he began to make models of various parts of an organ, indifferently the inside and the outside; for carving seemed as natural to him as mechanical dissection. He had not the same conservative feeling about things as is common among our present musicians, and the fact that the Stromwael instrument was a hundred and fifty years old, and had gone through many repairs as time went on and new improvements succeeded each other, did not prevent him from feeling certain that he could make a much better organ in a very short time. His plans were manifold; the subject grew and grew in his mind; the additional stops which he added in imagination disgusted him with the music he could draw from the instrument at present; and while every one in the town was excited about the wonderful young player who bade fair to be a prodigy, he himself was impatiently bewailing his drawbacks.

He told no one but his old master of his hopes and his expectations, and this confidant was certainly the safest he could have; for the old musician was a contented and patient man, used to his old ways, firm in his old traditions, not caring to travel out of his old grooves, and rather resentful of the idea that what had been good music and perfect mechanism in his time should not be good enough to satisfy the fastidious taste of a young beginner. Yet he was fond of his pupil, who used to soothe him by the saying that each generation had a new door to open and a new room to explore in the house of knowledge, and that he ought not to grudge him his appointed advance, any more than Moses grudged Josue his succession to the leadership. In truth, the old man was secretly proud of his clever scholar, and, perhaps unconsciously to himself, expected even more of him than the youth did of himself. The two lived together in the house of their patron, but had little intercourse with the rest of the mixed household, more gay and more ignorant than themselves, and my snuffy old friend nursed the belief that he had discovered the room which was home to these two. It was a small attic chamber looking towards the church, and in a chest in it had been found remnants of wood, wire, and leather, as well as some strange-looking models and bits of carving, with rough sketches on strips of parchment, all of which I had seen in their case in the museum at the Town-hall. On the walls were some doggerel Latin verses and some rather indistinct marks, which, nevertheless, the most learned musician in the town had pronounced to be, most likely, a sort of musical short-hand, understood only by its author. All this I also saw, and, having no opposite theory to uphold, was glad to believe remains of Nicholas.

Now, says the manuscript, there were found notes and jottings besides plans and sketches, and it seems plain from these that the young organist wished eagerly to make a new organ, on which no one but himself should work; indeed, this idea grew to be a monomania, and he devoted to it all the energy and interest which a man generally spends on wife, children, friends, home, profession, and advancement. But the count was an obstinate conservative, and scouted the idea of replacing his time-honored family organ by a new one, the work of a crazy youth, even though he were the best player and composer that ever breathed. The old organist and his pupil had many anxious talks on the subject. In those days it was not easy to transfer your domicile and allegiance to a patron better suited to you; family bondage still held good in practical matters; the Stromwaels had given him all the home and education he had, and, in fact, he belonged to them. Besides, the count was as proud of his human possession as he was of his ancient organ, and set as much store by the reputation of the marvellous young musician whom he owned as he did by that of his best-bred falcon, dog, or horse. He would not have given up any of these; they were all ornaments to his name, and it was fitting that he should not be beneath or behind any of his townsmen. He was not old enough to give room to hope for a change of circumstances through his death, and Nicholas became every day more discontented at his prospects. He was more reserved, morose, and morbid than ever, and as he grew odder the more was his music admired. Strangers from neighboring towns came to hear him play; the towns-people begged him to teach their sons; women looked up at the gallery where he sat with his back to them, with eyes that told of as ready an inclination to love the player as to admire the music; wealthy foreigners sent him presents of money or jewels, after the fashion of the times; but nothing seemed to elate, or even interest, him.

One day, while he was sitting at the old organ, poring over his plans for a new one, and contrasting the existing instrument with the possible one, a man lifted the curtain which then, as now, covered the entrance to the tribune. He was a stranger to Nicholas, and seemed elderly; he was very quietly dressed in black, and wore a sword. The young man looked up in bewilderment, but rose and welcomed the unknown, who sat down with great composure by his side on the wide carved bench in front of the organ. He spoke Flemish, but Nicholas thought with a foreign accent, which, however, he could not localize.

“You will forgive my curiosity,” he said, “in coming here. I have often heard you play from below, and to-day, passing by the open door, I came into the chapel in hopes of hearing something, but met your little blower lying asleep on the altar steps, woke him up, made inquiries, and decided to come up.”

“You are very welcome,” said Nicholas in a low voice, politely but not cordially, and speaking with that resignation which well-bred but much tried misanthropes have but too much occasion to practise in all times and companies.

“I want to speak of something else than mere conventionalities,” said the stranger abruptly, “and I will begin by telling you that I quite understand and appreciate your distaste to general fellowship with your kind; I see no reason why I should be an exception, so you need not resort to courteous commonplaces. I have heard what is your aim, and only seek you because I think I may be of some use to you.”

Nicholas looked up, at first eagerly, then a shadow came over his face. Any allusion to future success fired him even against his will, but experience had always hitherto gone the opposite way. Taking the stranger’s permission literally, he said nothing, but looked at him inquiringly. The other went on after a pause:

“I think I can promise you the certainty, within ten years, of accomplishing your wish and seeing your organ, if not in this place, at least in some other quite as advantageous. I have oddities and fixed ideas myself, and understand them in others. In short, it rests mainly with you whether you like to accept my proposal or not.”

“There are conditions, then?” asked Nicholas, whom the belief of his time with regard to compacts with the devil imbued quite as strongly as if he had not been a genius, and who, in consequence, immediately jumped to the conclusion that this visit was not wholly natural.

“Yes,” said the stranger in his metallic voice, unimpassioned but compelling attention by some quality indefinable to Nicholas’ mind, yet surely present to his perception, “I always hedge in business with conditions; otherwise I should be a mere Haroun-al-Raschid, an experimenter in benevolence, which, though an amiable character, is a weak one. I hate weakness and I hate foolishness. I judged you to be neither fool nor weakling, and so sought you out. The conditions are very simple: I want you to bind yourself to my secret service for ten years, and in return I promise you the fulfilment of your wish at the end of that time. In the meanwhile your fame will increase, your powers as a musician will be unrivalled; you will play and compose so as to rouse the jealousy of all your profession; you will be in danger, but will never be struck down; you will have full time for work and study, yet you must always be ready to leave everything instantly when I call upon you; you will be my right hand, but no one will suspect it; but if you once fail in your allegiance to me during these ten years, your object will be frustrated at the end of that time.”

“But,” said Nicholas, who had listened, growing more fascinated as the stranger spoke, and by his eagerness and play of features guiding unconsciously the latter’s fast-increasing promises—“but what power have you to bring such things about? Count Stromwael is a great man, besides being obstinate and perverse; how can you dispose of his property, and even his will?”

“And how,” quickly retorted the stranger with a cold smile, “can you be so imprudent as to speak thus unguardedly of your master’s defects to one whom you saw to-day for the first time, and whose name, position, and motives are unknown to you? Do you know that you put yourself in my power by these words? But I will partly answer your question. I know something of Count Stromwael, and what I know gives me the right to offer you what I do; and as I happen to want your services—they will never conflict with your outward allegiance to your patron—I make you the only proposal, as an equivalent, for which you care. If you cared for the common things—women, money, position—you would not be the person I want; such vassals can be bought by the cart-load, in every station in life, from the Countess of Flanders or the first lord of her household down to the ragged beggars or the sleek hypocrites who crowd the city. I want you, my fancy has chosen you, and I ask you will you buy success at the price of ten years of your life?”

“But why,” persisted the eager but uneasy Nicholas, “only ten years? Why not ask for my whole life?”

The stranger laughed oddly. “And your future life too?” he said. “Yes, I see what you are thinking of: that I want your soul. I will not deny your imputation; you flatter me by identifying me with one whose power is as dread as you have been taught to believe the devil’s to be, but I am quite truthful in saying that I do not crave more than a promise of ten years’ faithful and blind service. You may, if you can, redeem the sacrifice by a long after-life—I only ask ten years; at your age it is not much to give.”

“And if I should die before the ten years are over?”

The stranger raised his eyebrows, but without opening his eyes perceptibly wider.

“You insist on continuing the parallel?” he asked. “I only said ten years of life; if you die you escape me, but you lose your own chance. What should I want with a dead man? The loss would be as much mine as yours.”

“If you can guarantee, as you said, that I should be in danger but should not be struck down, perhaps you can promise me that I shall not die till our contract is fulfilled on both sides?”

“My dear friend, one would need to be deathless one’s self to make such a promise. Even a doctor could only promise life provided such and such circumstances were certain.”

“If you can dispose of Count Stromwael’s will and property,” said Nicholas doggedly, “you can ensure me ten years’ life.”

“Is your life dearer to you than your success, then?”

“No; but the latter depends on the former, and if _you_ must hedge in business by conditions, _I_ must be sure that I do not give you in advance all you want without being sure of my reward at the end.”

“I should not have expected so much foresight in you; I respect you for it. I will see that you have this assurance, but how do I know whether you will believe in it? You see you are so much shrewder than ordinary enthusiasts that I may be taking a spy or a critic into my service.”

“I have never thought about business or guarantees before, because I care for nothing but the success of my organ, and only that would have made me eager to bind you to your promise,” said Nicholas, still uneasily; “but since you only ask ten years’ service, I think I may safely say yes.”

The stranger smiled again, as oddly as before, and drew out a roll of parchment from a little bag. “According to tradition, you should sign this with your blood,” he said, “but I shall be quite content if you sign it with common ink. Here is a horn and a pen; only write your name. But first read the bond.”

Nicholas looked suspiciously at the stranger, who calmly handed him the paper; the latter’s face showed neither interest nor triumph. The deed was very simply worded: “I, Nicholas Verkloep, promise to owe unfailing and unquestioning obedience in all things to Marcus Lemoinne for the space of ten years from this day and hour, in return for the success of my organ at the end of that time, and for all the help he may give me in the interval.” The date was already filled in, being the day on which the above conversation took place, and the hour was marked two hours after noon. Nicholas glanced at the clock behind him in the chapel; the hands pointed to ten minutes to that hour. The stranger followed his glance, quietly rose from the bench, and turning his back upon him, knelt down on the narrow board fixed for this purpose to the front of the tribune.

Nicholas quickly turned things over in his mind: as to his silence about it when the promise was signed he had decided; as to his fulfilment of his obligations to the letter he was as loyally certain; as to the individual whom this man either was or represented he had very little doubt. Very few in his time would have thought otherwise; perhaps few would have hesitated so much after having made up their minds not to ask the advice of any one either before or after the contract was made. Nicholas was only an average Christian, and had no strong feelings except on the subject of his art; everything was in favor of his giving ten years’ life for the success of his scheme. As the clock struck the hour the stranger rose, touched his shoulder, and said, “Well?”

Nicholas, with something like a start, took the pen and signed his name as quickly as he could, whereupon the other also wrote in a fair and scholarly hand these words: “I, Marcus Lemoinne, promise to ensure the success of Nicholas Verkloep’s organ at the end of ten years, in return for his obedience to me during that time.”

No commonplaces passed at parting, and Nicholas went home soon after. His old master noticed that he was a little more excited than usual, and began to make plans and preparations with more energy, but he was used to these phases of mind. The young man (he was now twenty-three) procured beautiful and costly wood for carving, besides ivory, paints, and other materials, and set to work on a complete model. Now began the oddest experiences of his life: his mind seemed doubled, for he was conscious of a never-ceasing expectation, an alertness, and a watchfulness hitherto unknown to him. In the streets, in church, in bed at night, he was always looking for Lemoinne or ready to obey his summons, yet his attention, when he bestowed it on his work, was not disturbed or lessened by this parallel current of thought. His mind grew stronger, brighter, quicker, more ingenious; his fanatical devotion to his art increased daily, and with it his powers, until his fame grew to be just such as the stranger had foretold. This stimulated him further, and he made unheard-of progress, so that his old friend and teacher was half-crazy with joy and pride. The count sent for him to play in the hall before his guests on a small organ of no great power or value, and Nicholas drew from it such sounds as the great men of the profession could not draw from the most magnificent church instruments. That they were jealous of him he knew, but he feared no jealousy, as he courted no admiration. He refused repeatedly to take advantage of his reputation and increase his fortune by travelling to the various art-loving cities of the Netherlands and of Italy, or even by performing in public on great occasions, so that the crowds of his persistent admirers had to content themselves with hearing him at his own old organ in the Stromwael chapel. Even the popular preachers of the day were envious of him. Meanwhile, he worked first at the model, then at the separate pieces of his future organ. The count had given no permission, nor hinted at any, and Lemoinne had made no call on his time, but his belief in the efficacy of the bond never flagged for a moment. It did not occur to him to wonder why he never heard the man’s name mentioned as among those who, whether merchants, artists, or statesmen, had public or secret power; his unspoken suspicion of his identity prevented all such ideas, but it did strike him as odd that for ten months after the signing of the contract nothing was required of him. He felt morbidly that he did not belong to himself, and knew that, do what he would, a secret influence sat within, master of his heart and will, master even of his dreams, and, he feared, of his art also. Was it himself that he put forth in his compositions? When the ten years were ended he would be able to tell, but it was a long time to look forward to. Yet during that time his fame would have been made, and if his power then suddenly deserted him and his suspicions came to be confirmed, he could easily retire on his former laurels and compose no more. Retire at thirty-three? Well, there was the monastery; many men had made a second career, more creditable even than the first, by devoting their worldly gifts, their wealth, and their fame to religious purposes when circumstances made the world distasteful to them at an earlier period than usual. If his suspicions should be true, an after-life of atonement would be fitting, and it would give him time for studies which he longed to undertake, but had no leisure or opportunity for at present. The spiritual element counted for nothing in his calculations; there were many doors still closed in his nature. As he wandered in fancy, his fingers worked and produced beautiful or weird things. The face of Lemoinne, so constantly present to his mind, often came out in wood under his touch, and always, when finished, gave him a start of surprise; for, surely, that was not the expression he remembered? And yet, in carving the likeness, he must have had the recollection before him? A year after the interview in the chapel his old teacher the organist died, and the first strange thing that he had ever said to his pupil he said on his death-bed.

“My son,” he began, as he lay with his hand in that of Nicholas, “there is one thing I feel I must say to you before I go; it is my duty, and young men sometimes forget it. With you it is more dangerous than with most. Be your own master; do not lose the ownership of yourself. Men who do generally commit crime, and, if the slavery be to a woman, they often do base, mean things. I have sometimes feared that you were losing the mastery of yourself, and yet at other times I saw you absorbed in what has been your only idol for twelve years or more.”

“There is no woman that shares that idolatry,” answered Nicholas evasively, starting at the old man’s anxious looks and awakened insight.

“Well,” said the dying man, “I do not grudge you a wife, but I fear any one, man or woman, whose influence over you is not entirely supported and controlled by reason. In God’s name, Nicholas, and as a dying man, I beseech you, if you are in any toils, break through them as quickly as you can.”

“My dear master,” said his pupil, “when you are in heaven pray that I may be guided aright, for I shall have lost the only guide on earth whose help or advice was of use to me.”

“That is no answer, Nicholas,” said the old man reproachfully and wearily; “but remember what I said.”

“Yes, I will remember it,” said the other in an altered tone, “and, if I can, I will heed it.”

After the old man’s death Nicholas led a very lonely life, but his increasing labors at his organ cheered him and occupied his time. His fame kept at its high pitch, and the jealousy of his brother artists was well known.

Fourteen months after his first interview with Lemoinne the latter came again, this time to his home (possibly the attic before described). Nicholas told him how surprised he had been at hearing nothing from him for so long.

“One does not use one’s best and rarest tools often,” said the other with his indescribable smile, “though the highest price paid for them is none the more begrudged on that account; and, again, the finest instruments are used to do what seems the least important work. You know how a glass-cutter uses a diamond? Now, all I want you to do is to ride to a certain place and deliver this letter; you will find the horse ready saddled at St. Martin’s Gate; you have twelve hours to do it in, and by daybreak you will find the same man ready to take the horse at the same place from which you start. The fleetest government messenger would take sixteen hours; but I know the horse and his powers; of his rider I know enough to make me trust him equally.”

The implied trust flattered Nicholas, who took the letter, and, seeing the direction, started a little, but said: “If you say it can be done, it can, but the distance would take a common rider nearer twenty hours than sixteen. Shall I go at once?”

“Yes, and remember your trust goes no further than the delivery of this package to whoever opens the door of that house to you.”

It would take too long to describe the night ride, or even the state of mind in which Nicholas found himself while careering along at a headlong speed towards his goal. This was the first service he had performed for his strange master—an easy and safe one apparently, though secret; the man’s fascination of manner or voice—which was it?—had evidently not lessened since his last appearance. Nothing special occurred; he gave the letter to a commonplace looking person at the door of an ordinary, rather shabby house, and returned by dawn. As to curiosity concerning his errand, it struck him as odd that he should feel none; yet he had never been of a gossipy turn of mind, and these things were, after all, only details in the scheme. This business of Lemoinne’s was probably connected with politics, about which he cared nothing. He did not see his patron again for months, and his work progressed wonderfully.

The next figure which bore the man’s likeness was that of a physician, pouring a liquid from one vial into another, and the expression was that of absorbed attention. The organ-case was to be ornamented with figures representing various saints, the patrons of music, of the Stromwaels, of the chapel, and of the city; then figures typifying the various city guilds; then nine figures emblematic of the traditional nine choirs of angels; but a space was left in the centre, just over the key-board, for the crowning masterpiece. A rose-tree hedge was to run round the instrument, and the pedals were each to be carved so as to represent the seven deadly sins, which, by being trodden under foot, contribute to make the music of the soul before God. Fantastic ideas and odd devices were constantly springing up in his brain and being realized beneath his touch, and in these he encouraged himself to indulge. In one corner of the case, however, was to stand a beautiful, dignified, venerable figure, the glorified likeness of his old master, with no corresponding figure opposite, and robed like a prophet, holding a tablet on which in letters of gold were to be carved in Latin these words: “Be master of thyself.”

His life as a solitary artist and mechanic was a monotonous one to record; even his few tests of obedience to Lemoinne were neither romantic nor terrible. Once he was sent in the disguise of a page to a court entertainment, with orders to follow and observe a high official of the state (who afterwards was proved a traitor and put to death accordingly); another time he was instructed to detain for half an hour a professor of one of the great universities, by which delay the man lost an appointment he much coveted; and another time he was sent to a young man of great position and wealth, but an orphan, to recommend a servant to him. From this, however, sprang some other circumstances worth recording. The young man, Count Brederode, took a violent fancy to him, visited him at his home, entered into his hopes and plans, and begged him to be a friend and brother to him. Nicholas felt drawn to the count, but reminded him of the difference between their stations, and only agreed so far as circumstances would allow. This young man was his very opposite—bright, garrulous, sociable. He always had a love affair on hand, and always confided it to Nicholas, whose words on the subject were never, however, very encouraging. He wasted his money in a way that distressed his prudent friend, and his time in a thousand pursuits for which he had no better excuse than that “gentlemen generally did so and so.” The best-employed part of his day was that which he sometimes spent watching Nicholas at work. At last one day he said suddenly:

“Do you know I am to marry Count Stromwael’s favorite niece, whom he brought up as a sister with his own only daughter? And upon this occasion I am going to ask him a favor, which I am sure he cannot refuse: to let you put up your organ in place of his, which I will take for my chapel in the country.”

Nicholas stared at him in silence. Was this a roundabout fulfilment of Lemoinne’s promise, or a wild, boyish freak, likely to result in nothing?

“Your organ is sufficiently far advanced to put up and play on, is it not?”

“It will be in six months.”

“Then six months hence you shall transfer your workshop to the chapel tribune,” said Brederode confidently.

Nicholas said nothing, but the other was used to that. The famous musician grew more silent every day; things got complicated in his mind, and he was always puzzling himself. His brain was clear only for his work; at all other times he walked in a dream of expectation, conjecture, and dread. Each day the seemingly light burden weighed more upon him; the horror of being entangled in conspiracies of which he was ignorant, and concerned in wrongs which he could neither prevent nor reconcile to himself, haunted him; and yet in actual facts there was nothing to complain of, nothing even to describe. It seemed incomprehensible to him that Lemoinne should have made so solemn an appeal and promise for so little reward, and should have used his power so sparingly. The very blandness of the passing years made him fear some awful test towards the last. Meanwhile, Brederode’s generous, boyish friendship cheered and soothed him. But a year after he first knew him, and two months after Count Stromwael had yielded to his nephew-in-law’s vehement pleading for the Verkloep organ, Nicholas, at work in the chapel, saw him enter with an unusually serious face. The young man began to make dark confidences on political subjects, which Nicholas instinctively repelled, and, without knowing why, he said:

“I entreat you, Count Brederode, do not make me the repository of plans and intentions that may end dangerously for you. I wish to know nothing of anything which is likely to make the state rake up all your habits and intimacies, and use them as the Philistines did Delilah.”

“I would sooner trust you than my own wife,” laughed the young man, “and no one will suspect such a maniac as you are, you know!”

“If you insist upon it,” said Nicholas sadly, “let me at least solemnly swear to you, by my hope of salvation, that nothing shall make me betray you in the slightest thing.”

“I would trust you without an oath,” cried Brederode.

“Then you are not of the stuff of which conspirators are made,” said Nicholas, “and I wish you would retire from a position unsuited to you. You have no interest even in it.”

“None but the fun of secrecy and excitement—except this,” he added more seriously: “that having once promised to give others the shield of my name and the support of my money, I am bound in honor not to run away.”

“True, but break with them honorably and frankly.”

“I cannot.”

“You _will_ not?”

“No, it is not that; there are other games almost as exciting, but my wife’s brother is involved, and I must stand by him. Let us treat it only as an escapade; I want to tell you about it.”

“I repeat my oath, then, and pray Heaven to strike me deaf, dumb, and palsied before I have anything to do in this to your disadvantage.”

“You make it so serious that it loses its fun. But....” And Brederode went on to explain a scheme which the spirit of the times and its prejudices alone made dangerous, but which, if frustrated and discovered, surely entailed capital punishment. Nicholas listened moodily, striving to abstract his mind, endeavoring not to take in his friend’s talk, and all the while feeling a miserable consciousness that, however it might come about, he was nearing one of the tests of his hateful bondage. The day passed, and he still felt uneasy; each step on the stairs frightened him; he could hardly work. At night Lemoinne came to see him. Few words passed; Lemoinne bade him in the same cool, metallic voice, indifferent yet compelling attention, denounce Brederode and his fellow conspirators. He pleaded his oath.

“No oath that conflicts with your promise is worth anything.”

“But he is my friend, and his wife the niece of my patron.”

“No harm shall come to you through denouncing him; your name will be unknown. You shall appear only as an agent—my agent—and not even Brederode himself shall have the chance of upbraiding you.”

“But, since you know the whole affair, why not act yourself?”

“I do not know the whole, but you do, and I mean you to tell me and write it down; I will sign it alone. I am known and have power in many places, but it is useful to have instruments; I have bought mine, and only wish to use what I purchased. Sit down and write.” Nicholas stood sullen and silent. “Do you fancy, because your organ is partly built and placed, that no accident may happen to it? I can do more than you think; you weigh an act with which no one but I shall be acquainted against the possible destruction of your favorite, the fall of your ambition, the collapse of your whole life.”

“No one can put it to me more forcibly than I have done to myself,” said Nicholas moodily; “but, unluckily for me, I have a conscience left.”

“Forget it for twenty-four hours.”

“You do not ask me to forget it, but to disregard it, to gag it. I know what I lose in breaking my bond, and I believe in your power sufficiently to be sure that even my friend would not have opportunity to rebuke me in life.”

“Why do you talk about it?” interrupted Lemoinne with the cold smile peculiar to him. “To discuss a thing, and weigh _pros_ and _cons_, is to yield; you do not reason against what you have made up your mind to refuse.”

Nicholas gazed at the man in horror. Who was he to go thus mercilessly to the heart of the question, to see his hidden thoughts, to interpret the secret of all the uneasiness he had felt ever since his friend had spoken those light but fatal words? Who? A master stronger than himself; one whom it was little use to resist now, no doubt, since he had not had the fortitude to resist him at first. It ended in his yielding, but not without the most terrible self-contempt; self-reproach was nothing to it. He wrote what he knew; as he wrote it all came back to him, much as he had honestly tried not to hear or understand the details. Lemoinne alone signed the paper, and bade him take it to a certain address before morning.

“If you change your mind or try to deceive me, I shall know it,” he said coldly as he left, “and all the difference will be that you will lose your hopes, as well as Brederode his life.”

Nicholas did as he was bidden, and from that day the little peace he had had before fled. The day of the execution came, and he could not resist going to see his friend pay the penalty of _his_ treachery. His tongue was parched and his eyes bloodshot; he skulked behind people in the crowd, and wore his cap as low as he could over his forehead; but nothing availed him, and when the axe fell he felt as if his own soul had been under it instead of the head of his friend. Feverishly and recklessly, all but despairingly, he returned to his work, but though his brain and hands had not lost their cunning, the impressions of that day clouded everything else in his mind, and he had no heart for anything. Two years sped on, and Nicholas Verkloep, with his glowing reputation, was more of an enigma than ever; but it would be impossible to describe the many phases of his mental _delirium tremens_ during that time. The organ was near completion, and Count Stromwael was now as proud of it as the maker. Lemoinne visited Nicholas once more before the end, and this time at the place where the contract was first made. It was the same hour, too. He began by congratulating him on his success so far, then examined the carvings, and smiled as he noticed his own face repeated many times.

“And here is Brederode’s,” he said, as he pointed to the figure personifying the Choir of Thrones. “What made you put him in?”

“Because, as you well know, his face is always with me,” said Nicholas, emboldened by his very complicity with his terrible master. “It was a relief to me to make the image a sort of reality, to give tangible expression to my remorse.”

“Yes; I see you have made the carvings a sort of history of your mind: I see the venerable prophet and the device he bears; the rose-hedge with the prominent and unnaturally-multiplied thorns; the haunting imps of dreams, your own face and mine, and so on. It is only a year and a few months now to the time when our contract ends, and hitherto we have kept it well. I think it likely we shall not meet again till the day is over. Nothing but silence now will be your burden. If you speak of or hint at anything of our transactions, remember the bond is cancelled; but, of course, after the expiration of the ten years you are free to publish the whole.”

He smiled scornfully, and, with another expression of admiration as to the work, left the tribune. It was now that Nicholas put in just over the key-board the groups of our Saviour and the twelve apostles (Judas, with the bag of money, bore Lemoinne’s likeness), but, instead of being, as they are at present, immovable, the figures went in and out by a spring hidden among the stops, so that at the Consecration they could be brought forward, and after the Communion return to the interior of the organ, in the same way as some of the famous figures of the clock in Strassburg Cathedral. The day of the public opening of the completed organ came, the tenth anniversary of the day of the contract, and the reader may imagine all the paraphernalia of a great mediæval _fête_, half-religious and half-secular.

Lemoinne sat among the guests at Count Stromwael’s banquet; it was the first time Nicholas had met him in public. The strange man seemed utterly unconscious that they had ever met before, and his eyes met the organist’s fully as he complimented him in set phrases and handed him a golden gift with a small roll of parchment attached. Stromwael laughed as he remarked:

“Is that the title-deed to a mortgaged estate, or a share in one of your ships?” Nicholas clutched it in silence and tried to smile; the talk around him seemed to point to his strange master being a banker, but he held to his first suspicions. As soon as he was alone he looked hastily at the hateful bond and thrust it into the fire. It seemed odd to him that he did not yet feel free; he had expected the release to be instantaneous. Weeks passed, and still the same old watchfulness and uneasiness went on. Brederode’s face came to him more constantly; all his faculties were centred in horrible recollections and vague and still more horrible expectations. All Flanders raved about the wonderful organ, and requests for similar ones made under his directions and supervision poured in from distant parts. He vowed to himself never to touch such a thing again, or even give directions for it; it was to his fancy an accursed thing, associated with all the horror and despair of his life. He refused all offers; and this grew to be even more of a mania with him than the making of the instrument had been before. Now that his dream had been fulfilled, he only longed to die; his servitude was still unbroken, though the letter of the bond was now a dead letter; he felt himself miserably fettered, haunted, paralyzed. To the rather imperious demand of Count Stromwael’s cousin, himself a powerful personage, for an organ with the same group of the twelve apostles, he returned a flat denial, and neither threats nor promises could shake him. At last the power of the two nobles combined threw him into prison; they made sure of reducing him to obedience by violence and temporary ill-treatment. The prison was what all mediæval dungeons were—damp, filthy, unhealthy, dark. His food was bread and water, and a very scanty measure of both. For a month he was treated as a criminal, but nothing made any impression on the moody, prematurely-aged man. He had made up his mind that only death would make him free, only death would make him able to explain and excuse himself to his dead friend. He cared for no bodily tortures; for ten years he had suffered a mental hell. His friends and his patrons came alternately to coax and tempt or to threaten and abuse him; he would not yield.

Neither wealth, marriage, nor a patent of nobility tempted him; neither the wheel, the rack, nor the block frightened him. He grew weaker and weaker. His eyes saw Lemoinne and Brederode all over the narrow cell; the one seemed like a fiend, and the other always like a corpse, with the head half-severed, yet still conscious with a kind of ghastly life. Physicians examined him and confidently pronounced him sane, and priests visited him and pronounced him certainly not possessed, but both agreed that something unusually terrible must be preying on his mind. He never told what he saw or felt, and answered all questions evasively. At last Stromwael, furious at his vassal’s obstinacy, threatened to put his eyes out and prevent him from ever taking pleasure in work again. He only said:

“You cannot take away my sight, even if you put out my eyes; would to God you could!”

Before this last measure was resorted to he received a visit from Lemoinne, who, in the calm tone of a cynic and a man of the world, begged him to reconsider his decision.

“Nothing could tempt me!” said Nicholas. “Not even you could compel me; it is not in the bond, and I am free.”

“Of course,” said the other, smiling. “I only ask you to yield for your own good. Why should you object?”

“Because the thing is accursed; it has wrecked my life, and I will have no more to do with it,” said Nicholas violently.

“But you are free now?”

“Am I?” said Nicholas, with savage meaning.

“You do me too much honor,” said Lemoinne sarcastically, “in believing my power to be supernatural. Shall I tell you who I am, and what was both my object and the secret of my influence?”

“You can tell what lies you like.”

“I dare say your superstition is greater than my falsehood,” said the man with a smile; “and if I told you, you would be convinced against your will and still remain of the same opinion. Well, you are free now, and show your freedom by throwing away the very gift you sold yourself to obtain.”

“If I could undo the past ten years,” said Nicholas, “I would give up not my organ only, but my art. But as it is, I shall never be free while I live, and I will do nothing that may save or lengthen my horrible life—a mockery, indeed, of freedom!”

“If that is your last decision, I will say no more,” said Lemoinne; “but remember, though our pact is over, I am still your friend, and, should you wish anything between this and death which your jailers would deny you, send me word.”

Nicholas looked at him in surprise and suspicion.

“Yes, they know me here by the same name as you do, and I can generally find means to do what I wish. It is not the first time I have been here or made a like offer to a condemned man.”

“I believe you,” said Nicholas shortly, and his visitor left him. Two days elapsed before the threat was carried into execution, but the prisoner, full of his own trouble, hardly dwelt upon the coming trial. He prayed wildly that the red-hot iron which was to take away his bodily sight would blot out his phantom companions from his mental vision; the horrors of his disturbed brain appalled him more than any earthly punishment, and his half-description or hints of it to one person who visited him constantly was such that the latter compassionately got leave for one of his jailers to sleep with him in his dungeon. The day of the horribly unskilful torture came, and with common iron rods, heated red-hot, the famous artist’s eyes were put out. He writhed and moaned, but the bodily pain was only a faint image of the agony of his mind. Was it madness? Was it possession? Were all the learned men wrong, and he alone right, in thinking that he carried hell within his brain? There was no peace from the gnawing remorse of his betrayal of friendship; no assurance that his repentance was of avail comforted him; no obstinate affirmations could make him feel that the unholy fetters of his bond were in truth broken. It was not his blindness that was killing him; it was his mania. He felt life ebbing, and was fiercely glad, yet at times furious that, with such gifts as his, he should go prematurely to the grave. A chaos of schemes floated through his brain and maddened him yet more: he saw a long array of the works he might have accomplished before he died—Masses, antiphons, fugues; the improvements in the organ-stops and the internal machinery of the instrument; a school he might have founded—if he had been content to rely upon his own industry and the slow path of trust in Providence. He had sold his birthright, and what was the farce of a ten years’ contract, when he knew that at this present moment even the wreck that was left of him was not his own? “If I am still his, at least he shall help me once more,” he thought suddenly, as Lemoinne’s offer occurred to his mind. “I will end this suspense at once.” He asked the man who brought him his meals to tell Lemoinne that he wanted him; and as he began the message he watched with fear and curiosity to see how it would affect the bearer of it. Strange! nothing but a common assent; evidently the request was not a novel one. Lemoinne came that very evening, and Nicholas asked him for a sharp knife. He produced his own, which Nicholas felt all over and took, saying:

“When you hear of my playing on my organ for the last time, come to the tribune and claim your knife. I shall make the request, and feel sure they will grant it.”

“What do you mean to do with the knife?”

“Nothing which _you_ would disapprove; but since you _say_ I am free, let me prove it by not answering this question.”

“I do not press you,” said Lemoinne with his usual icy smile. Nicholas felt the look he could not see, and his very heart seemed to tighten and writhe within him. He had guessed truly; when he asked Count Stromwael to allow him to play once more on the organ before he died—for he felt that he should not live long, he said—the request was quickly granted. His persecutors fancied that he would be less on his guard now, and that somehow, while he played, they could surprise the secret which they wanted to discover. He was taken to the chapel and seated before his instrument. Stromwael, his cousin, and Lemoinne were there, besides other less important persons. All watched eagerly. After half an hour’s playing, as divine as the player’s mind was storm-driven and despairing, Nicholas asked:

“Are the apostles out or in?”

“In,” was the answer.

He pressed a spring and the group came slowly out—our Lord’s figure from the centre, and those of six apostles from each side. Then, with a quick and deft touch, he cut something, and a snapping sound was heard within; his fingers moved again, the knife gleamed, and a wailing sound came from the notes on which his left arm now leaned; then, turning round with a smile of triumph that looked ghastly on the blank face and mutilated eye-sockets, he said:

“I am free now. I am ready to die.”

Lemoinne quickly took up the knife that Nicholas dropped, and smiled as if another character-play had come to an end and he had solved another riddle; Stromwael burst out into wild and furious threats of purposeless revenge. Nicholas sat unmoved and said:

“This organ will be my only monument, and, if a man’s curse can follow another, may mine follow whoever shall attempt to remove or to repair my organ.”

To this day the instrument stands a witness to the tradition of its maker’s fate; the group is immovable, and the few sounds the notes produce are worse than dumbness. Nicholas died two months after, in prison, his mind more and more delirious each day. It is said that, when Lemoinne heard of his death, he remarked to one of his associates:

“That man was the most perfect tool I ever knew. If I had sworn to him that I was a banker, a merchant, a usurer, a spy—an unscrupulous eccentric, whose one mania was the possession of secret power, and whose conscience was dead to any obstacle—he would still have believed in his own theory. But I own I overshot the mark and drove him too far.”

THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

The social, moral, and political influence of the German-born and German-descended population of the United States upon their fellow-citizens has already been perceptible; that this influence will vastly increase in the future is highly probable. We may state here one of the many reasons for this belief. The intellectual and political leaders of the Germans in America have hitherto mainly confined their public utterances, in the press or on the platform, to the German language. The German newspapers are very numerous; their circulation is large; they are written for the most part with much ability; their treatment of social and political questions is often marked by a breadth of view and a soundness of logic too frequently wanting in many of their English contemporaries. Their influence upon the minds of their readers is also greater than that wielded by the majority of our newspapers printed in the English language. We have heard this fact attributed to the superior honesty with which the German press is conducted; but upon this delicate ground we shall not enter. Our point at present is that German thought and opinion, as expressed through the German periodical press, influence for the most part only the German population. Few of us who are not Germans read a German journal; what the German leaders in politics, morality, and literature are saying, day after day, is for the most part wholly unknown to the rest of us. Occasionally an American editor translates a leading article from a German journal and gives it to his readers; still more frequently he avails himself of the ideas and the arguments of his German contemporaries and reproduces them as his own.

In the next generation this state of things will be modified; more Americans will read German literature, and more Germans, or German-Americans, will write in English journals, speak in English at public conventions, and sit in our legislative assemblies. The barrier of language, which has hitherto tended to separate Germans from the rest of us to so great an extent, will gradually yield and disappear. The German language will be learned by increasing numbers of our non-German citizens; the common use of the German language by the German-Americans will be dropped, and the English tongue adopted in its stead, not only in business affairs, but in politics, literature, religion, and social intercourse. The English language has made many conquests, but in America it has only to hold its own. It is the language of the country, of the legislature, of the courts, of the markets and exchanges, and of society. Our German citizens must acquire it, or enter handicapped into all the relations of life.

The ability with which the German journals here are conducted does not prevent nearly the whole of them which are not avowedly Catholic from being inspired by an antagonism to religion. The genius of the German mind has little sympathy with socialism or communism, and the theories of socialism and communism find expression among our German citizens only through the writings or speeches of a few insignificant and uninfluential men in New York and some of our other large cities. But the German who is not a Catholic is most often an atheist; and he differs from the French atheist in wishing his wife and children to be atheists also. The non-Catholic German press faithfully represents this phase of the German mind; and it sneers at religion with the same pertinacity and often with more skill than is shown in a like direction by too many of our English-written newspapers.

The total immigration into the United States from the close of the War of Independence to the end of 1876 was 9,726,455 souls. The records of the government do not furnish an ethnological classification of all these; it is only since 1847 that this classification has been made. But every one knows that the bulk of our immigrants have come from Ireland and Germany. At the port of New York alone the total number of Irish immigrants from 1847 up to September 1 of the present year was 2,009,447; of German immigrants 2,345,486; of all others 1,265,240. An estimated classification of those arriving before 1847, added to the above figures, gives 2,463,598 Irish, 2,622,556 German, and 1,542,311 of other nationalities. The present Secretary of the Interior is the only American citizen of German birth who has ever held a cabinet appointment; we believe that he is the only citizen of German birth who has ever sat in the Senate. But among the senators at the last session of the Forty-fourth Congress there were seven who were either of foreign birth or the sons of foreigners; and in the lower House of the same assembly there appears to have been but one German to twelve naturalized citizens of other nationalities. The Secretary of the Interior owes the prominent political position which he fills less to his statesmanlike and philosophical acquirements than to his command of the English language and to his grace and power as a public speaker. No doubt there are among our German citizens many who are his equals in learning and political wisdom, but who are almost wholly unknown outside the German-speaking community, for the reason that they confine themselves, on the platform or in the press, to the use of the German language. The coming generation of Americans of German descent will not subject themselves to this disadvantage; and thus the influence of German thought will be widened and deepened.

Upon this portion of our subject we may as well reproduce in substance, although not with literal exactness, the observations made to us by a German ecclesiastic, a member of one of the German religious orders which are working here with so much zeal and success. In his opinion the German element now in the United States will ere long be greatly increased by a revival of immigration. Immigration from Germany may not again attain the vast proportions which it reached in 1852–53–54, nor during the seven memorable years 1866–1872, but it will still be very large. All other things being equal, the proportion of Catholics immigrating from Germany will be greater in the future than in the past. In looking at the future of the country we should reckon that the German element here will for many years to come steadily and rapidly increase. But it is not probable that, after the passing away of the present generation, our German population will so tenaciously retain its distinctive national or ethnological features. It will become absorbed in, amalgamated with, the rest of the community, but through this very absorption and amalgamation it will leaven the whole mass for good or for evil; and most probably the good will preponderate.

In our present German population, especially the younger portion of it, there is a very perceptible disposition to be a little ashamed of their German origin. This feeling, which has long existed, received a check during and immediately after the triumph of Germany over France in 1870 and the erection of the German Empire. But it has now revived and prevails with more force than before. Our German citizens feel that the golden apples of victory have turned to ashes in the grasp of the conquerors. The milliards wrung from France have sunk into the ground or vanished in the air, and Germany is poorer than before the war—much poorer than France, which Prince Bismarck imagined had been crushed into nothingness. All the glory that Germany won by her conquest of France in the field has been eclipsed by the peaceful victory of France—a victory the effects of which were made manifest at our International Exhibition last year. More serious still than this, in the opinion of the learned and acute ecclesiastic whom we are quoting, is the dislike and contempt with which the iniquitous, unnecessary, and tyrannical policy of the German government toward the church is regarded not only by Catholic Germans in America, but by those of their non-Catholic compatriots here who are not swayed by sectarian hatred of the church. This policy is justly regarded as at once an evidence of weakness and a prolific source of future trouble, and among the non-Catholic German-Americans the remark is common that “between the Red-coats and the Black-coats—the Communists and the Catholics—the empire is in great danger of destruction.” For these reasons, and other slighter ones, our German fellow-citizens are becoming less and less disposed to boast of their nationality, and more and more inclined to Americanize themselves and their children. The “Watch on the Rhine” gives place to “Yankee Doodle”; the suggestive inquiry as to the precise locality and boundaries of the Faderland is not so popular as “Hail Columbia.” Certain considerations of a utilitarian nature aid powerfully in leading our German citizens in the same direction. Their common sense enables them to see that their own advancement in life, and the prosperity and happiness of their children, materially depend upon their thorough Americanization—their complete identification with the rest of the community in which they live. The first step towards this end is the acquirement and use of the English language, and in this the children often outstrip the wishes of their parents. In the German-American schools, secular as well as religious, the study of the English language is compulsory, and necessarily so. The children appear to have a natural affinity for the English tongue; they acquire its use rapidly and soon begin to speak it in preference to their native language. It is not uncommon to meet with families where the parents address the children in German and the children reply in English. The truth is that the English language as now spoken, largely Teutonic in its composition and structure, but enriched and softened by Celtic, Latin, and Greek accretions, more easily adapts itself to the expression of the necessities, the emotions, and the ideas of the age. An amusing illustration of this self-asserting power of the English language was afforded by the experience of a village in Indiana, on the Ohio River, which was settled a few years ago by an exclusively German colony consisting of about three hundred families. Nothing but German was at first spoken in the houses, but in a very brief space of time the language in the streets was found to be English, and ere long that became the prevailing dialect of the place, appearing, as one of the residents said, to have sprung up and taken root there just as the weeds in the fields.

We should not omit to mention, however, a fact which to a very large degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the Germans are richly endowed. The influence of the mother in the family is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect, looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income, and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune. The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; he shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on _fête_ days or on summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens. The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display, nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families, are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors. There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them; and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.

The limits of our space and the scope of our article forbid us to do more than merely glance at a branch of our subject which is in itself worthy of a separate essay—the influence exerted by our German fellow-citizens upon the rest of us by their works in music and in the fine arts. Here the barrier of language does not exist; the genius of music and of art is universal. A certain degree of cultivation of the ear and eye is necessary, of course; but, this being attained, the music of a German composer, the painting, the sculpture, the architecture, or the decoration of a German artist, is appreciated, admired, and imitated as well by those ignorant of his language as by those of his own nationality. There is reason to believe that American taste in music and in art owes vastly more to German influence than is generally supposed or conceded. Perhaps the strongest evidences of this would result from a critical examination of the extent to which German ideas have modified, enlarged, beautified, and spiritualized our architecture, our dramatic, domestic, and ecclesiastical music, and all those phases of our daily life wherein the fine arts play a part.

Among German-American architects may be mentioned G. F. Himpler, a student at Berlin and Paris, and a thoroughly-educated master of his art—the builder of fine churches in St. Louis, Detroit, Sandusky, Elizabeth, Rome (New York), Atchison, and other places; among historical painters, Leutz—now dead, but whose works at Washington and elsewhere have given him a national fame—Lamprecht and Duvenech (the latter a native of this country), Biermann and Lange; among decorative painters, Thien, Ertle, and Muer; among sculptors and designers, Schroeder, Allard, and Kloster—the latter a very distinguished young artist; among German singers, as well known here as in Germany, Wachtel, Hainamns, Lichtmay, and Tuska; among actors. Seebach, Janauschek, Taneruscheck, Lina Meyer, and Witt.

But we can only hint at these things, and hasten on to remark, in passing, that our German citizens, even more generally and zealously here than in Germany, seek to provide for and to secure the education of their children. “The first thing that a colony of German emigrants settling in America seeks to establish is the school,” said to us a high authority. “If they are Catholics, or even zealous Lutherans, the church is built simultaneously with the school; but in every case the school must be set up, and the children must attend it at whatever cost to the parents.”

Thus far we have written of our German population as a whole. We now turn our attention to that portion of it which belongs to ourselves—_i.e._, the German Catholics of the United States. United with us by the bond of faith, their welfare is especially dear to us, and in their spiritual and material progress, prosperity, and happiness we have a deep and abiding interest.

Prior to 1845 the German emigration to the United States had been numerically insignificant, and consisted chiefly of the peasant class. The revolution of 1848 had the effect not only of greatly increasing this emigration but of materially changing its character. An official report recently made by Dr. Engel, Director of the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin, states that the number of Germans who emigrated to the United States from 1845 to 1876, both years inclusive, was 2,685,430. Dr. Engel remarks that a very large proportion of these emigrants (considerably more than 1,000,000 of them) were “strong men”; there were few old or infirm people among them; those of them who were not adult males in the vigor of their manhood were chiefly young and middle-aged women and children. A goodly proportion of these emigrants must now be living among us; we know by the census of 1870 that our German-born population even then numbered 1,690,410. The German race is hardy and prolific; its women are good mothers; their thrift, industry, and economical habits enable them to live in comfort upon modest resources; without being teetotalers, they are seldom intemperate. The German-born and German-descended population of the United States at present—including in the latter class only those whose parents on both sides or on one side or the other were natives of Germany, but who were themselves born here—is believed to be about 5,500,000 souls. The great bulk of this population is in the Central, Western, and Northwestern States; the six States of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Missouri contain nearly two-thirds of the whole number.[86]

The German Empire as at present constituted contained at the latest census (1875) 42,723,242 people. Of these not quite one-third are Catholics. Had the immigration from the states which now form the German Empire borne this proportion, we should have in the United States a German Catholic population of about 1,800,000 souls. But the immigration was largely from the Protestant states, or from those in which the Protestants were in the majority. We should be satisfied, and more than satisfied, when we learn that the German Catholics in the United States, according to the latest and most accurate computation, numbered 1,237,563 souls. It is a very large number—large enough to establish the fact that the Catholic Germans arriving here have not lost their faith, but have preserved and guarded it for themselves and their children. These 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are not mythical or hypothetical persons; in making up the numeration care was taken to include only those who were known as practical Catholics, frequenters of the sacraments, careful observers of their duties as Catholic parents or Catholic children. In this connection we may add some figures for which we are indebted to the courtesy of a German priest and statistician, and on the accuracy of which our readers may depend. First, however, let us state, upon the best authority, that the church in America loses very few of her German children. We were extremely gratified with the unanimous testimony which rewarded our inquiries on this matter. It very rarely occurs that a young German Catholic of either sex strays or is stolen from the fold. Neither the false philosophy of the infidel or Protestant German schools, nor the seductions and ridicule of their infidel or Protestant American neighbors, lure them from the faith. We have observed in our own visits to the German churches in New York, especially at the early Masses, the large proportion of male adult worshippers. “Our old people, of course, never leave us,” said a learned German priest, “and our young people rarely, very rarely, stray away. They are faithful in their duties, and they appear to love their religion with all their hearts. When they marry and have children, they look after them as Catholic parents should do. Our parochial schools are well attended; our higher schools and academies are prosperous. Our teaching orders, of men and women, have their hands full of work, and they are almost without exception well supported. One of the bishops in a Western diocese, the greater part of whose flock are Germans, has the happiness of knowing that all the children of his people are in attendance either in his parochial schools or in other schools of which the teachers are Catholics.”

Our 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are ministered to in spiritual things by 1,373 German priests. They have 930 church edifices, while there are 173 other congregations of them regularly visited by priests, but as yet without church buildings. The whole number of Catholic priests in the United States, according to the _Catholic Directory_ for this year, is 5,297, of churches 5,292, and of chapels and stations 2,768. Thus it will be seen that the German priests number a little more than one-fourth of our American ecclesiastical army. There is a German priest for every 900 German Catholics. How faithfully they discharge their duties, and how zealously the people, on their part, assist their pastors, may be estimated by the fact that the baptisms by these German priests last year numbered 71,077—an average of more than one each week for each priest; and that the number of children in the German parochial schools was 137,322—an average of almost exactly 100 children for each priest. The following table will show with approximate exactness the number of German Catholic priests and German Catholic laymen in the various States or dioceses:

_Priests_. _Laymen_.

New York 149 134,100

Baltimore 103 92,700

Pennsylvania 75 67,500

Ohio 200 180,000

Indiana 132 118,800

Michigan 33 29,700

Kentucky 43 38,700

Wisconsin 163 146,700

Kansas 13 11,700

Illinois 135 121,500

Missouri 80 72,000

Minnesota 74 69,600

Louisiana 38 34,200

Other 135 120,363 localities

—— ————

1,373 1,237,563

The education of the juvenile portion of this large army of German-American Catholics is partly in the hands of the teaching orders of the church, male and female; partly in the hands of the parish priests; and partly confided to private instructors. The “German Sisters of Notre Dame,” for example, 923 in number, in 79 congregations, have charge of the parochial schools and instruct 25,557 children. They have also 15 academies, in which 1,375 pupils are receiving higher education; and 11 orphan asylums with 1,400 children. Another branch of the same sisters have their houses in 17 congregations, and in these 63 teaching sisters are instructing 9,000 children; they have also 3 academies with 700 pupils. The German Franciscan Sisters, in 19 congregations, have 53 teaching sisters educating 5,700 children; and one academy. The Sisters of the Precious Blood, in 11 congregations, employ 17 of their number in teaching 900 children. The German Dominican Sisters, whose houses are in New York, Williamsburg, and Racine, Wisconsin; and the Sisters of Christian Charity, at Melrose and elsewhere, are among the many religious orders chiefly engaged in educational work among the German Catholics. Prince Bismarck has done us a very good turn without wishing it. The expulsion of the religious orders of men and women caused by the persecution of the church in Germany compelled these servants of God to seek new homes. Many of these orders already had houses in this country; driven from Germany, they found not merely a refuge but a warm welcome and abundant work with their brothers and sisters here. Others of them, not previously established in this country, and being robbed by the paternal government of Prussia of all their property, arrived here in poverty; but they were joyfully received and speedily supplied with means for commencing their work in these new and inviting fields. The German branch of the Christian Brothers—“Christliche Schulbrüder”—has experienced a marvellous growth, and is accomplishing splendid results in the primary and higher education of the German Catholic youth.[87]

A visit to a German Catholic church can scarcely fail to be interesting and profitable to an American Catholic. He will see much that is edifying and highly pleasing. The congregations at the early Masses on week-days—we speak now only of what we have ourselves observed in New York—are generally large and are composed of a fair share of men; at all the Masses on Sundays the attendance is still more numerous. On days of obligation, other than Sundays, these churches are thronged to their utmost capacity; at the nine o’clock Mass on last Corpus Christi we saw the great Church of the Redemptorists, on Third Street, packed from the altar rails to the doors, and even the spacious vestibule filled with kneeling worshippers. On this occasion, as on many others, nearly or quite one-half of the congregation were men—a fact which we emphasize, as it contradicts the mistaken idea that the faith is losing its hold upon our men and is mainly cherished only by women. There are thirteen German Catholic churches in this city. The good sense, thrift, and wise management of the Germans have borne their natural fruit in their churches and religious houses as well as elsewhere. For example, attached to each of the two Capuchin churches is a large, handsome, and substantial convent for the use of the fathers and for their schools. We were astonished at the extent, the good arrangement, and the solidity of these edifices, and our astonishment was not lessened when we learned that they had both been erected within the last ten years.

It would be well, we think, if the relations between our German Catholics and the rest of us were made more close and intimate. The bond of faith, we know, unites us in all essential things; but it would be well for us to come nearer together in every way. Our German co-religionists are worthy of all esteem. They are already strong in numbers. They will constantly became stronger. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ recently contained a most interesting summary of a report made by Vice-Consul Kruge upon the subject of German emigration. We quote the following portion of this summary:

“Emigration from Germany, particularly to the United States, increased steadily after the memorable year 1848, and assumed very large proportions immediately after the chances of a war between Austria and Prussia in 1852 and 1853. The largest number of emigrants of any year left in summer, 1854, or after the declaration of the Crimean war—the United States alone receiving 215,009 German immigrants in that year. There appears a considerable falling off from 1858 to 1864, but already in 1865, when a probability of a war between Austria and Prussia became more and more visible, the number of emigrants began to increase very much. The years from 1866 to 1870, most likely in consequence of the suspicious relations between France and the North German Confederation, which ultimately brought on the war in 1870, give very large figures. Even the year 1870 has the large number of 91,779 emigrants. ‘Strange to witness,’ says Consul Kruge, ‘after the close of the Franco-German war, when the German Empire had been created, and a prosperity seemed to have come over Germany beyond any expectation, when wages had been almost doubled, and when, in fact, everything looked in the brightest colors, a complete emigration fever was raging in all parts of Germany’; and the years 1871, 1872, 1873 show an almost alarming tendency to quit the Fatherland. This movement would no doubt have continued but for the natural check it received through the financial and commercial crisis in the United States. There are however, at present again unquestionable signs that a very large emigrating element is smoldering in Germany, stimulated by political and economical embroilments which will break forth as soon as sufficient hope and inducements offer themselves in transatlantic countries in the eyes of the discontented and desponding Germans. The general political aspect and the decline of German commerce and industry at the present period are, observes Consul Kruge, such that an emigration on a large scale must be the natural consequence of the ruling state of affairs. Among other illustrations of the causes of a desire on the part of the Germans to leave their native land, Consul Kruge mentions the religious ‘Kulturkampf,’ which, he says, in its practical results may, at least up till now, be rightly termed an unsuccessful move on the political chessboard, and has been brought home by degrees to the Roman Catholic population in an irritating, harassing form. Between the priests on the one hand and the Government on the other the lives of the Roman Catholic peasantry are made one of ‘perfect torment’; and these people naturally desire to leave that country where, rightly or wrongly, they believe their religion attacked or endangered. The relations between France and Germany also act powerfully to promote emigration, and the huge expenses of maintaining the army, besides a navy of considerable size, contribute to swell the emigration tendency of the country. Consul Kruge thinks that if the Australian colonies care to have the largest portion of the coming German emigration, at no time have they had a better chance of creating an extensive movement to their shores than at present.”

These remarks strongly confirm the opinions expressed by ourselves when writing on the same subject four months ago.[88] But when the wave of German emigration again rises to its former height, it will turn toward this country, as before, and not to Australia. Here the German population is already so large and so well-to-do that the new-comers will find themselves at home upon their arrival. Especially will the United States be attractive to the German Catholics; for here they will find their exiled priests and nuns, already settled in their new homes, with churches and schools prepared for them. The return of moderate prosperity to the United States will probably give the signal for the commencement of the new German exodus; and we are scarcely too sanguine in believing that this return to prosperity will not be delayed much longer.

AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.

The city lights still glimmered in the square, Shivered with morning’s chill the winter air, Scarce yet the eastern line of light broke through The starlit darkness of the deep skies’ blue.

Upon the sparkling snow clear shadows lay The moon flung eastward,—as if so the day, Whose unseen coming seemed to fill the air, They yearning sought with outstretched arms of prayer.

A sound of bells from far-off towers broke, The frosty silence with their pealing woke, And answering bells flung back across the sky The Christmas morning’s glad, earth-echoed cry.

Dark, muffled figures with quick, constant tread O’er glittering ice and snowy pathway sped— A gathering train, crowding from lane and street, To lay love’s homage at the Child-Christ’s feet.

A soft gleam from the church’s windows fell Across the square, as if in peace to tell Of light less clouded shining pure within, Of peace more eloquent cleansed souls should win.

As, with the thronging crowd, my feet drew near The open doorway whence the light streamed clear, The accents of a language not my own Broke through the hurrying footsteps’ monotone—

Quick-spoken words of soft Italian speech: So far the simple utterance seemed to reach, To Roman skies my dreaming thoughts it bore, While home’s familiar walls new aspect wore.

Seemed it almost, beneath that dark of dawn, As if my feet fell Roman pavement on, The lights that twinkled through the open door Burning some altar, centuries old, before,

Whose glow, in truth, fell soft on northern fir O’er whose dark shadow shone the face of her, The lowly Mother-Maid, Lady of Grace, Foligno’s Queen watching the holy place.

And shrined within lay martyr-saint of Rome— Vial and bones from ancient catacomb Of that far city that seemed far no more, Whose faith and speech met at the low church-door.

Seeming that speech true witness of the peace Won years ago, when weary earth’s release The angels chanted in the midnight sky, And earth’s Redeemer waked with infant cry:

He who had come the narrow bonds to break Of race and nation, who frail flesh did take That Jew and Gentile might one Father claim, And win all sweetness through one Brother’s name.

Scarce foreign seemed the stranger’s vivid word; Nay, rather was it as if so I heard The Christian speech of some old saintly age Claiming in faith an earlier heritage.

Before one altar soon our knees should bend, In one heart’s-worship soon our prayers ascend, Within those sacred walls—our common home— As children kneel of one true mother—Rome.

One faith was ours, one country all our own, Wherein all petty landmarks are o’erthrown: Not worshipping as Latin, Saxon, Gaul— The children of one God who made us all.

Ours an inheritance so full and great, Each lowliest handmaid clothed in royal state; No heart so poor but that it throne may be For Heaven’s King in his infinity.

From Rome this guerdon of our faith we hold: What though its light o’er broken seas is rolled? Unfaltering it shines through storm-clouds’ shade, Unfailing beacon! by God’s Spirit fed.

A foreign faith! Ay, so, of that strange land Whereof as citizens our free souls stand, Whose earthly pasture is the church’s shrine— Earth’s limits lost within her realm divine.

A SWEET REVENGE.

CONCLUSION.

IV.

At this moment the door-handle was touched on the outside, and M. Rouvière sprang hastily from his chair and stationed himself with his back to the fire, looking very straight and stiff and aggressive. The door slowly opened and Mme. Dupuis entered, pushing out, at the same time, the unfortunate cat which was trying to slip in with her.

“No, no, pussy,” said the lady, “you got yourself turned out, and you must stay out. O the naughty men!” she exclaimed, laughingly, as she closed the door, “they have been smoking.”

“Have we been smoking?” said Rouvière, sniffing. “Bless me! I really believe we have; it shows how absent-minded one can be. I hadn’t perceived it, so absorbed were George and I in our great project.”

“What project?” asked madame as she took off her hood and cloak. “Are you going to stay with us, M. Rouvière?”

“Not exactly,” replied the guest, “but for George and me the result is the same. Are you good at guessing riddles, madame?”

“You are not going to take George away with you, are you?” asked the wife, her brown eyes resting firmly on his.

“With your permission, dear lady,” answered Rouvière, bowing with ironical politeness.

“No, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, with a forced, flickering smile, looking at him inquiringly and speaking low and hurriedly. “You will think me very silly to take a joke so seriously, but I cannot help it. You are playing with my life-spring. Tell me—I pray you tell me, dear M. Rouvière, that you are _not_ going to take my husband away.”

“I shall certainly leave his heart with you, my dear lady,” answered the triumphant friend, “but it is a fact that I am going to carry off his body for a while. The long and the short of it is this: for some time past George has been meditating a return to the land of the living, and he is glad to seize this opportunity to start at once, thus obviating all minor hindrances.”

Mme. Dupuis listened silently, her eyes cast down; she had not taken a seat since her entrance into the room, and she continued standing, leaning against an arm-chair in front of her guest.

“It is true, then,” she murmured when Rouvière ceased speaking.

“Do you hear him?” cried her tormentor, laughing, as a heavy thump was heard on the floor of the room above them. “The madcap! what a row he is making up there with his trunk. He’s dragging it about as if it were a triumphal car. Come, now, madame, you really ought not to feel surprised that, after living thirty consecutive years in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, a man like George....”

“Do not trouble yourself to enter into any explanations—I understand,” interrupted Mme. Dupuis dryly. “Where are you taking him?”

“Why, to tell the truth, my dear lady, everywhere; first....”

“For how long a time?” again interrupted the victim.

“How long? Well, a year, perhaps, or two years ... at most. Ah! my dear Mme. Dupuis, what pleasant hours he is preparing for you,” continued M. Rouvière, who waxed each minute more and more vainglorious and jubilant. “How vastly will your remarkable collection of curiosities be enriched by his few months of travel! He will bring you back a dozen authentic reliquaries, and as many rosaries, blessed by the Holy Father himself ... _propria manu_! What say you to that?”

But Mme. Dupuis had ceased to listen; she had thrown herself into the arm-chair before her and was weeping bitterly. “O my God! my God!” were the only words she spoke between her sobs.

“Good!” growled Rouvière, scowling at the unhappy woman—“the elegiac style. Come, now,” he continued, making a step towards her and forcing himself to speak gently—“come, now, my dear lady, you are not reasonable. What is all this crying about? A journey. A journey don’t kill a man; am not I a proof of that? And, good God! sailors’ wives—what do they do? Really, this is too bad; you are placing _me_ in a most annoying position, madame,” suddenly changing his gentle tone to one of vexation. “You are rendering my mission excessively painful.”

“Excuse me, sir,” sobbed the stricken wife, raising her wet face for a moment. “You see I ... I can’t....” She could not go on.

M. Rouvière began to pace the room angrily; his tactics were at a loss, and he found his task more difficult than he had anticipated; the little “_provinciale_” did not resemble the old Indian vixen as much as he had imagined. Presently he stopped in front of the weeping lady. “You are doing, madame,” said he sternly, “precisely what I was instructed to tell you George wishes to avoid.”

“Shall I not see him before he goes?” asked Madame Dupuis with a frightened look, half-rising from her seat as she spoke.

“You shall see him, if you can recover your equanimity,” replied Rouvière; “if you cannot, it will be better for you and for him not to meet. His resolution is not to be changed.”

“Oh! I will be calm, I promise you,” exclaimed the wife, great drops flowing fast down her pale cheeks; “in a few minutes ... give me a few minutes more.... I cannot ... all at once.... O God! merciful God!” Again she wept despairingly.

“I am compelled to make the remark, madame,” observed Rouvière harshly, “that all this despair is quite out of proportion with the cause. The deuce take it! I’m not carrying your husband off to the war.”

“No, no; I believe that he will come back again,” sobbed Mme. Dupuis, trying to wipe away her tears.

“You are a pious woman, madame, and now’s the hour to show your piety. Religion does not consist in only going to church. You are not to think of yourself solely in this world.”

“But you see, M. Rouvière,” replied the good little woman, making a great effort to control her emotion, “he’s not accustomed, like you, to a life of continual fatigue; his health is more delicate than you suspect. You will take care of him,” she added, suddenly seizing her enemy’s right hand with both of hers—“you will take care of him, will you not?”

“Why, certainly, madame, certainly,” answered Rouvière a trifle more gently; “you may rely on me for that. I promise to bring him back to you as fresh and rosy as any lad in Cotentin. I give you my word of honor. You understand me, do you not? But now, I beg you, let us have no more tears, especially no scene at parting.”

“I will do all you wish me to do.” And Mme. Dupuis forthwith smiled tearfully on the hard, cold man who had so wantonly upset her happiness.

“Look,” she cried presently, as she wiped away the last hot drops, “it can’t be perceived that I have been crying.”

“That’s right, madame; that’s the way! I’ve great esteem for strong, single-hearted women; for wives who are truly Christian and self-sacrificing. And now that you’ve recovered your calmness, allow me to repeat to you that there really never was any reason for such great grief. What is a year? Gracious heavens! it is nothing. You will probably spend six months of it with your daughter, and the remaining six months you will pass here in the midst of your remembrances. George will not be more than half absent, for everything around you will bring him constantly before you; you will meet him at every step!”

“Take care, sir, take care!” said Mme. Dupuis, shaking her head at him with a faint smile, “lest, while you seek to comfort me, you increase the pain, ... which you cannot understand!”

“I beg your pardon, madame; I understand it perfectly,” replied Rouvière, an angry gleam lighting up his eyes for an instant, “and I thought that I was proving to you that I do.”

“O sir! believe me, I wish to cast no reflection either on your intelligence or your kindness; be quite sure of that!”

“Madame!” exclaimed the gentleman.

“But there _are_ things,” continued Mme. Dupuis, giving at last free utterance to her feelings—“there _are_ things which are _not_ to be _guessed_. Have you thought how different your life has been to ours? You have been very wise; you have never allowed your heart to be bound by any of those ties whose number and strength are only recognized when they come to be broken. Yes, you may well say that everything here, the very hearthstone itself, forms a part of our united lives, of our remembrances, making our very thoughts the same. Everything around us loves us, everything is dear to us.... So, at least, I believed until now! A few minutes ago how dearly I prized the simple objects this room contains—all so familiar to us both during so many years, all bearing traces of our habits; each one reminding us of the projects, the pleasures, the sorrows we have shared together! And now they are nothing to me—they _can_ be nothing to me but the ruins of a false happiness, the wrecks of a dream!”

“Really, madame, you exaggerate strangely,” replied Rouvière coldly; “admitting that this journey throws a shade over the present, the past, at least, remains intact.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” returned Mme. Dupuis. “This journey is doubtless not much in itself, but it answers cruelly a question which I have been accustomed to ask myself in secret nearly all my life: Is George happy? No, he was not happy; I alone was happy. I know the truth at last! He was resigned”—she struggled a moment to contain her emotion—“but he was not happy. And yet my heart—I feel it, I am sure of it—was worthy of his; in every other respect I was inferior to him, and I felt it bitterly. What companionship could a mind like his find in the conversation of a poor, provincial girl, ignorant of everything, knowing nothing but how to love him?”

“You undervalue yourself,” remarked her attentive listener; “as for me, I declare that the more I know you, the better I appreciate George’s choice of a wife.”

“You flatter me, M. Rouvière,” replied Mme. Dupuis, smiling; “you see me unhappy, and you are generous. I will be so too, and forgive you all the pain you have occasioned me.... I have hated you for years.”

“Me? Impossible! What had I done to deserve it? But first tell me”—and his voice was quite kind and gentle—“you feel better now, do you not? I don’t know how it is, but really you look ten years younger!”

“Possibly,” said Mme. Dupuis, with a quiet smile; “I think that I am a little feverish—so much the better!”

“Come, come, cheer up! And tell me, now, what painful part have I played in your existence?”

“Well, M. Rouvière,” she began calmly, but became more and more excited as she went on, “I need scarcely tell you that every woman, from the very morrow of her wedding-day, finds herself in presence of a formidable rival—her husband’s _unmarried_ life. Nor need I explain how difficult is the task to make him forget all that he has given up for his wife; how almost impossible it is to allay his regret for the golden age that is gone—regret which grows stronger as those past days recede farther and farther into the distance and youth fades away. I, sir, soon perceived that _your_ name, incessantly on his lips, was George’s favorite symbol of lost pleasures—the incarnation of all the illusions of by-gone years. In his dear thoughts _you_ represented liberty, adventure, and the days of fleeting sorrows and of infinite hopes; while _I_—I was positive life, paltry domestic economy, and daily anxiety. _I_ was prose and _you_ were poetry. It was with you then that I had to struggle, and I did so with all my strength and with all my soul. Alas! it was in vain; you were stronger than I. Each day George grew more thoughtful, and it seemed to me as if every one of those moments of sadness was a triumph for you. How often have I wept secret tears over my defects, here, seated by this hearthstone, or under the willow-trees in our little garden! But I was young then, and God took pity on me and gave me my daughter, and you were overcome. Now”—her voice fell and she paused a moment—“now the angel of our home is gone, and victory is once more yours.”

“Who knows?” replied Rouvière, his voice strangely hoarse and trembling. “The last word is not yet spoken. You are going to see George. Speak to him. You can still prevent his journey.”

“I have promised you that I will not try to do so,” she answered gently.

“But I give you back your promise!” cried her guest vehemently. “I will not be your evil genius. I am abrupt, madame, selfish too, sometimes—that’s a bachelor’s profession, you know; but I am not bad—pray, believe it.”

“I do believe it,” she replied, looking him frankly and smilingly in the eyes, “but I know George. All my efforts would be useless; they would irritate him, and nothing more. Besides, even if, by dint of tears, I could keep him at home, I would not do it now. I should only be adding another new and bitter regret to those which have already poisoned his life. And my heart would seem to reproach me with my victory every time that I saw him silent or sad. No; he must go!”

“All you say is true—too true,” said Rouvière after a short pause. “There is nothing to reply; you are right. But depend on me, madame, to shorten his absence.”

“I will depend on you; thank you.” She rose from her seat as she spoke and offered her hand to him. The repentant guest clasped it in both of his and kissed it, bowing low as he did so. At the same moment a loud noise as of something falling down the stairs, followed by a great confusion of tongues, was heard outside.

“My God! what is the matter?” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, pale as death. “It is he; I hear his voice!”

She rushed towards the door, but before she could reach it her husband entered, boiling over with passion, and followed by Marianne.

“You’re an awkward dunce! Be silent, I command you!” he shouted, as the maid tried to excuse herself. “You can’t make me believe that you find this trunk, which has nothing but a few shirts in it, too heavy for you to carry. The stupid creature,” he continued, turning to his wife, “actually let my trunk roll from the top to the bottom of the staircase!”

“Well, the fact is,” cried Marianne, “ever since you told me that you were going to Rome I’ve lost all strength in my arms and legs. I’ve no strength at all. Going to Rome, indeed! What next?”

“The woman is crazy,” said Dupuis, red with indignation. “What business is it of yours, I should like to know?”

“I don’t say that it’s my business,” replied the maid, who was as red and angry as her master, “but, all the same, it’s a queer idea to leave mistress here all alone, at her age too, while you go to Rome. You’ll be lucky if you find her again when you come back. _I_ won’t answer for it.”

“Marianne, take care!” cried Dupuis, who had listened, speechless with amazement, to his old servant’s impertinence. “You must see that I am far from pleased.”

“I’m not surprised at that,” returned she; “you’re not pleased with others, because you’re not pleased with yourself. That’s always the way.”

“I dismiss you from my service,” cried her master, in a fury.

“Go down stairs directly, Marianne,” said her mistress sternly.

“I dismiss you,” repeated Dupuis; “though they should be the last words I have to speak in my own house, they shall be obeyed. I dismiss you from my service! It is your fault also, my dear Reine,” he added when the maid had gone from the room; “you allow your servants to be too familiar with you. You see the consequence. I hope you understand that I have dismissed that woman?”

“Yes, George,” answered the lady gently; “I will settle her wages to-morrow morning, if you do not change your mind.”

“Change my mind!” exclaimed her husband. “Am I accustomed to change my mind every five minutes? Am I a weathercock, or do you deem me so weakened by age that I can submit to be lectured by my own servants?”

“I beg you, dear, not to say another word on the subject. She shall go away to-morrow. But I want to know, George, if you have all you need. Let me look into your trunk, will you? Men don’t know much about wearing-apparel, and when one is travelling the merest trifle that is missing suffices to put one out of sorts for the whole day. I know that you can buy whatever you want, but where’s the use when you can avoid it? And then, too, I wish to make you think of me all the time, you gadabout!”

“Do as you like, love,” said George; “here are the keys.”

“Well, Tom,” he continued, when the lady had closed the door behind her, “it seems to me that she received the news very well indeed.”

“Perfectly; do you know, George, your wife possesses some great qualities?”

“I know she does,” returned Dupuis, looking inquisitively at his friend’s serious, almost downcast countenance.

“She is shy and excessively timid, and that does her wrong,” went on Rouvière.

“I told you so, my dear friend,” cried Dupuis eagerly. “She was afraid of you at dinner. Now, I would bet any sum that, the ice once broken, you hardly recognized her.”

“It is true. Under the influence of deep emotion—for I will not conceal that she was at first very much affected—she found expressions, directly from her heart, which astonished me.”

“She has plenty of heart, that’s certain!” exclaimed the gratified husband.

“And you may add,” said his friend, “that she possesses a most refined and elevated mind.”

“I know it, Tom—I know it well!” cried Dupuis with delight. “I’m not a blockhead, hey? Do you suppose that I should have married her, if I had not known all that? And if it had to be done again, I should do it again. I am not only happy in the woman I have chosen, Tom, but I am proud of her! She has some slight defects—I see them as well as any one—but, bless me! of what consequence is a little awkwardness, or perhaps a few parish prejudices, when you find in the same woman the most self-sacrificing tenderness, the most exquisite good sense and uprightness, the most fervent and unassuming piety—in short, all the virtues that can captivate an honest man?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Rouvière, slapping him caressingly on the shoulder. “An honest man—there you are! Well, well! all right.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dupuis, astonished.

“I mean,” replied Rouvière, “that the conclusion of your little speech is perfectly clear: thinking better about our journey, and estimating more coolly the value of the treasure that remains in the house, you have lost the courage to leave it. In short, you are about to let me go away alone.... I can understand perfectly that it should be so.”

“But I swear ...” cried Dupuis.

“Say no more, say no more,” interrupted his friend. “I understand it all perfectly, I tell you.”

“You _mis_understand, you mean,” said Dupuis angrily. “I have never, for one moment, forgotten my wife’s good qualities, but, were she ten times the saint she is, it is not less true that I have been living the life of a snail. Good heavens! I shall be better able to appreciate her many virtues when no consciousness of intellectual degradation is present to spoil my enjoyment.”

“You are too absurd, George! You make me laugh with your ‘intellectual degradation.’”

“You did not laugh half an hour ago,” retorted Dupuis, “when you depicted it in colors ... well, in colors which not even your friendship for me could soften.”

“Is it possible that you did not perceive that I was jesting? How singular it is that there’s not an intelligent man in France who, if he is condemned to live in the provinces, far from Paris, does not fancy that he is becoming idiotic! I had a presentiment that you suffered from this monomania, and I amused myself by exciting it. I had been drinking, you know; let that be my excuse.”

“However that may be,” answered Dupuis, a cold, stubborn expression stealing over his face and fixing itself there, “I am more than ever resolved to travel; if I hesitated before, I do so no longer. I confess that I was afraid of the effect my intention would produce on my wife, but her calmness removes all my scruples.”

“Listen to me, George, I beg you,” replied his friend earnestly: “don’t trust too much to appearances; your wife affects a firmness she is far from feeling. I know....”

“_You know_!” interrupted Dupuis. “You know that you begin to think that I shall be in your way, and so you want to cast me over.”

“No, George, no—nothing of the kind. You don’t understand me. I sincerely believed, from what you said, that you had changed your mind. I thought that I was anticipating your wishes in giving back your promise to go with me. But if you really persist in your intentions, all right ... I am delighted.”

“Here are the horses,” bawled Marianne, opening the door suddenly and then shutting it with a bang.

“That old woman would take my life, if she could,” said Rouvière, laughing. “Now, then,” he continued, taking up his cloak, “let’s gird up our loins. By the bye, I think I remember that you never can sleep in a coach.”

“I beg your pardon, I can sleep perfectly well.”

“So much the better. _Allons!_ Bravo! Are the horses put to, I wonder? Does this window look out upon the street?” Rouvière opened the sash as he spoke, but closed it quickly. “What a wind! It’s terrible—cold enough to split a rock! Now I think of it, one of the glasses of the post-chaise is broken. I’m afraid you’ll be frozen to death, George.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about me,” replied Dupuis, putting on his overcoat. “I can bear cold like a Laplander.”

“All right!”

The clock at this moment struck nine, and Madame Dupuis entered the room, carrying a soft India shawl suspended from her arm. The poor lady was very pale.

“Everything is ready,” she said with a trembling voice, “and here are your keys, dear. You will see that I have added some few little things that you had forgotten. And here is a comforter for you. I’ve cut my old cashmere shawl in two, and half of it will be very nice to wrap round your throat; it is very warm.”

“How foolish of you to cut up your shawl!” cried Dupuis. “However, since ’tis done, I accept; but it really was very foolish of you.”

“Here is the other half for you, M. Rouvière,” said madame, presenting it with a kind smile.

“For me!” cried Rouvière, taking it from her with respectful eagerness. “Thank you, thank you most sincerely!”

“You will remember your promises, will you not?” asked the lady gently, fixing her eyes on his.

Rouvière bowed and turned away abruptly.

“You will write to our daughter, George? You will not fail?”

“I will write to her—to both of you—often, often,” answered George in a husky voice, and pulling his travelling-cap over his eyes.

“The 12th of January!” suddenly exclaimed Rouvière, who was warming his feet at the fire, while he examined an almanac placed on the chimney-piece. “Is it really the 12th of January to-day?”

“It really is,” replied Mme. Dupuis. “Why do you ask? Is there any particular remembrance attached to that date?”

“It is a date which interests me only,” replied Rouvière in a tone of infinite sadness. “Five years ago this very evening, almost at this same hour, I was passing through an ordeal I shall never forget. Now, George, _are_ you ready?” he added with abrupt impatience.

“What kind of an ordeal? What had happened to you? An accident?” asked George, with intense interest.

“No, not an accident, but I was very ill, which is always a misfortune—and ill in an inn, which is horrible.”

“People are ill everywhere,” remarked Dupuis sententiously.

“True; but the impressions made on you by sickness and death vary according to the circumstances in which they surprise you; you can scarcely conceive how much, unless you have had the experience.”

“Pshaw! death is death under all circumstances; it is always equally unpleasant!” cried Dupuis.

“Ah! you think that.... I should like to have seen you.... Well, I’ll tell you my story. It happened at Peschiera, on the Lago di Guardia—a lovely country; we’ll pass through it, and I’ll show you the house. I was detained there by a fever of a somewhat pernicious character. All went on well, however, during eight days—for I was delirious the whole time, and knew nothing of what was passing—till one fine evening, the evening of the 12th of January, when I suddenly came to myself, so weak in body, so anxious in spirit, and at the same time with such an extraordinary lucidity of mind that I felt convinced I was at the point of death. I have passed through many bitter moments in the course of my life—cruel moments—which nevertheless I can think of now with a kind of pleasure; but when I recall to mind my awakening in that inn-chamber, a cold shiver runs through me; I shudder!”

Rouvière paused as Marianne entered the room; Mme. Dupuis signed to her imperatively not to interrupt, and the maid remained standing near the door.

“What did you see that could make such a fearful impression on you?” asked George, moving a little nearer to his friend.

“Nothing very horrible; only some people who were waiting for me to die, an old woman and a young doctor who were conversing together in a corner, and a priest who was kneeling at the foot of my bed.

“They formed to my eye a picture whose accessories were the dirty, faded curtains of the couch on which I was stretched and the tarnished, heterogeneous furniture of a lodging-house. But the ignoble surroundings, the preparations for death even, caused me no emotion; what revolted me—stirred up my very soul to protest—was the neglect, the brutal lack of charity—saving the presence of the priest—the desolate isolation, the void of all human sympathy in which I _realized_ that I was at that moment dying. How distinctly I can recollect the pitiful, suppliant look with which I gazed around me, as if trying to interlink the life that was escaping me with _any_, the slightest, earthly object; as if seeking to discover some sign of interest, of pity even, in the impassible faces which looked so calmly on me! My agonized heart longed for _any_ trifle—a picture, a vase, a chair—which had _known_ me, and to which I could say farewell. But all was strange.”

“Death never _can_ be agreeable,” remarked Dupuis crabbedly. “When the last hour is upon us it is dismal to be alone, I don’t say the contrary; but I can’t see that it is more cheerful to be surrounded by a weeping family.”

“I think that you would have felt as _I_ felt then,” replied Rouvière with melancholy gravity; “the death which God has ordained for men—the death which most men die, which finds consolation and resignation in the tears of tender regret shed by loving friends—that death appeared to me, in my solitary agony, like a sweet, untroubled feast.... I made many a singular reflection that night! But come, George, are you ready?”

“When you will; ... but, first, what were your reflections?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I lost somewhat of my self-sufficiency. And then I congratulated myself a little less on the path I had chosen for my life’s journey. Why not say it? The book of life seemed suddenly to be opened before me, and I read on every page, traced by God’s own hand, the words ‘duty and sacrifice.’ I had rejected that law. Hitherto I had only seen its hardships; now I recognized its benefits. I had avoided its bonds that I might live independently, and exile and isolation had been my lot. I had fancied that, by escaping the usual dull routine of humble duties, I should win for myself a happiness unknown—pleasures inconceivable to the vulgar crowd. Alas! I found that I had experienced nothing save a loveless youth, a solitary old age, and an unlamented death. Then, George—_then_ I understood what an erroneous price we pay for the indulgence of our selfishness.”

“Were you long in this agitated state?” asked Dupuis.

“Long enough for it to be indelibly impressed on my memory,” replied his friend. “When the young physician perceived that I was looking at him, he arose and approached me, and I felt the touch of his hand, cold and indifferent as his heart. I pushed it away and closed my eyes. And then a vision of my father’s death-bed flashed before me, distinct and clear. I saw again, grouped around it, the faithful friends of his youth—our ancient servants, the old doctor, the white-haired priest, and, dearest of all, my mother, my good mother. They leaned over him, they wiped his damp brow, they smiled at him through their tears; they had gladdened his life, and they were beside him now, to cheer and sustain him as he passed away! My dried-up heart melted within me as I gazed on this vision of a scene I had long since ceased to recall, and I burst into tears; they saved me!”

Rouvière stopped, overpowered by his emotion, and, covering his eyes with his hand, leant forward against the mantle-shelf.

“These recollections are too painful,” said Dupuis gently.

“They _are_ painful,” replied Rouvière, his voice hoarse and trembling, “and everything I see around me here awakens them. Oh! how alike these old houses are,” he continued, speaking to himself and looking around the room. “All this is familiar to me. There stood my mother’s little work-table near the window, just as that is—I always found her seated at it when I came home for a holiday—and there, in the chimney-corner, was the great arm-chair in which my father always sat. And the family portraits looked down from the walls just as these do. There, as here, the trace of two lives closely entwined, never to be separated, was visible everywhere. Why did I not learn by their example? Why was I compelled to drag my weary, vagrant life, my unceasing remorse, all over the wide world, ere I could comprehend that they were happy? Did _they_ know that they were happy? I doubt it. How often I have heard my father speak with envy of the very pleasures I have found so hollow! How often they confided to me their mutual grievances! And yet when one went the other could not stay. Dear old father! dearest mother!”

“My dear friend!” whispered George.

“And I,” continued Rouvière, with increasing emotion—“I sold their home as soon as it was empty—I had the heart to do that! I sold the room where I was born; I sold all our family traditions; I sold the ancient, faithful friendships which seemed to adhere to the house and soil. I alienated my patrimony.... I riveted the chain of egotism I was so eagerly forging. I did my work well; no kind care, no friendly companionship will ever be the solace of _my_ old age. I have nothing to offer in return—not even the bribe of a legacy. I cannot even buy back that humble home; my last days may not be sheltered by those walls whose very shadows I have learned to love. I may not even die there. Come! let us go,” he added with vehemence, dashing away the tears which suddenly inundated his face.

“Yes, Tom, we will go”—and George seized his friend’s hand—“we will go, if you refuse to accept a brother’s place by my fireside. And you, Reine,” he said, turning to his wife, “dry your tears and forget this hour’s ingratitude. It was the first; it shall be the last!”

“O George, my husband!” sobbed the sweet little woman as she gave him the kiss of pardon; then, approaching Rouvière with gentle grace, she said softly and beseechingly:

“Will not the happiness you have restored to us tempt you to remain with us? We should be so glad to share it with you!”

“Madame, dear, good friends,” stammered the guest.... “O George! you have caught me in the very snare I spread for you.”

He sank into a chair, overcome by his emotion, while George and Reine stood by him, clasping his hands in theirs. “Oh!” sighed he at last, “it is too sweet a dream for such a forlorn wretch as I am.”

“He will stay with us!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis joyfully.

“And I will go and make his bed in the best blue chamber,” cried Marianne, wiping her eyes with her apron. The poor girl had been standing quietly near the door, an involuntary listener, during almost the whole of Rouvière’s confession.

“What! the deuce! Marianne!” growled Rouvière, rising hastily from his seat.

“I’m going to make your bed, sir!” cried Marianne, in great good-humor.

“Very well, then; but don’t let the head be lower than the heels, my good creature, as you house-maids generally manage it. Slope it down gently from head to foot, mind you, and....” He stopped a moment, then smilingly resumed: “Make it as you will, Marianne; I’m sure it will be first-rate. You see,” he added, turning toward his hosts when Marianne had left the room, “how this disgusting egotism crops up incessantly; ... you must try to cure me of it. Oh! what a rest I’m going to have now,” he exclaimed as he threw himself on the sofa.... “Madame, dear madame, will you do me a favor? I know what the pains of exile are by sad experience—pray, let the cat come in!”

THE RECENT PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION AND CONGRESS.

This convention, which met in Boston on the 3d of October and continued in session for twenty days, was the triennial “Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” The bishops sat in a house by themselves and conducted their proceedings in secret, following in this the precedent of the Anglican Church as well as the custom of the Roman Catholic Church in its provincial and plenary councils. The House of Deputies consisted of one hundred and eighty clergymen and one hundred and eighty laymen, representing forty-five dioceses, and eight clergymen and eight laymen representing eight “missionary jurisdictions.” These sat in public, and a verbatim report of their proceedings is before us. Among the lay delegates were several gentlemen of national fame—the Hons. John W. Maynard, of Pennsylvania; Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency at the recent election; John W. Stevenson, of Kentucky; John W. Hunter and L. Bradford Prince, of Long Island; Gen. C. C. Augur, U. S. Army; Daniel R. Magruder and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland; Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts; General J. H. Simpson, U. S. Army; Hamilton Fish, Cambridge Livingston, and W. A. Davies, of New York; Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio; and Geo. W. Thompson and Richard Parker, of Virginia. It is not probable that any of the other sects could marshal laymen like these to sit in its councils. We mention their names because the list affords some explanation of the fact that the social and political influence of the Protestant Episcopalians is vastly out of proportion to their numerical strength. At a preliminary session, the bishops and deputies being together, Dr. Williams, the Bishop of Connecticut, preached a sermon in which he introduced a subject that subsequently occupied much of the attention of the convention—“the most threatening social evil of our time, the growing lack of sympathy between different classes and individuals of such classes.” “To-day,” he said, “we see great chasms opening everywhere because of this, which threatens church and state alike with sad disaster.” And he added:

“I think those chasms are more entirely unrelieved and ghastly in this country than in almost any other. I know that we have not been wont so to think or speak, and I know that to say this involves some chance of incurring severe displeasure; but I fully believe it to be true. In most lands there are things—I speak of things outside of Christian sympathies and labors—that somewhat bridge over these threatening severances. There are ancient memories; ancestral offices and ministries that in their long continuance have almost become binding laws; relations, long enduring, of patronage and clientship; and many other things besides. With us—we may as well face the fact—those things have, for the most part, no existence. The one only helping thing we have—still apart from what was just alluded to—is political equality. And how much virtue has that shown itself to have in pressing exigencies and emergencies? When, all at once, in the late summer months, that yawning chasm opened at our feet which appeared to threaten nearly everything in ordinary life, how little there seemed to be to turn to! There stood on either side contending forces in apparently irreconcilable opposition, and everywhere we heard the cry about rights! rights! rights! till nothing else was heard. If some few voices dared to speak of duties they were lost in the angry clamor. And yet those voices must be heard. Those words about duty on the one side and the other must be listened to, if ever we are to have more than an armed truce between these parties—a truce which may at any time burst out into desolating strife.”

Dr. Williams’ remedy was, of course, that the Protestant Episcopalians should teach the people their duties. To do this, however, they must first get the hearing of the people. But this is just what they have failed to get, and will always fail in getting—certainly so long as they provide fine churches with eloquent preachers for the rich, and a very different order of preachers and churches for the poor. The Catholic Church, before whose altars all distinctions of earthly rank and position disappear, can and does teach the people what their duties are, and she does it with effect, since her priests speak with authority and by virtue of an incontestably divine commission—two things quite unknown among the sects. This is what Rev. Hugh Thompson felt and acknowledged when, in the Episcopal Church Congress held in this city, he said:

“What is the worth of a church in this world except as a moral teacher—except this: to get the Ten Commandments kept on earth? The church canons are usually busy with questions affecting garments, gestures, postures, and the orthodoxy of the Prayer-Book, but rarely do we find any moral legislation. There are plenty of instructions to the clergy and bishops, and we are led to think what a wicked lot of people these clergy and bishops must be to need all these laws, and what a good and pious laity we must have when they have no need of such legislation! The church gives no real expression of opinion on the complicated questions of marriage, so that one minister may bless a union while another would not do so under any circumstances. Is it right that the church should evade such responsibilities as these? The church must place itself plainly on record. The church must be to a millionaire and beggar the same, must demand equal justice for all—for the railway president and the railway brakeman, for the worshipper in the gilded temple and in the ordinary meeting-house. Such a church, with the courage and fearlessness and ability to tell and enforce the eternal truth, without fear or favor, is what this country is waiting for, and would have an influence here unequalled since the days of Athanasius.”

The first two days of the convention were spent chiefly in rather unseemly discussions upon a proposition to print fifteen hundred copies of Dr. Williams’ sermon, to appoint a committee “to consider the importance of the practical principles enunciated in it,” and in attempts to begin a debate upon three amendments to the constitution proposed three years ago by the last convention. Much interest was excited by some remarks by the Rev. Dr. Harwood, of Connecticut, who thought that one of the most pressing duties of the convention would be the invention of a method whereby clergymen who had grown tired of their work might be retired without incurring disgrace. It is curious to observe how the Catholic doctrine, “once a priest always a priest,” still lingers among the laity of this Protestant body, while its clergymen, or some of them, seem anxious to destroy it. Dr. Harwood complained that although at present the regulations of his church permitted any clergyman to “withdraw from the ministry for causes not affecting his moral character,” nevertheless “somewhat of a stigma rests upon the man, and people may even point to his children and say, ‘There go the children of a disgraced clergyman.’” This state of things was found to be “a grievous burden”; for there were numbers of good fellows who feel that “they are out of place in the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church,” and who still continue in that service because they fear to incur disgrace by leaving it. Dr. Harwood drew a pitiful picture of the condition of these unhappy persons: “They may have changed their minds about some doctrine; they may believe too much or too little; they may be drifting towards a blank unbelief or towards a wretched superstition; they may feel that they have mistaken their calling and cannot do their work, for neither their hearts nor their minds are in it.” We agree with Dr. Harwood that his church would be better off without such parsons; and it is sad to record that his proposition, looking towards the adoption of a cheap and easy, although “honorable,” method of getting rid of them, was not finally successful.

On the third day of the convention the Rev. Dr. De Koven, of Wisconsin, brought forward the question of changing the name of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This proposition was made in the interest of that section of it which follows the Anglican ritualists. This section has a real or affected horror of the word “Protestant”; its members wish to persuade themselves that they are Catholics—and the wish is very natural and most praiseworthy—but they are resolved never to seek the reality and yield to the living authority of the Catholic Church. In order to avoid this submission, they set up the claim that they are themselves the Catholic Church, or rather “a branch” of it. To make this claim a little less absurd the elimination of the word “Protestant” would be advisable; and for some time past, it appears, an industrious propaganda for this purpose has been carried on. Certain of the bishops, many of the clergymen, and a number of the journals of the Protestant Episcopalians have been enlisted in the proposed “reform,” and its advocates mustered all their forces in the convention. Dr. De Koven introduced the matter by reading a paper adopted in the diocese of Wisconsin last June, and moving a resolution. The paper was as follows:

“_Whereas_, The American branch of the Catholic Church universal [_sic_] includes in its membership all baptized persons in this land; and

“_Whereas_, The various bodies of professing Christians, owing to her first legal title, do not realize that the church known in law as the ‘Protestant Episcopal Church’ is, in very deed and truth, the American branch of the one Catholic Church of God; therefore, be it

“_Resolved_, That the deputies to the General Convention from this diocese be requested to ask of the General Convention the appointment of a constitutional commission, to which the question of a change of the legal title of the church, as well as similar questions, may be referred.”

Dr. De Koven accordingly presented a motion for the appointment of this commission and moved its reference to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments. The absurd side of the assumptions made in the preamble is apparent; but the ridicule and scorn which they excite should not blind one to the arrogant claim therein set up. It is laughable to assert that a sect with less than 270,000 communicants, and with a history of less than a century, claims as its members all the baptized persons in the United States, including seven or eight millions of Roman Catholics; it is still more ludicrous to be told that the reason why we and all the other “baptized persons” do not recognize this sect as our mother the church is that up to this time she has chosen to call herself by a false name. The name—the name’s the thing wherewith to catch the conscience of the people! Let us only call ourselves something else, and then “all the baptized persons in this land”—Papists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and all the rest—will hasten to exclaim, “Our long-lost mother! Behold your children!” This is the ludicrous side of the business, and it is funny enough. The serious side of it is the fact that a claim so arrogant should be seriously presented in a convention composed of respectable, and in some cases eminent, American gentlemen. Let us see what became of it.

Dr. De Koven’s motion immediately caused an animated debate. An attempt to get rid of it by laying it on the table was lost; and after a disorderly and heated discussion, in which the president seemed occasionally to lose his head, the motion for reference to the committee was carried. On the eighth day of the session the committee, through Mr. Hamilton Fish, reported that it was “inexpedient to institute any commission to revise and amend the constitution of the church,” for the reason, among others, that such a commission would be unlimited in its powers and might upset everything. On the tenth day another committee, to whom had been “referred certain memorials and papers looking to a change in the legal title of the church,” reported that such a change might impair the legal right of property in the several dioceses, and that it would be better to make no change. The two reports came up for decision on the twelfth day of the session, and the ball was opened by Dr. De Koven in a long and clever speech. He proposed the adoption of a new resolution providing for the appointment of a commission to consider and report upon the best method of “removing apparent ambiguities,” and “the setting forth our true relations to the Anglican communion as well as to the whole Catholic Church.” He drew a very curious and not at all a pleasant picture of his church as at present constituted. So far as the laity are concerned, anybody may be a lay member, if he “merely goes to church a few times a year” and pays money for the support of the minister. “He need not be baptized; he need not be confirmed; he need not be a communicant. He may even be Jew, Turk, or infidel, if you please, _provided he has the money qualification which makes up the franchise of the church_.” Here, indeed, is a pitiable state of things; a society composed of unbaptized persons can scarcely be called a Christian association. “Underneath it all,” Dr. De Koven went on to say, “lies this money qualification. The parish elects its vestry, and its vestry need not be communicants. The vestry and parish elect the lay delegates to the diocesan convention, and they need not be communicants. The diocesan convention elects the lay members of the standing committees, and they need not be communicants.” The truth is that the ruling laymen of the sect need not be, and probably are not, Christians at all, and that they “run the machine” for social and political purposes, just as they would manage a club or a political party. If the laymen are of this stripe, what can be said of the priests? “Like people, like priest,” said Dr. De Koven; “As you go through the land and witness the sorrow, the trials, the degradation of the parochial clergy, you are quite well aware that underneath all lies this simoniacal taint.” The bishops are almost in as sad a state. Their councils of advice are the standing committees; these may be composed of unbaptized men, and the bishops have no voice in their nomination; and “thus you have the marvellous spectacle of a bishop sitting at the head of his diocesan synod, but bound by laws which that synod (possibly composed of non-Christians) makes, and in the making of which he has had no voice whatever, either of assent or dissent.” It could scarcely be supposed, however, that evils so great as these would be removed simply by a change of name, and Dr. De Koven found himself at last willing to admit as much. He was willing, he said, to go on for a while longer with the old name, although as long as it was retained such evil consequences would follow. But he insisted that “the day will come when this church shall demand, not that an accident of its condition, not that a part of its organization, should represent it to the world, but that its immortal lineage shall represent it.”

The church may demand what it pleases, and may call itself by whatever name it chooses to invent; but its history is written and cannot be changed. Men will always know that it is the daughter of that creature whose father was Henry VIII. and whose nursing mother was Queen Elizabeth. A delegate from Illinois pleaded for the change of name, for the reason that he was tired of saying on Sundays, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and all the rest of the week, “I believe in the Protestant Episcopal Church.” Mr. Hamilton Fish declared that it was “too late to change the name of Protestant Episcopal,” and that if the sect was not Protestant it was nothing. His great objection, however, was that if the change were made the church would be in danger of losing its property. Finally, on the thirteenth day of the session, the resolution for the appointment of the constitutional committee to consider this and other changes was voted down by a vote of 16 to 51; and a separate resolution, that no change should be made in the name of the church at present, was carried by an almost unanimous vote.

The convention also touched upon marriage and divorce, but rather gingerly. The House of Bishops passed a resolution repealing the present canon on this subject, and adopting the following in its place:

“SECTION 1. If any persons be joined together otherwise than as God’s Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful.

“SEC. 2. No minister of this church shall solemnize matrimony in any case where there is a divorced wife or husband of either party still living, and where the divorce was obtained for some cause arising after marriage; but this canon shall not be held to apply to the innocent party in a divorce for the cause of adultery, or to parties once divorced seeking to be united again.

“SEC. 3. If any minister of this church shall have reasonable cause to doubt whether a person desirous of being admitted to holy baptism, or to confirmation, or to the holy communion, has been married otherwise than as the word of God and discipline of this church allow, such minister, before receiving such person to these ordinances, shall refer the case to the bishop for his godly judgment thereupon; _provided_, however, that no minister in any case refuse the sacrament to a penitent person _in extremis_.

“SEC. 4. No minister of this church shall present for confirmation or administer the holy sacraments to any person divorced, for any cause arising after marriage, or married again to another in violation of this canon, or during the lifetime of such divorced wife or husband; but this prohibition shall not extend to the innocent party where the divorce has been for the cause of adultery, nor to any truly penitent person.

“SEC. 5. Questions touching the facts of any case arising under this canon shall be referred to the bishop of the diocese, or, if there be a vacancy in the episcopate, then to some bishop designated by the Standing Committee, who shall thereupon make enquiry by a commissionary or otherwise, and deliver his godly judgment in the premises.

“SEC. 6. This canon, so far as it affixes penalties, does not apply to cases occurring before its taking effect, according to canon iv., title iv.”

From the Roman Catholic point of view there are at least two objections to this canon. There is no authority pointed out whereby it may be decided what it is that “God’s word doth allow” respecting marriage; and the permission for the re-marriage of one of the parties in a divorce is repugnant to the rule of the church, and could not for a moment be assented to by any one who holds the Catholic and Christian doctrine of marriage. In the debate upon the canon it was urged that the second section could not be enforced among the Indians nor among the negroes; and some of the clergymen objected to the section which provides for the reference of doubtful cases to the bishop. Especial ridicule was cast upon the sixth section, which, as one delegate expressed it, asserts that “the longer a man has continued in sin the less sin he has.” More than one clerical delegate, on the other hand, lifted up his voice in favor of “greater freedom in the matter,” and they drew pathetic pictures of the sad condition of a woman divorced from her husband for incompatibility of temper, for example, and, under this canon, unable to marry again. But at length the canon was passed.

Our readers can scarcely be expected to take much interest in the other proceedings of the convention. There was a debate, lasting through several days, upon a proposed canon for the creation and development of orders of deaconesses, or “sisterhoods,” in imitation of our own societies of holy women. The bishops wished to retain strict control over these possible organizations; the lower house desired them to be left quite free, or subject only to the supervision of the parish clergyman. The two houses could not agree, and the matter was dropped. A still more tedious debate arose from propositions for the adoption of a “shortened service,” lay preaching, and the permissible use of the English Lectionary. There was very little talk about dogma; and it is noticeable that the quarrels between the Ritualists and the Evangelicals were kept entirely suppressed during the convention. The only doctrinal breeze which animated the gathering was caused by the introduction of a paper by Mr. Judd, of Illinois, which, on the whole, is so queer that we reproduce it here:

“_Whereas_, A majority of the bishops of the Anglican communion at the Lambeth Conference, held in the year of our Lord 1867, while solemnly ‘professing the faith delivered to us in Holy Scripture, maintained in the primitive church and by the fathers of the English Reformation,’ did also ‘express the deep sorrow with which we view the divided condition of the flock of Christ throughout the world, ardently longing for the fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord, “that all may be one,”’ and did furthermore ‘solemnly record’ and set forth the means by which ‘that unity will be more effectually promoted’; and

“_Whereas_, The Lambeth declaration was not only signed by all the nineteen American bishops then and there present, but the whole House of Bishops, at the General Convention of 1868, also formally resolved that they ‘cordially united in the language and spirit’ of the same; and

“_Whereas_, Our fervent prayer, daily offered, ‘that all who profess and call themselves Christians may hold the faith in unity of spirit,’ cannot receive fulfilment unless there be a clear and steadfast clinging to ‘the faith once for all delivered to the Saints’; and

“_Whereas_, The restoration of this ‘unity of spirit’ in the apostolic ‘bond of peace’ among all the Christian people, for which we thus daily pray, ought also to be the object of our most earnest efforts; and

“_Whereas_, This unity manifestly cannot be restored by the submission of all other parts to any one part of the divided body of Christ, but must be reached by the glad reunion of all in that faith which was held by all before the separation of corrupt times began; and

“_Whereas_, The venerable documents in which the undisputed councils summed up the Catholic faith are not easily accessible to many of the clergy, and have never been fully set forth to our laity in a language ‘understanded of the people’; therefore

“_Resolved_, by the House of Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, That a memorial be presented to the Lambeth Conference at its second session, expressing our cordial thanks for the action of its first session in 1867, in which it enjoined upon us all the promotion of unity ‘_by maintaining the faith in its purity and integrity, as taught by the Holy Scriptures, held by the primitive church, summed up in the creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed general councils_’; and, in furtherance of the good work thus recommended and enjoined, we humbly request the said Lambeth Conference, by a joint commission of learned divines, or otherwise, to provide for the setting forth of an accurate and authentic version, in the English language, of the creeds and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils concerning the faith thus proclaimed by them, as the standards of orthodox belief for the whole church.

“_Resolved, also_, That the House of Bishops be respectfully requested to take order that this memorial shall be duly laid before the next session of the Lambeth Conference by the hand of such of its members as may be present thereat.”

The debate on this paper was somewhat amusing. It was pointed out that rather serious consequences might follow the general dissemination of “an accurate and authentic version, in the English language, of the creeds and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils concerning the faith”; and the awful question was asked, “Who is to decide how many undisputed councils there have been?” But at last the preamble and resolution were adopted, and we congratulate our Protestant Episcopalian brethren upon that decision. Many of them—clergymen as well as laymen—said they did not know what even the first six œcumenical councils had decided. If they now acquire this knowledge, they will learn enough to convince them that they are living in heresy, and that their first duty is to seek for admission into the church.

“The Church Congress,” which commenced its sessions in New York on the 30th of October and continued to sit for four days, was in some degree a supplement to the “convention.” At the congress, however, nothing was to be _done_; affairs were simply to be talked about. In four days much can be said: the papers read and the speeches made before the Congress will make a large volume when collected. A Catholic would arise from their perusal with a feeling of profound melancholy. He would see the blind leading the blind and tumbling into the ditch. In Protestantism the opinion of one man is as good as that of another; views the most discordant may be expressed on the same platform, and there is no arbiter to pronounce with infallible voice what is truth. In the congress, for instance, several of its clerical members took occasion to lavish praises upon the Roman Catholic Church—one of them declared that the true spirit of the Roman Catholic Church had always been “tender, true, and noble”; another, a bishop, extolled the work of our missionaries among the Indians, saying that they “had done the best work,” and that their conduct was in glorious contrast with that of the missionaries of the sects, who acted too often like “carpet-baggers.” These declarations did not prevent other members when speaking from indulging in bitter denunciations of “Romanism.” Bishop Potter, at the opening of the congress, warned the members that they must not expect to settle anything; the only good to be expected from their discussions was such as might follow the interchange of opinion. A discussion on church architecture was ended by a minister who said that churches should be built wholly with respect to acoustics, and that the ideal church would be a plain hall where the voice of the preacher could be distinctly heard. The question of the relation of the church to the state and to society was discussed at much length—some of the speakers arguing for a union of church and state, and others advocating strict abstinence on the part of the church from all political affairs. Bishop Littlejohn, of Long Island, declared that

“The most urgent duty of the church to the nation was first to vindicate its moral fitness to sway all in and around it. It should show that its charter was divine. It should be able to say to the grosser personality of the nation, ‘Come up higher; this is the way, walk ye in it.’ The first duty of the church to the national life was to put its own house in order. Again, the church having elevated itself to the level whence it had a right to teach and authority to guide, its habitual attention should not be diverted from its great duties to society and to the nation. The church’s best work was at the root and upon the sap of the social tree of life, not with the withered and dead branches. It was here that the church was to exercise its highest functions upon society and upon the nation. Let it keep before it that one of its highest duties was to show, both to society and the individual, that they did not derive their personality from each other, but from God. There was a warrant for such teaching, for it rested upon a theological principle. Humanity, in the genuine whole and in the individual man, had its foundation in Christ, and, therefore, for each there was infinite sacredness, even in Christ himself. But the church had instructions for society, and especially for American society. It had some teaching for those who in dreams and in revolutions cried out for liberty, equality, and fraternity. By how many was this cry raised, even to those who would have no sloping sides, no top, but all bottom to the social pyramid! It seemed that that was a cry which the church might answer. Liberty, equality, fraternity! The land was full of false idols under those names. The perversion was of man; the movement itself was of God. The perversion could be brought about by forgetting the movement itself. God in Christ not only willed that all men should be free and equal, but he told them in what sense and how they were to become so. It was by the ministry of the word, not by the sword, not by the law, not by abstract speculation, that man was to learn what these things were for which he so thirsted. Modern society and the Gospel must be reconciled, and to do this there was no competent authority except the church.”

Bishop Littlejohn, when speaking of “the church,” has in his mind his own body. That society can never accomplish the work he points out; men know that it has no authority to teach them, and those who speak in its name speak with divided and inconsistent voices. The church of God, however, can do this work and is doing it. She has no need “to vindicate her moral fitness” or to “elevate herself to the level whence she has a right to teach and authority to guide.” She had all this done for her eighteen hundred years ago, when her divine charter was given her. And that charter never has been and never will be revoked.

THE _CIVILTA CATTOLICA_ ON THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ROME.

There is no European periodical which treats of the great political movements of the day with more complete knowledge and consummate ability and sagacity than the _Civiltà Cattolica_, especially in respect to all that has a bearing on the Roman question. In the number of October 6 an article of great interest takes up the topic of the fortifications around Rome and Civita Vecchia which have been ordered by the Italian government, and casts some light on the motives which have induced the persons at the head of Victor Emanuel’s administration to adopt this extraordinary measure.

The pretext put forth, that it is necessary to protect Rome against armed invasion by the reactionary party of the _clericals_, is so ridiculous that it has deceived no one, but has excited the ridicule even of the Italian liberals. But one probable and credible reason can be given for an undertaking involving such a great expenditure at a time when the finances of the state are in such a wretched condition. This reason is that the measure has been undertaken by the dictation of Bismarck, in virtue of a secret treaty between Prussia and Italy, and in view of a proposed war of the two combined powers against France. The Italian kingdom was set up, as is well known to all, by Napoleon III. for the sake of using its alliance and employing its military power to the advantage of the French Empire. The control of this convenient instrument was, however, wrested from the unfortunate emperor by his conqueror and destroyer, Bismarck, who has continued to govern not only William and his empire, but Victor Emanuel and his kingdom, to the great and increasing disgust of the majority of Italians, including a large portion even of the liberals. The intention of Bismarck to seize upon the speediest convenient opportunity of making a new invasion of France has been too openly manifested to admit of any doubt. The execution of this purpose has been delayed at the instance of Russia, in order to leave that power more free and unembarrassed for its great enterprise of destroying the Ottoman Empire and taking possession of Constantinople. In the Bismarckian scheme the war against the Papacy and the Catholic Church, against France and Austria, is all one thing, with one motive and end—the exaltation of the infidel Teutonic empire on the ruins of Latin Christianity and civilization; and the possession of Constantinople by the Russians as the capital of another great schismatical empire, dividing with Prussia the hegemony of the world, harmonizes with this scheme, as planned long ago by the two astute and powerful chancellors, Gortchakoff and Bismarck.

The papers have been saying of late that Bismarck, whose ambitious mind triumphs over the shattered nerves and dropsical body which seem soon about to become the prey of dissolution, has been lately threatening Europe with a general war for the coming vernal equinox. This means, of course, that he is preparing an equinoctial storm of “blood and iron” to mark for ever in history the close of his own career as the beginning of a new European epoch. The sagacious writer in the _Civiltà_ considers the order for fortifying Rome and Civita Vecchia as a strong confirmation of the fact of a military alliance between the anti-Christian government of Italy and the Bismarckian empire, and of the probability of an approaching war by the two allied powers against France. He prudently abstains from carrying his prognostics any further, wittily observing that it would be proof of a scanty amount of brains if he were to attempt anything of the kind. We can easily understand that, for men writing and publishing in Florence, a certain caution and reserve are necessary in the open, explicit expression of the hopes and expectations which they know how to awaken in other minds by a significant silence. Nevertheless, as we happily enjoy more liberty of speech than is conceded to Italians when they happen to be _clericals_, we will run the risk of passing for a man of “scarso cervello,” and give utterance to a few of the conjectures which sprang up in our own mind upon reading the remarks of our able contemporary.

Both the Bismarckian and the Cavourian political fabrics are in a precarious condition. It is perhaps less desperate to undertake a hazardous enterprise on the chance of success than to remain quiet with the certainty of being swept away by the current of coming events. Nevertheless, the ruin may be hastened, and even directly brought about, by the very means which are used to avert the crisis, if the undertaking is really desperate. Perhaps the _bête noir_ which harasses the sleepless nights of the Prussian, which the servile Italian minister threatens upon the people grumbling at their excessive taxation, which the political apes of French radicalism pretend to dread, may be the nightmare of a prophetic dream. As the unhappy victims of a divine fate in the Greek tragedies accomplish the direful woes foretold at their birth by the very means used to avert them, the accomplices in the anti-Christian conspiracy may bring upon themselves the catastrophe they seem to fear—a reactionary movement in which they will be submerged. If Italy consents to incur the unknown risks of an alliance with Prussia, and play the part of a subservient tool to the insane ambition of Bismarck, one of the consequences may be that her speedily and falsely constructed unity will be shattered. Russia is at present too deeply engaged in her deadly struggle with Turkey to be either a formidable ally or enemy to any other great power for some time to come, even if she comes off victorious in the end. In respect to Russia, Austria has now her favorable, perhaps her last, opportunity to secure her own stability and equality by a repression of her other antagonist, Prussia. An invasion of France makes Austria, with her army of one million, the natural ally of France. There are urgent motives which might draw England into the same coalition. And what is there improbable in the conjecture that one of the great events in such a war would be the occupation of the Pontifical States by the allied troops, and the restoration of the pontifical sovereignty? If the Pope recovers his royal capital well fortified, the advantage of the fortifications will be his, and make him more secure in future against lawless invasion of banditti.

We are not at all certain that a prospective triumph of Russia bodes so much good to the party of anti-Christian revolution as many suppose. The interest, the safety even, of that empire requires of her that she should exert all her power, and co-operate with every other legitimate power exerted in Europe, to put down Freemasonry and restore the Christian political order in the civilized world. It is very probable that when the European congress meets, after the present cycle of wars, to pacificate Europe and readjust the equilibrium of nations, neither Gortchakoff nor Bismarck will be numbered among living statesmen; and that the catalogue of disasters by which the enemies of the Holy See are punished will be so far completed for the present century, as to serve a salutary purpose in warning and instructing the rising and coming statesmen and sovereigns of Christendom.

SONNET.

There is a castle of most royal state, Wherein no warder watches from the walls, Nor groom nor squire abides in court or halls: Silent are they, grass-grown and desolate. A thousand steeds a thousand knights await, Sleeping, all harnessed, in the marble halls Until the Appointed One upon them calls, Winding the horn that hangs beside the gate. Then shall the doors fly open, and the steeds Neigh, and the knights leap, shouting, to the selle, And they shall follow him and do such deeds All men must own him master. But the spell Who knows not and, uncalled, essays the horn, Falls at the fated doors and dies forlorn.

THE IRISH HEDGE-POETS.

The music of the ancient Irish has been preserved because no interpreter was needed to translate its beauties into another tongue. The poetry which accompanied the music has well-nigh perished, and what remains attracts but little attention. For this there are two reasons: the students of Celtic literature have been few, and of those who have endeavored to translate its poetry into English there are but one or two who have succeeded in any fortunate degree in retaining the spirit and beauty of the original. The best as well as earliest collection of Irish poetry is Hardiman’s _Minstrelsy of Ireland_, but it is accompanied by feeble and conventional translations. A literal translation of the poetry would make this a most valuable collection for the general reader; as it stands, it is only of worth to those who can read the original Irish. Several other collections, smaller and of less value, are in existence, but a real and full collection of Irish poetry has yet to be made. We are aided in the present article by two small volumes entitled _Munster Poetry_, collected by John O’Daly, a well-known Dublin bookseller and antiquarian, and translated, the first series by the unfortunate James Clarence Mangan, and the second by Dr. George Sigurson. They do not attempt to deal with the general subject, but only profess to be a collection of popular poetry current in Munster from eighty to one hundred years ago, and composed by the last of the Irish bards who sang in their native tongue, and were called “hedge-poets.”

The race of bards or hedge-poets—whichever title may be preferred—who sang in their native language virtually became extinct at the beginning of the present century. The history of their lives, as well as most of their poetry, exists only in tradition, and, but for a few incomplete collections, would soon vanish for ever. It is not too late, however, to form some picture of them, and the value of their poetry is such as to make us deeply regret that no more has been preserved. And, even without intrinsic merit, the national poetry of a people is always worth preserving.

During the eighteenth century, as is well known, the Celtic Irish were at a very low stage of political fortune. The entire subjugation of Ireland, for the time, occurred at the battle of Limerick. The flower of the army of Sarsfield followed its gallant leader to the plains of Minden, and made the reputation of their race as soldiers under the French banners. Those who remained in Ireland were crushed into outward subjection. The tyranny of the conquerors, exasperated by the doubtful and desperate struggle, placed no bounds to the humiliation which it endeavored to inflict. The penal laws were cruel and barbarous beyond those of any nation on record. All intellectual as well as religious education was denied the Irish people, and it was only by stealth that they could gratify their thirst for either.

The spirit of the Celtic population was crushed, but not degraded. They were conquered, and were aware that another struggle was hopeless for the present. None the less they preserved all their national feelings. The language of the common people in their daily intercourse was Irish; their only pride was in Irish tradition, and their only poetry was in the same melodious tongue. This continued long after English was the language used for business. It must not be supposed that, although the Celtic Irish were poor and deprived of all religious and political rights, they were entirely ignorant or uncultivated. The average Irish peasant of the last century was likely to have more learning than his English compeer. The hedge-schoolmaster was abroad in the land, and the eagerness with which Irish peasant lads sought for knowledge under difficulties was only second to the fervency of their religious faith under persecution. The education was not of the most valuable or practical cast in all particulars, but that it was cultivated so earnestly is the highest proof of the undegraded character of the people. The hedge-schoolmasters were more learned in Latin than in science, and taught their pupils to scan more assiduously than to add. The traditionary Irish history, the exploits of Con of the Hundred Battles, and the prophecies of Columbkille were expounded more particularly than the battles of Wolfe or Marlborough or the speeches of Chatham. This was but natural. The Irish then felt no share in English victories or interest in English literature. Poetry was especially a branch of learning in those days as it has never been since. The hedge-schoolmasters were often poets as well as pedagogues, and the amount of verse produced of one sort or another was enormous. Much of it was naturally worthless, but among the crowd of poetasters was here and there a poet who had the heart to feel and the tongue to express the woes of his country and the passions of his own heart in the language of nature. The hearts of the people answered them, and their memories treasured their songs. They were no longer bards entertained in the halls of the great. They were the wandering minstrels of the poor, but some of them were genuine poets whose power and grace were visible under every disadvantage.

In considering the fragments of this poetry three things must be kept in mind: first, that it has been preserved mostly by oral tradition; secondly, that it is translated from a language whose idiom is especially hard to be rendered into English; and, thirdly, that the lyrical form imposes additional difficulties in adequate rendering. By far the larger number of the productions of the hedge-poets are of an allegorical cast. The poet in a vision sees a queenly maiden, of exquisite beauty and grace, sitting lonely and weeping on some fairy rath by moonlight, by the side of some softly-flowing stream, or by the wall of some ruined castle of ancient splendor. He is at first confounded by her beauty. Then he takes courage at her distress, and asks whether she is Helen of old who caused Troy town to burn, or she that was the love of Fion, or Deirdre, for whom the sons of Usnach died. These are the three types of beauty almost invariably used. The lady replies, in a voice that “pierces the heart of the listener like a spear,” that she is neither of these three; she is Kathleen ni Ullachan, or Grauine Maol, Roisin Dubh, the Little Black Rose, or Sheela na Guira, these being the figurative names for the female personification of Ireland. She laments to the poet’s ear that her heroes brave, her Patrick Sarsfield, her John O’Dwyer of the Glens, are driven across the seas, and that she is the desolate slave of the Saxon churls. Then she rises into a strain, half-despairing, half-exulting, that the heroes will soon return with help from the hosts of France and Spain; that the fires of the Saxon houses shall light every glen, and the “sullen tribe of the dreary tongue” be driven into the sea; that God shall soon be worshipped once more on her desolate altars, and the kingly hero, her noble spouse, her prince of war, shall once more clasp her to his arms and place three crowns upon her head. This is the outline of almost every one of these patriotic visions, and it will be seen at once how beautiful was the conception and how capable of exhibiting the highest pathos. The Irish minstrels had to sing of their country in secret, for the ear of the conquering race must not hear of their hopes and fears. In this disguise they would give voice to their patriotic passion as to an earthly mistress, and their country’s woes and hopes could be imparted with a double intensity. This personifying the country in the form of a beautiful and desolate woman is not peculiar to Irish poets, but seems the form of expression for the passionate patriotism of all oppressed countries. It is common to the Italian, the Polish, and the Servian poets.

In the description of the beauty of the forlorn maiden one poem bears a great resemblance to another, and those beauties which are peculiar to Irish girls are her distinguishing features; thus, the long, flowing tresses, the _coolun_, or head of fair locks, is often most beautifully painted.

“Her clustering, loosened tresses Flowed glossily, enwreathed with pearls, To veil her breast with kisses And sunny rays of golden curls” —_Sheela ni Cullenan_, by Wm. Lenane.

“Her curling tresses meet Her small and gentle feet. Her golden fleece—the pride of Greece, Might shame those locks to greet.”

“The dew-drops flow down Her thick curls’ golden brown.” —_The Drooping Heart_, by MacColter.

“Sunbright is the neck that her golden locks cover.” —_The Cuilshon._

“Her hair o’er her shoulders was flowing In clusters all golden and glowing, Luxuriant and thick as in meads are, the grass-blades That the scythe of the mower is mowing.” —_The Vision of Conor Sullivan._

From these specimens it may be guessed that either blonde beauty was more common among Irish maidens than now, or that its rarity made it doubly prized. It appears to have been as much in demand as in these days, which have witnessed the grand rage for fair locks at the expense of bleaching-irons and Pactolian dye. It is only occasionally that some poet dares to express his preference for _cean dubh dheelish_—the dear black head.

The pure brow of wax in fairness and radiance is not forgotten:

“Whose brow is more fair than the silver bright; Oh! ’twould shed a ray of beauteous light In the darkest glen of mists of the south.”

—_The Melodious Little Cuckoo._

Narrow eyebrows finely arched were a peculiar mark of distinction. For the eyes there is almost a whole new nomenclature of comparison and compliment. The peculiar and most often repeated color is “green,” which is the uncompromising English translation of the delicate Irish epithet which means

“The grayest of things blue, The greenest of things gray”

—that shade of the most beautiful and brilliant eyes well known to Spanish as well as Irish poets, and which Longfellow and Swinburne have not hesitated to describe by the naked and imperfect English adjective. This is the way in which one of these ignorant minstrels expresses what he means, and renders it with a new grace:

“I gave you—oh! I gave you—I gave you my whole love; On the festival of Mary my poor heart you stole, love, With your soft green eyes like dew-drops on corn that is springing, the music of your red lips like sweet starlings singing.” —_Fair Mary Barry._

A beautiful and apt comparison for the sweet, rosy bloom, nowhere found in such perfect charm as in Ireland, was the apple blossom and the berry.

“On her cheek the crimson berry Lay in the lily’s bosom wan.”

—_Sheela ni Cullenan._

“The bloom on thy cheek shames the apple’s soft blossom.”

Among the finest and most delicate comparisons, however, is this:

“Like crimson rays of sunset streaming O’er sunny lilies her bright cheeks shone.”

The fair one’s bosom is declared to be like to the breast of the sailing swan, to the thorn blossoms, to the snow, to the summer cloud, in a variety of beautiful expressions:

“Her bosom’s pearly light Than summer clouds more bright, More pure its glow than falling snow Or swan of plumage white.” —_Beside the Lee_, by Michael O’Longen.

“Her breast has the whiteness That thorn-blossoms bore.”

Her hands are pure and white as the snow, and never without being accomplished in the art of embroidery. There is scarcely a poem in the whole collection in which the skill of the heroine in this particular is not mentioned. She does not play upon the harp. That was a manly profession. Embroidery was the fashionable accomplishment for Irish ladies, and the maiden who typified Ireland must be pre-eminent in it.

“Her soft, queenly fingers Are skilful as fair, While she gracefully lingers O’er broideries rare. The swan and the heath-hen, Bird, blossom, and leaf, Are shaped by this sweet maid Who left me in grief.”

The voice was that of the thrush singing farewell to the setting sun, the cuckoo in the glen, or the lark high in air. Bird-voiced was the universal epithet. The branch of bloom, the bough of apple-blossoms, was the whole lovely creature.

Such were the beauties and accomplishments of the heroines of the hedge-poets, largely, doubtless, derived from the earlier bards, but often exclusively their own. They were chiefly applied to the ideal figure who represented in her beauty and her sorrow their forlorn country, but sometimes to the earthly mistress of flesh and blood whose smiles they sought. Seldom anything so natural and so delicate is to be found in any national poetry. The false and artificial compliments of English amatory poetry, equally with the overstrained comparisons of Oriental verse, seem tasteless and tawdry beside these simple blossoms of nature. They give out health and perfume, while the English love-songs are like wax, and the gorgeous verse of the East is, like its vegetation, magnificent but often odorless.

Those poems which we have described form much the larger portion of the remains of the hedge-poets; but there are others, devoted purely to love, to satire, and to lamentation. There are some which are a sort of dialogue and courtship in rhyme. The minstrel “soothers” the damsel with all the arts of his flattering tongue. He calls her by every sweet name he can think of; tells how deep is his passion and how renowned he will make her by his verse. The rustic coquette replies with a recapitulation of all his faults and failings, his poverty, his fondness for drink, his disgrace with all his relations, and his general unfitness for the yoke of matrimony, and then very often yields to his flattery and goes away with him; or else she listens to his string of endearments without a word, and then dismisses him with stinging contempt. Sometimes the bard sits down in sorrow, generally in a tap-room over an empty glass, and details the charms of the fair one who has wrought his woe; or sometimes, though rarely, it is one of the opposite sex, who has been driven from home by the curses of her kindred, and, sitting by the roadside, tells her tale of woe or despair. Such cases, however, are infrequent, and the general purity of both theme and verse is worthy of all praise. The number of lamentations is much less than would naturally be expected among a people whose vehemence of grief is noted, and where the _keener’s_ extemporaneous mourning reached such a height of impassioned eloquence. From whatever reason, but few appear to have been preserved. Those that are, however, are characterized by profound strength and pathos. The _keen_ of Felix MacCarthy for his children is one of the saddest lamentations ever put into verse. It is entirely too long for quotation, but these two verses, describing the mother’s appearance and grief, will show something of its genuineness and power:

“Woe is me! her dreary pall, Who royal fondness gave to all, Whose heart gave milk and love to each— Woe is me! her ‘plaining speech”

“Woe is me! her hands now weak With smiting her white palms so meek. Wet her eyes at noon, and broken Her true heart with grief unspoken.”

A lament for Kilcash, or rather for its patroness, is also very powerful.

The romantic love-tales are few in comparison with the number among the Irish street-ballads of to-day. The rich young nobleman who falls in love with the pretty girl milking her cow, and the fair lady of great estate who picks out her lover from the tall young men in her own service, make but few appearances. The only ballad of this kind in the collection is not after the usual pattern. The heir to “land and long towers white” certainly falls in love with a rustic maiden, but, instead of flying with him on his roan steed and becoming mistress of his castle, she tells him with great prudence that he will find other maidens better suited to his degree:

“I’m not used at my mother’s to sit with hosts, I’m not used at the board to have wines and toasts, I’m not used to dance-halls with music bold, Nor to couches a third of them red with gold.”

And, in spite of his fervent and eloquent protestations, she refuses to go with him.

Such are the themes and characteristics of the last age of Celtic poetry in Ireland. If we have failed to show that the minstrels who sang in such poverty and oppression had natural genius of a high order, we have not accomplished our purpose. We think that true poetry is visible in almost all that remains of their productions. Like all sectional and class poets, they resembled each other very much. The same species of imagery, the same terms of thought and peculiar epithets, were common to them as to the Troubadours, the Scandinavian minstrels, and to all other classes of poets singing to a confined audience and having little or no acquaintance with other forms of poetry. It is through them alone that the voice of the Irish people of their day can be heard. All other forms of the expression of the oppressed race have perished. In the music and poetry of Ireland is made manifest, so that the dullest ear cannot mistake it, the sorrow of a nation in bondage, tinging all mirth, all hope, and all love with an indefinable cadence of melancholy as plainly as in the real outbursts of lamentation and despairing cries of woe.

RELIGION ON THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.

The marvellous success of the indomitable Stanley has attracted the attention of all to Africa, that region of mystery, marvel, and malaria. The Catholic would naturally learn something of the work of the church in that continent, and of the religious condition of its population. But the subject is too vast for anything less than a large volume, and it will be more profitable to confine our attention to the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. This region has a double interest. Zanzibar is the starting-point of almost every Central African expedition. Thence Livingstone, Speke and Grant, Cameron, and Stanley on two occasions, have struck into the interior and made valuable discoveries. It is also the old centre of the East African slave-trade, which, though it has received a severe check, is not yet abolished. Moreover, Zanzibar is a microcosm—a little world in itself. There one meets with the Arab, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Malagashi, the Banian, the Goa Portuguese, the negro, and the European.

The most important portion of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s territory is the islands of which Zanzibar is the chief. The name was once applied to the whole coast, and it is probable that that must have been the meaning of Marco Polo when he says (on hearsay evidence) that the island of Zanzibar is two thousand miles round. The term is supposed to signify the “Land of the Blacks.” The island is in about 6° south latitude, 48 miles long by 18 broad. It is separated from the mainland by a strait only 20 miles in breadth. As one approaches Zanzibar from the north the coast appears bare, rocky, and surrounded by low cliffs. Here dwell some wild people, almost completely cut off from the more civilized portion of the inhabitants, and following debasing and degrading superstitions. But as we sail southwards, between the island and the main, the shore becomes low and flat, the beach covered with sand of silvery whiteness, and the whole backed by rising ground not more than 300 feet high, on which grow in rich abundance cocoanut and other feathery-leaved palms. Soft breezes, laden with sweet odors from the groves of spice-trees, blow from the shore. The island is rich in fruits; mangos, oranges, limes, pummalos or shaddock, pineapples, jack-fruit, guavas, bananas, and cashew abound. But about four years ago a hurricane visited Zanzibar for the first time; almost all the dhows in the harbor were wrecked, many lives were lost, and the greater part of the trees were destroyed. On one estate known to the writer only four per cent. of the trees remained standing, and the ground, strewn with palms, was a lamentable sight.

At the entrance of Zanzibar harbor are several beautiful islands of emerald green. One of these, called French Island, is used as a burial-place for Europeans, and many wooden crosses and boards mark the last resting-place of seamen of the British navy, cut down by the fever which is so fatal on this coast. The heat is not excessive, seldom rising to 90°, but there is a feeling of depression in the atmosphere, and a short residence in this climate serves to take the energy out of most people.

Now we arrive at the city of Zanzibar, the most important place in East Africa. Its name, in the native language, is Unguja. For miles before reaching the city we have seen large white, square buildings close to the shore—the country residences of wealthy Arabs. The appearance is very pleasing, and so is that of the city from the sea, as similar houses stand near it. These are the English, French, American, and German consulates, over which wave the flags of their respective nations; also the sultan’s palace, the custom-house, and residences of rich Arabs and Hindoos. They are built of coral covered with the whitest plaster, only relieved by regular rows of windows, the brightness reflected from these houses being almost blinding. But on entering the town you cease to wonder at the bad name it has earned. With scarcely an exception Zanzibar is a heap of rubbish; the narrow lanes, or paths which do duty for streets, are surrounded by low hovels formed of earth plastered over wooden frames, roofed with palm-leaves, and possessing no means of ventilation but the doorway, the interior being consequently dark, stifling, and filthy. Many buildings have been allowed to go to utter ruin, and the very mosques are hardly presentable. But the bazaars form the sight of the city. They are, perhaps, a little wider than the other thoroughfares, and the fronts of the houses are occupied by small stalls, on which are piled articles the most incongruous—soap, fish, plantains, cotton goods, medicine, oil, etc. In the midst is seated, cross-legged, a fat old Banian, stripped to the waist, with his naked foot in a basket of grain, or a pretty dark-eyed girl with a ring in her nose. The market produce of all kinds is heaped on the ground without any attempt at order, and, as every one present is screaming at the top of his voice in his own language, the Babel of tongues is complete.

The government is in the hands of the Arabs. This people have from time immemorial had trading-stations on the coast, but Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, and the Portuguese soon superseded the Arabs and held the coast for a couple of hundred years, when the Arabs succeeded in dislodging them, and they are now confined to Mozambique and Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi.

Remains of Portuguese forts are scattered up and down the shores of the mainland, and the writer assisted once in whitewashing Vasco da Gama’s column at Melinda, which makes an excellent harbor mark. Near the fort at Zanzibar numerous Portuguese cannon, cast in a European arsenal in the present century, lie on the ground, a proud trophy for the Arabs and a humiliating spectacle for Europeans. Fifty years ago Sayid Said, the Imaum of Muscat, visited Zanzibar and fixed his residence there. At his death one of his sons succeeded to his African and another to his Arabian possessions, the former paying an annual tax of forty thousand dollars to the Imaum. Sayid Barghash, the present sultan, succeeded his brother Sayid Majid seven years ago. He had previously been exiled to Bombay at the instance of the English, whose _protégé_ Majid was. His policy has been one of economy and retrenchment. Though the government may be called an absolute monarchy, yet it answers rather to the old feudal constitutions of Europe in the middle ages, the sultan being checked by members of his own and other powerful families.

The Arab statute-book is the Koran interpreted by what may be called the priesthood. But witchcraft is a great power, not only with the heathen but also with Mahometans, in Africa, and, after consulting his sheiks and sherifs, the sultan often has recourse to the heathen Mganga. One is reminded of the Witch of Endor, Pharao’s magicians, and many of the old superstitions which we find recorded in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.

The population of the city may be one hundred thousand, and that of the remainder of the island rather more; but one cannot decide this with any accuracy, as it is against Moslem principles to take a census. Who are they to count the favors of God? Of the mongrel population of Zanzibar the Arab is the dominant race, though there are few, if any, pure Arabs—sometimes that name being applied to a man as black as a negro. But the better class of them are fine, handsome men, splendidly dressed, and very dignified and self-possessed. They are ignorant, however, bigoted, supercilious, and licentious. They are also very indolent and have few redeeming features. Lower classes of Arabs there are, who are soldiers, sailors, traders, and so on, and from them are drawn the villains who carry on the iniquitous slave-traffic.

There are about seven thousand British subjects—Banians and other Indian peoples. The commerce of the East African coast is chiefly in their hands, and they are the bankers and represent the moneyed interest. Those owning slaves are in danger of losing them, if the British consul discover the fact; but it is hardly possible for them not to trade in slaves, as they are always sold with landed properties, and without them labor could hardly be obtained.

Most of the army, which numbers nine hundred, is composed of Belooches, who are a motley set of rascals, brutal, lazy, and cowardly. But somehow they contrive to live, and arm themselves too, on three dollars a month, and seem to be pretty prosperous. The artillerymen are Persians—tall, handsome men with black moustaches, high black sheepskin caps, green tunics, and loose trowsers. But their battery, which is full of small brass and iron guns overlooking the sea, is a poor affair, ridiculous from a military point of view, and better adapted for firing salutes than for purposes of warfare.

There are about two thousand men from the Comoro Islands, but no one seems to have anything good to say of them.

The mass of the population is composed of blacks from the east coast. These are almost entirely slaves, and are made to work for the support of the lazy Arabs. A person acquainted with the country easily distinguishes members of the different tribes from each other; they may be known by the tribe marks—mostly punctures in the forehead—and by their general appearance. The slaves are capable of much endurance; the writer once paid thirty or forty slave women eight cents each for a day’s work, which consisted of walking thirty miles, carrying weights on their heads half the way. They did not seem at all exhausted after this arduous task. Great cruelties are perpetrated in the capture of the slaves and in conveying them to Zanzibar, but, as a rule, they are treated fairly enough when once they are received into a family, being allowed one day a week to work for themselves, besides other extra time.

There are only sixty or seventy white people—American, English, Scotch, French, and German—but without them the commerce of the place would collapse. The chief exports are spices, ivory, ebony, cocoanuts, and gum-copal. The imports are cotton fabrics, pocket-handkerchiefs of bright colors, crockery, etc.

The climate of Zanzibar is healthier than that of the mainland, though it is quite bad enough; the wonder is that any one can live there. The city lies very low, almost surrounded by a shallow lagoon, over which the water flows at every tide, leaving a deposit of reeking filth. No attempt at drainage has been made; sanitary reform is totally unknown; and the smell of the beach caused Livingstone to suggest that the name should be changed to Stinkibar. The year before the great hurricane there was a cholera epidemic which is supposed to have killed ten thousand people. Strangely enough, the Europeans, who mostly suffer much from fevers, were totally exempt, and the natives got the notion that the devil, who gave them the cholera, was afraid to attack the redoubtable _Myungoo_; so they sometimes whitewashed a man who showed symptoms of the disease, to cheat the devil, but the devil refused to be cheated so easily. The physical is far superior, however, to the moral condition of Zanzibar; in fact, the place is a Sodom where morality is unknown.

To arrive at an idea of the religious condition of the peoples it is necessary to consider each race separately, and try to understand their habits and modes of thought. First let us take the negro—the most numerous class. Even so we shall be generalizing for the different tribes and nations of the interior, as distinct from each other and the races of Europe.

The writer has had considerable opportunities of judging of the black man, having served in a British man-of-war engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, and having for some time been in charge of an establishment of liberated slaves—mostly boys. The negro character is a strange series of contradictions, and it takes some time to understand him. He is profoundly conscious of his inferiority. An English officer adopted a little slave boy taken from a dhow, and we taught him a few elements of religion, which he eagerly grasped. Amongst others he was much struck by the idea of a future state. One day he was being chaffed: “Ah! you nigger—thick lips—flat nose,” when he replied: “If I’m a good nigger, after I die I shall get up again, not black then, but white as you are.” It was a long time, though, before he could believe that a negro could rise again, though it did not seem unreasonable to him for an Arab or white man to rise.

Passing with this same boy, Mumbo, through a graveyard at Zanzibar, he pointed to a grave. “Who’s there?” he said. “Arab man,” I answered, recognizing it to be so from the concrete with which the grave was covered. “He get up again?” “Yes,” I replied, after which the boy was thoughtful and silent for a while. “Who’s buried there?” he repeated, pointing to a grave marked by a wooden cross. “A Msungu” (white man), I answered. “He get up again?” “Yes.” Another pause. “And who’s there?” the boy again asked, pointing to a mean grave unmarked by cross or stone. “A nigger man,” said I. “He get up again?” But on replying in the affirmative he would not believe it, and continued obstinately sceptical for some time.

Selfishness seems to be the most prominent feature of the negro character. Civilized people mask the repulsive feeling, but not so the black. Everything is for himself and his own present sensual gratification. They have not a particle of gratitude, and if you show them kindness or give them a present it is considered a sign of weakness, and their contempt for their benefactor is apparent. There is no word expressive of thanks in the Swahili language, though the “Santa” of the Arab, accompanied by a bow, the right hand placed on the heart, is most graceful and pleasing. On taking charge of the boys’ house, in the benevolence of my heart I invested in numbers of stalks of bananas—a large one can be obtained for eight cents—and distributed them. But no word of thanks was heard, and the boys began to consider fruit as a right, and to grumble if it were not forthcoming; so I grew rather disgusted and discontinued scattering largesse amidst such a graceless set. Neither do they show much affection. This, perhaps, is hardly to be wondered at, as the slave-traffic, which has existed from time immemorial, must, by constantly separating families, have weakened and almost destroyed all ties of kindred. A gentleman well acquainted with the people told me that the only known affection amongst them was that between a son and his mother. Several slave boys whom we had liberated and kept on board the ship, on our leaving the coast were wisely sent on shore to the mission, only the one of whom I have previously spoken remaining. He wept piteously and sobbed himself to sleep. We were touched, and fancied that, after all, we had formed too low an estimate of the negro, till on waking he appeared to have completely forgotten his friends, and never spoke of them again. It then appeared that his grief had been purely selfish; for, as he phrased it, he would have no one “to skylark with.” “What will you give me?” is the view a negro takes of his neighbor, and in this the Ki-Swahili, and even the Arab, very much resemble him. One’s ear soon grows familiar with the cry of “Lata paca”—“Bring pice”—pice being little Indian copper coins which form the currency at Zanzibar. This question is asked you in the streets or country roads, not merely by the poor, but even by well-to-do people. I was one day walking home from a feast to which I had been invited by the proprietor of a sugar plantation—a Swahili man. These people are mulattoes, partly Arab, but mostly negro. They are Mahometans and call themselves Arabs. We had been hospitably _fêted_, and I was accompanied by a brother of my host, a nice-looking young fellow, upright as a dart—as they all are—and dressed in the graceful long white linen robe which they always wear. He was proceeding to his home, a well-built stone house, but before leaving me I was astonished at his asking in Swahili for a few pice! Doubting my ears, I asked a boy who understood English what he had said, and he told me that I had not mistaken his meaning; so I gave him two or three coppers, and he went away well pleased.

Negroes are very improvident, like most savage races. They take no thought for the morrow—not from faith, but from utter recklessness. They are also fond of desertion for the mere sake of change. Slaves sometimes leave their masters and hire themselves out for a year or two to some one else, returning afterwards as if nothing had happened, and receiving no punishment, the master fearing that he might revenge himself on him or desert again, and also arguing that it is his nature and that no better can be expected of him. I was once on a shooting party in the Kingani River, and placing one of the boats in charge of a quartermaster, left with him a Seedee boy, or black seaman, to clean the jaws of a hippopotamus that I had shot on the previous day. I went up the river in the other boat with the remaining seamen for a day’s shooting, and on my return in the evening was informed that the black had decamped, and we never saw any more of him. In the ship he was receiving about four times as much pay as he could possibly earn elsewhere, and, in addition to this, he left clothes and money behind. Yet we afterwards learnt that before leaving the vessel he had told his friends of his intention to run.

The negro is, in Africa as elsewhere, exceedingly indolent, and, nature having provided him with abundance of the necessaries of life, he indulges his laziness to the full when he possibly can—that is, in his native country or at Zanzibar, if he can manage to possess a few slaves to work for him.

He is also obstinate and headstrong. Going on shore on the beautiful island of Pemba, north of Zanzibar, to trade for provisions, they were uniformly refused us, whatever price we offered. Yet next day the natives brought the things to the ship, some miles from the shore, and offered them for sale. A little bit of a boy was so obstinate that he would not obey orders unless he chose, even if thrashed with a rhinoceros-hide whip; neither did he flinch nor utter a cry under punishment. But when he left the ship, where he had been petted by the sailors, being sent to the French Mission, he was so disgusted that the first thing he did was to roll on the beach and completely destroy his new clothes, and the missionaries were compelled to restore him his old sailor costume. Still he sulked, and when I left they had not managed to get him to speak.

Negroes are subject to sudden fits of fury almost amounting to madness, and then they cry, shout, vociferate, and argue in the most ridiculous manner. They love to eat and are very greedy, but are still more fond of drinking, and in their own country begin the day by copious potations of beer. However, at Zanzibar drunkenness would be punished by imprisonment; and that is no trifle, the prisoners being placed in a yard enclosed by four walls, and receiving no food, unless they have a friend to bring them some. They are also exceedingly depraved, and, when brought into contact with the semi-civilization of the coast, they become, if anything, worse than before. A stranger is astonished at the cool manner in which they enter a strange house, if they see the door open. They place their spear in a corner, set themselves in the best place, and talk till they are tired (they are especially fond of hearing themselves talk), when they rise and leave. It is no good trying to exclude them; their curiosity must be satisfied, and they insist on seeing and learning about everything—examining and handling your clothes and asking the value of each article.

Negroes have the redeeming feature of being mostly good-tempered and pleased by a very little. They delight in a joke, yet their wit is of the most elementary character. They are exceedingly fond of music; neither does its unvaried monotony pall on them. I once passed an old man amusing himself by drumming with two sticks on a plank; returning after some hours, I found him continuing the performance, which he had evidently kept up all the time. You will see them on a moonlight night, or even in the daytime, dancing and flinging their limbs about in the most ridiculous and ungraceful manner to the tune of tomtoms and fifes; yet they keep perfect time. A circle is formed, and a performer waltzes rapidly around the inner space, looking up to the sky, till she becomes giddy and falls into the arms of her friends. Whatever work they are engaged in, these people always sing, and in the streets you constantly hear the chant of porters, who carry tusks of ivory or bales of goods slung between two of them on a pole which rests on their shoulders.

The East African negro has been completely debased by centuries of oppression and slavery. “All the good qualities appear crushed out of the African race,” said an experienced missionary at Zanzibar to me. Their religion is the same as that of the natives of the west coast—fetichism. I believe this word is derived from the Portuguese _feitiço_, a doing—that is, of magic. Nature has colored the black man’s thoughts, but not with the sublime and beautiful. He sees nothing in nature but the terrible, vast, threatening, and hostile. The dense jungle with huge trees, concealing poisonous snakes, fierce lions, and spotted leopards; the fever-breeding swamp; the devastating cyclone—these have produced a feeling of dread, helplessness, and terror on his debased mind. He has but a very vague, unformed idea of a Supreme Being, and does not at all conceive of the spiritual and eternal side of man. To him death is destruction. Yet he believes that the ghost of the departed person remains, and he always imagines it to be harmful and hostile. In fact, he is for ever in terror of ghosts and witchcraft, and his religion consists in the propitiation of natural objects. The African’s creed may be reduced to two articles: the first demonology, or the existence of spectres of the dead; the second witchcraft, or black magic. Their native superstitions the slaves carry with them to Zanzibar or wherever they are taken, and so deeply rooted are these beliefs in their minds that I have often been surprised to hear negroes who have been Protestant Christians for years, and daily attending public Christian worship, speak of witchcraft in ordinary conversation as much as a matter of course as they would of any every-day occurrence. For instance, missing some pice from my drawers, I asked my servant to find out who had taken them. He replied that he could not do so, but that a man had been there years ago who “made plenty witchcraft”; he would have told me, but now he was gone. Some very good Christian boys, as I was walking with them one day, suddenly dropped their voices and told me that it was a “plenty bad place.” I imagined that fever or ague was intended, as it was low, marshy ground; but no such thing. They had once witnessed some “witchcraft” or other there.

There are _Mganga_—wizards and witches—who are partly impostors and partly dupes of their own imagination. To these people the negroes have recourse in any calamity or sickness. Their office is to transfer the evil from which they suffer to some one else. Of course payment is the preliminary—no pay, no work. And an African must have present payment; he attaches no value to promises of future reward, though ever so near. These Mganga endeavor to entice ghosts from possessed persons and transfer them to some inanimate object, striving to effect it by music, dancing, and drinking. Thus, they nail pieces of cloth to trees to coax the devils into them. Epileptic fits are very common, and it is not astonishing that they should regard them as the effect of seizure by some external agent. On the mainland they attempt to discover the workers of magic by most cruel ordeals.

There are also rain-makers. It does not require an exceptionally weatherwise person to infer what the weather will be in a country of regular monsoons and seasons; still, they sometimes make a mistake, and then the false prophets have to escape as best they can.

The Arabs have the utmost contempt for the negroes, and, so far from trying to convert them, purposely leave them to perdition; if they made them Mahometans they would be their equals, and this they do not at all desire.

Such is the character and religious belief of these unhappy people. We will see later on what the church can do for them, but in this inquiry one important subject must be considered—that is, the slave-trade. Slavery on the White Nile is admirably described by Sir Samuel Baker in his _Nile Basin_, and it is much the same on the east coast. The petty native chieftains are constantly at war with each other, the object being plunder. They try to surprise a neighboring village at night, fire it, and surround it with armed men. As the luckless inhabitants rush out to escape from the flames, their enemies shoot down the men and seize the women and children for slaves, carrying off the cattle. Sometimes a thieving Arab slaving party joins one chief who has a grudge against a neighboring village, assisting him to destroy it in the manner just described and sharing the plunder. The Arabs then manage to quarrel with their allies, and so obtain their goods also.

As long as this state of things exists mission work in the interior will be impossible. The Protestant English mission, under Bishop Mackenzie, some years ago established itself in the interior near the Zambesi, and gathered together some hundreds of natives whose improvement they hoped gradually to effect. But a powerful tribe attacking the one amongst which they dwelt, they had to perform the uncongenial task of driving off the invaders with their rifles. Their friends were saved for the time, but many of the missionaries had died from fever, and the small remainder was obliged to retire. Shortly after this the tribe with which they had been was swept away and destroyed. The slave-trade naturally prevents all progress and the increase of population. It also weakens all family ties, parents killing their offspring if they are in want. Great cruelties are practised, not only in the capture of slaves, but in their transit to the place of destination. The Arabs are very improvident, and sometimes, having failed to provide sufficient food for their caravan, they leave some of the slaves in the desert to starve, not even removing the yokes by which they are fastened together. I was told of a woman who was carrying a bale of cloth, and on the journey gave birth to a child. She could not carry both the baby and the goods; the latter were the more valuable, so the infant was brained against the nearest tree and left on the ground.

About four years ago a treaty was signed between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the British government, by which the importation of slaves was prohibited, but the Arabs were permitted to retain the slaves they already possessed. Strong pressure had to be brought to bear on the Arabs to compel them to sign this treaty; but even now a considerable traffic is carried on by the east coast with Arabia, Pemba, and Madagascar. The negroes are crowded into the slave-dhows, and their sufferings from hunger and filth must be extreme on a voyage. Many die and are thrown overboard, and the remainder land in a miserably reduced condition. But the household slaves are treated kindly and well fed; this the owner finds politic, or the slave might desert. They are addressed as “Ndugu-yango”—“My brother”—and considered part of the family.

There are two sorts of slaves in the islands—the Muwallid, or domestic, born in slavery, and the wild imported slave. The former class are much better treated than the others. Even young captured slaves are not so tractable as they, but the older ones are very obstinate and contrary and given to thieving and disorder. Sometimes in revenge they attempt the life of their master or try to get him into serious trouble, yet they are seldom punished for it, any more than with us a vicious animal would be. They are slaves, and it is their nature, and they themselves give this as their excuse when convicted of the most abominable crimes. But slaves often rise to a very important position; and as Abraham sent his servant to Mesopotamia to negotiate his son’s marriage, so slaves are entrusted by their masters with the command of trading caravans to the interior, they preferring to remain comfortably at home. Free negroes have been known to sell themselves for slaves, and, when asked about it, to reply: “What can a dog do without a master?” Also, slaves often own slaves of their own. The pilot of Zanzibar, an official of some importance called Buckett, was a slave, and, when seen habited in a naval officer’s old coat and a handsome turban on his head, he appeared a person of much distinction.

It is difficult to see how slavery can be kept up at Zanzibar, now that importation is forbidden; for the annual loss from death and desertion is thirty per cent., and the average annual importation a few years ago was estimated at thirteen thousand. Slavery, as it has been there, is an abominable institution and a complete bar to improvement.

Though the negro is so ignorant, superstitious, and debased, yet it has been abundantly shown that he is capable of improvement. I once visited the well-ordered estate of Kokotoni, in the north of Zanzibar Island, the property of Capt. Fraser. I found it in charge of an intelligent Scotchman, who said that they had about five hundred laborers resident on the plantation—half men and half women. They required them all to marry, gave them cottages, provision, grounds, and two dollars and a half each per month, and they were an orderly and well-conducted people. The overseer had taught them different trades—as that of wheelwright, necessary for the work of the estate—and, though they sometimes deserted in true negro fashion, yet the truants were sure to return again.

At Zanzibar and Bagomoyo, twenty-five miles off on the mainland, at the mouth of the Kingani River, the Société du Saint-Esprit, the parent house of which is in Paris, have most flourishing establishments. The town house is in the centre of Zanzibar, its corrugated iron roof, towering above the neighboring buildings, being a conspicuous object. On entering you will be greeted in good French by very civil negro boys dressed in blue blouse and trowsers and wearing a black glazed hat. They will conduct you to a spacious sitting-room decorated with pictures of religious subjects, and before long the superior, Père Etienne, appears. He is a tall, slight man, and has not lost the cavalry swagger which he acquired as captain in a Lancers regiment, and which forms a strange contrast to his black soutane. He is a most affable and agreeable priest, and conducts one round the interesting establishment. There is a beautiful little chapel on the first floor, and when I was last in it the walls were being stencilled. In the workshops trades are taught to the boys by the lay brethren, such as working in metals, carpentering, and boat-building. The pupils belong to the mission, they having been either handed over to it by the British consul from captured slave-dhows, or purchased by the mission in the slave-market in the old times before slavery was abolished. At Bagomoyo there is a still larger establishment under the care of Père Horner, where about ten clergy and the same number of sisters have charge of an agricultural colony on which are several hundred Christian negroes. At first the mission did not mean to Christianize the natives, thinking that they were so degraded that it would take several generations to raise them to that point; but they found them capable of more than was originally expected. The mission establishment is half a mile from the town of Bagomoyo, which contains about five thousand people, but it has the appearance of a small town itself. The grounds are laid out in a most orderly manner; it is a pleasure to walk along the straight, well-kept paths between fields of maize, millet, and sweet potatoes.

The captain of the ship in which I served was one day up the Kingani River in his boat, accompanied by a young Alsatian lay brother from the mission. Shooting a hippopotamus cow, the calf, only a week or two old, would not leave the mother’s carcase, and the captain, who had to return to his ship, giving money to the brother, advised him to obtain assistance and catch the little animal, which he presented to the mission. A few months after, as we were visiting the good fathers, the lay brother took us to a large tank surrounded with a fence, which they had formed for the accommodation of the hippopotamus. Standing at the gate, the brother called the animal by name, and it came snorting out of the water, ran up to its master, looking up into his face, and followed us about the garden and into the house like a dog. Here he was fed from a bottle with flour and milk. He was taken to the Zoölogical Gardens at Berlin shortly afterwards, and must have sold for at least six thousand dollars. Hippopotami are inimical to the crops of rice which grow near the rivers, as they come on shore in the night and devour enormous quantities of the young tender shoots, so that the fields have to be carefully watched. But more dangerous animals are found on the coast, and Père Horner told us a story of a huge lion which had carried off several of their cattle. They constructed a trap of a deserted hut, into which they enticed the animal, which, finding himself imprisoned, aroused all the establishment from their midnight slumbers by his roarings. He was shot by one of the brethren.

The fathers give their guests a good dinner of many courses in true French style, but one should not conclude, as does Stanley in his _How I Found Livingstone_, that champagne is their ordinary beverage. On the contrary, when I was there they could offer us nothing but a little white rum which had been sent them from our ship, and the champagne with which they welcomed Mr. Stanley was some of a small present which they had received.

Their mode of work is undoubtedly the true one: to get a certain number of negroes, isolate them as much as possible from the licentious society of their heathen brethren, and hope of them to form the nucleus of a future Christian population.

The Church of England has a mission at Zanzibar, and has also some settlements on the mainland; and as I had several friends there, I know something about it from personal observation, and regret that its members are not Catholics, for a more devoted set of workers it would be hard to find. They have a house on a _shamba_, or estate, two miles from the town, in which there are a number of liberated slave boys, who are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and are taught such trades as carpentering and field labor. Dr. Steere, the third bishop of this mission, which was set on foot by the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge at the instance of Livingstone, is a linguist, being the authority on Swahili, the language commonly spoken at Zanzibar and on the coast. He has written a Swahili grammar, and translated into the language great parts of the Bible, prayers, hymns, and school-books, and these are excellently printed in the mission press by some of the pupils, a few of whom he took to England to perfect themselves in the trade at a large London printing establishment. All the printing done in Zanzibar is their work. They have a beautiful chapel, where there are daily morning and evening services, and these are attended by all the establishment; and I am told that many of the boys show great devotion, kneeling for a quarter of an hour together in the chapel. I am inclined to fear, though, that the African Anglican’s notion of religion is something which will propitiate an angry, hostile power—in fact, a relic of demonology. “Our Father” has no meaning to one who had perhaps been sold to an Arab by his parent for a bowl of rice. Two miles beyond the English mission’s boys’ house is a similar establishment for girls under the charge of women. The girls look fatter and healthier than the boys, a large proportion of whom are affected by the terrible skin diseases so prevalent amongst the blacks.

The mission had a devoted young clergyman there some years ago, who, being possessed of large means and wealthy friends, purchased the old slave market in Zanzibar, on which a handsome stone church with groined roof, and different school buildings, were erected. But he sacrificed his life, as most of the workers of this mission have done, by his zeal, and fell a victim to fever; his funeral was attended by parties from the English men-of-war in the harbor, and by some of the Catholic missionaries, and many of the European residents who wished to pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of a brave and devoted, if mistaken, man. He once told me that some of his pupils asked him a very pertinent question: Why, if the Christian religion was one, the French and English missions were not united? He evaded it by replying that they taught in English, but the others in French! When his death was announced in England a young clergyman, who had formerly worked in the same mission, was preaching for it in an English church and exhorting his hearers to give money and, if possible, their personal services to the cause. He was astonished afterwards at a young woman presenting herself and offering herself for the work. Neither pictures of fever, discomfort, nor death could deter her from going to Zanzibar, as I believe she afterwards did.

Bishop Steere used to give a weekly address in the native language in the city of Zanzibar to any who chose to attend, and I have heard that the rich Arabs used to flock to it in crowds, coming to the bishop’s house afterwards to discuss the different Christian doctrines of which they had heard. But if any Arab became a Christian he would probably be assassinated by his comrades, so great is their bigotry. Singularly, the part of the Bible which has most interest for an Arab is the genealogies; for, as is well known, they are most careful in preserving such records, even of their very horses.

The Mahometan residents at Zanzibar and on the coast, both Arab and Ki-Swahili, go to school at seven years of age, and in two or three years learn to write, and read the Koran. They are also taught a few prayers and hymns and some Arab proverbs, and this completes their education. In two points a good Moslem puts ordinary Christians to shame—in prayer and temperance. In the East one often sees even the poorest people prostrating themselves towards Mecca on their praying-mat, and repeating the accustomed prayers at the stated hours, which occur five times a day. I have seen a naked black laborer praying in a coal-lighter during an interval of work. One is reminded of the quaint old Belgian cities, where it is common to see female figures, in their long black cloaks, kneeling before a crucifix in some open space. Temperance the Arab rigidly observes; and how can one expect them to become Christians when they daily witness the drunkenness of white seamen? In fact, this objection has been urged upon me by natives, and the answer which one makes, that our religion does not permit drunkenness, is not satisfactory to them. “If we got drunk,” they say, “our sultan would put us in prison.”

Strict Mahometans are very Pharisaical. We once had great trouble with a Mahometan priest or schoolmaster who visited our ship. He refused the coffee which we offered him because it was made by a Christian, and would only condescend to drink some lime-juice out of a glass which we assured him had never been used, and even this beverage had to be prepared by his own servant. Some Arab gentlemen who accompanied him and dined with us, being prevented from eating anything that we had cooked, could get nothing but oranges.

The Hindis are a sect of Mahometans who are not recognized by the Arabs, but the exact nature of their differences I have not been able to learn. Neither could I arrive at the religion of the Banians. Their mortality at Zanzibar is very great, and you may daily see processions of Banian men going to the beach beyond the town, where they raise a funeral pyre of wood, on which their deceased friend is consumed, the remains being washed away by the rising tide.

On the coast the people are much the same as those who inhabit the island of Zanzibar. There are the lazy, cowardly Belooch soldiers and their families, and these swashbucklers are thoroughly despised and hated. The towns are ruled by headmen, who are subject to the Sultan of Zanzibar, but who enrich themselves by extortion. The Washenzi are day-laborers, and are barbarians from the interior. Banians are always found prospering in trade. The Ki-Swahili—which means people of the coast, degenerate Arabs—are ignorant and vicious. They have a great fear and hatred of the white man, particularly of the English, whom they called _Beni Nar_—Sons of Fire. They think that, if once the white man’s foot has been placed on the land, he is sure to obtain possession of it in the end; and in this they are not far mistaken. The Wamrina are a coast clan even more debased and vicious than the latter people, and they appear to have little reason. They are cowardly and cautious, but very cunning, and, as most of the inhabitants in those parts, lie habitually, even when there is no object to be gained thereby.

There are a number of small towns on the coast from Magadoxo, a little north of the equator, to Kilwa, the great slave-mart in the south. The chief ones are Brava, Lamu, Marka, Melinda, and Mombas. At both of the latter are Portuguese remains, and at Mombas is a Protestant mission which at the time of my visit had been established thirty years, and had cost a large amount of money, but had apparently done very little good. The celebrated Dr. Krapf, who had been four years in Abyssinia, was the first to go there, starting from Zanzibar. This was in 1844. He was the first to draw up a Ki-Swahili grammar, in which he was assisted by Dr. Rebmann, who arrived two years afterwards. Their journeys from Mombas, which is situated in 4° south latitude, are well known. They discovered Kilima Njaro, a snow-clad mountain 22,814 feet high, only 3° south of the equator, and what they heard from the natives of vast lakes in the interior, where nothing but sandy deserts had hitherto been supposed to exist, led to the famous travels which have exposed a new world to the wondering eyes of men and opened up new fields for the glorious labors of the missionary.

Dr. Rebmann was living near Mombas at the time of my visit, though old and blind, and, I hear, has since died. I did not see him, though I started to do so with one of the missionaries. I was so disgusted by this man’s narrow sectarianism in the midst of heathendom—he commencing to abuse the mission of his own church at Zanzibar—that I preferred to spend the night on the river in a boat with our seamen rather than, with my friends, accompany him to the Rabai Mission. We came across a pamphlet written by them for their English supporters, containing a lot of pious texts: “Come over and help us”; “The fields are white to the harvest”; “A wide door and effectual is open,” and so on; but it struck us as being great nonsense. However, I am told that they have since that started a large establishment of liberated slaves. The Wesleyans have a mission in the neighborhood, but of them I know nothing, as we did not visit them.

The Sultan of Zanzibar visited England two years ago, offered to place his dominions under British protection, and has exerted himself to put a stop to the slave-trade, though he fought hard against its abolition at first, as from it he derived the principal part of his revenue. If a stop could be put to this evil and peace established in the interior, a splendid field for mission-work would be the result, the black having such respect for the superior knowledge and intellect of the white man that many tribes would receive the missionary with a hearty welcome.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY, WITH A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ROMAN WORLD AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. By George P. Fisher, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

Dr. Fisher has taken up a line of argument of great interest and importance, which has employed the minds and pens of a number of able writers before him, but which cannot be too frequently or copiously treated. The author informs us in his preface that he has prepared the work as now published from a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston. The principal portion of his argument presents precisely what is needed by a large number of educated persons in New England, especially in Boston, where a reckless, extravagant rationalism and neologism, borrowed from Germany, are rapidly undermining all belief in the genuineness, historical truth, and doctrinal authenticity of our earliest Christian documents, together with those of Judaism. This modern infidelity saps the historical basis of Christianity, that it may be free to criticise it as a theory, a mere natural phenomenon, a phase of human evolution. Any one who turns their own historical and critical methods against these sceptics does good service to truth. We are pleased to recognize the many merits, both in respect to matter and diction, in the essay of the learned professor. The five chapters on the Roman policy, and Greco-Roman religion, literature, philosophy, and morals, are admirable. The geographical accuracy and distinctness with which, as on a map, the Roman Empire is graphically delineated, makes a characteristic and noteworthy feature of this part of the work, which is enriched with a great number of happy classical quotations. The succinct review of historical Judaism during the important but much-neglected period of five centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ is interesting and valuable. A very able critical defence of the genuineness of the New Testament history, of the truth of the miracles and resurrection of our Lord, his superhuman character and divine mission, completes a solid and unanswerable argument for the historical basis of Christianity as a divine and supernatural religion.

The author has shown the convergence of all the lines of movement drawn in the past history of the world towards the moment of Christ’s appearance. This is one of the strongest proofs of his divine mission, inasmuch as it shows that the Author and Ruler of the world is also the Author of the Christian religion. The complement to the argument should point out the divergence of the lines from the same point through the post-Christian times, and the work of human regeneration historically fulfilled—the second and even greater proof of the divine legation of Christ. The author shows very conclusively that those destructive critics and sceptics who deny the true historical idea of Christ as presented in the New Testament take away all sufficient cause for the effect produced in Christianity.

The foundation for a complete argument from cause to effect and effect to cause, in the relation between the historical idea of Christ and the historical idea of his regenerating work, is laid by establishing his supernatural character, mission, and works. Thus far Dr. Fisher gives us complete satisfaction. When he proceeds to develop his own conception of the true Christian idea—the plan, namely, of human regeneration, and the means for executing the plan—we do not find it complete and adequate. As compared with the view heretofore prevalent among evangelical Protestants, it is, nevertheless, a marked approximation to the Catholic idea. We consider that Dr. Fisher’s argument requires a complement, in order to make the historical circle embracing all ages and centred in Christ perfect in its circumference. To explain our statement and adduce reasons for it would require many pages, and we must for the present refrain from anything beyond a mere expression of our judgment.

There is only one passage which we have thus far noticed in a perusal of nearly the whole of Dr. Fisher’s volume which has jarred upon our feelings as out of tune with his prevalent mode of philosophical candor and historical justice. On page 238 it is written: “Pharisaism, like Jesuitism, is a word of evil sound, not because these parties had no good men among them, but because prevailing tendencies stamped upon each ineffaceable traits of ignominy.”

We are persuaded that in the great number and variety of studies which have absorbed his time and attention the writer of the foregoing passage has never found leisure to read the books which would give him the true notion of the institute and history of the Jesuits. We give him credit for great sincerity and love of truth, and yet we cannot help thinking that there is still a remnant of prejudice left in his mind, which in this case causes, to use his own words, “groundless, gratuitous suspicion, such as, in the ordinary concerns of life, is habitually repelled by a healthy moral nature.”

As a production of learning, philosophical thought, and literary taste, the _Beginnings of Christianity_ deserves, in our opinion, a place among the best works of New England scholars. We will close this notice by an extract which shows the philosophical and religious tone and quality of the great argument presented in the volume:

“When we look back upon the ancient philosophy in its entire course, we find in it nothing nearer to Christianity than the saying of Plato that man is to resemble God. But, on the path of speculation, how defective and discordant are the conceptions of God! And if God were adequately known, how shall the fetters of evil be broken and the soul attain to its ideal? It is just these questions that Christianity meets through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. God, the head of that universal society on which Cicero delighted to dwell, is brought near, in all his purity and love, to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers merely, but of the humble and ignorant. There is a real deliverance from the burden of evil, achieved through Christ, actually for himself and potentially for mankind. How altered in their whole character are the ethical maxims which, in form, may not be without a parallel in heathen sages! Forgiveness, forbearance, pity for the poor, universal compassion, are no longer abstractions derived from speculation on the attributes of Deity. They are a part of the example of God. He has so dealt with us in the mission and death of his Son. The cross of Christ was the practical power that annihilated artificial distinctions among mankind and made human brotherhood a reality. In this new setting, ethical precepts gain a depth of earnestness and a force of impression which heathen philosophy could never impart. We might as well claim for starlight the brightness and warmth of a noon-day sun” (p. 189). This fine passage is supplemented by two condensed statements in another place, that the end in view of the plan of Jesus was “the introduction of a new life in humanity,” and the plan itself “the establishment of a society of which he is the living head” (p. 467). This really comprehends the whole Christian Idea in germ. Its true and perfect evolution, and an accurate commentary upon it, would present a complete philosophy of Christianity.

DE DEO CREANTE: Prælectiones Scholastico-Dogmaticæ quas in Collegio S.S. Cordis Jesu ad Woodstock, Maxima Studiorum Domo Soc. Jesu in Fœd. Americæ Sept. Statibus, habebat A.D. MDCCCLXXVI.-VII., Camillus Mazzella, S.J., in eod. Coll. Stud. Præfectus et Theol. Dogm. Professor. Woodstock, Marylandiæ: Ex Officina Typographica Collegii. 1877. 8vo, pp. xxxv.-935.

This treatise is a complete exposition and defence of the Catholic doctrine on creation and its kindred topics as handed down in the church by tradition from the earliest ages to the present day. As the title of the book indicates, the subject is considered not merely from a dogmatic point of view; all the errors of the ancients as well as of their modern imitators being taken up in turn and refuted. A glance at the general divisions of the work will show the wide range of topics treated: I. “De Creatione Generatim”; II. “De Angelica Substantia”; III. “De Hominis Origine et Natura”; IV. “De Hominis Elevatione ad Statum Supernaturalem”; V. “De Humanæ Naturæ Lapsu”; VI. “De Hominis Novissimis.”

Each of these subjects is developed with the greatest detail. Take, for example, the seventeenth proposition in the third disputation, on the origin of the human race. In the introductory remarks to this proposition the author first explains our descent from Adam, the first man, according to revelation, and then devotes some ten pages to a concise but thorough exposition of Darwinism and its companion errors. After this he lays down the following thesis: “Primi parentes, prout ex divina revelatione constat, non modo quoad animam, sed etiam quoad corpus, immediate a Deo conditi sunt. Quam certissimam veritatem frustra evertere aut infirmare nituntur qui nunc audiunt Transformistæ: principium enim quod assumunt arbitrarium est, atque experientiæ repugnans; media, quæ assignant, ad transformationem efficiendam sunt insufficientia; probationes, demum, quas adducunt, nihil omnino evincunt.” This he proves directly by a large array of arguments from the Holy Scriptures, the fathers and the doctors of the church. He then proceeds to show the untenableness of the opposite theories, demonstrating that animals can only be propagated by others of the same species; that the ablest practical scientists of the day have acknowledged the arbitrariness of the transformation theory, and that many have proved it contrary to known facts; that the means suggested by the evolutionists are insufficient to explain the origin of man, etc., etc. He introduces a large and well-marshalled army of quotations from American, British, and Continental scientists to back up his position.

The divisions of the work and the order in which they are treated lay no claims to originality, which the author has very sensibly considered as worse than out of place in a theological text-book, since it tends only to perplex the student and to introduce confusion into the schools of divinity. The fate of writers who have, even in our own day, adopted a different course proves clearly the correctness of this view. Nevertheless, the method pursued in the treatment of particular questions is at once novel and useful, and, as far as we know, peculiar to Father Mazzella. As a general rule, theological writers, after having briefly explained the meaning of the proposition and touched on the errors of their adversaries, enter at once on the demonstration. This done, they devote a great deal of space to the solution of difficulties and the refutation of objections; and it is on this last point especially that they rely for making the sense of their thesis clear. Father Mazzella has adopted a different mode of proceeding. The development of each of his propositions contains two distinct parts: in the first he presents a complete exposition of the subject-matter in all its bearings; in the second he proves the point at issue. He starts out by giving a summary of the decisions of the church regarding the question under discussion. Then, if there be any diversity of opinion amongst Catholic doctors, he explains each system and notes the degree of probability contained in it. Finally, he proceeds to the exposition of contrary errors or heresies, and of the various senses, false and true, in which the doctrine may be interpreted. All this opens the way to the second part, in which the thesis is proved from Scripture, the fathers, and reason, and the few difficulties that perhaps remain are answered.

This manner of developing a subject seems to us to confer a twofold benefit on the student: it gives him a clear and comprehensive conception of the positive doctrine, and at the same time supplies him with general principles by means of which he may readily solve any new objections that may chance to arise in discussion. It is not sufficient for the young theologian to have learned by heart a number of proofs, and the answers to the long string of difficulties given in his text-book. He must be imbued with the whole spirit of Catholic doctrine, and thus he will form within himself a new theological _sense_, if we may use the expression, by which he can easily discern what is consonant with, and what is repugnant to, the truths contained in the deposit of faith. Such is the result aimed at in Father Mazzella’s method. Hence he devotes but little space to the answering of objections; for he has already disposed of them in the exposition of his thesis. Most difficulties, in fact, arise from a misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine; hence it is plain that they must readily disappear, if the dogmas of the church be clearly explained.

As is proper for a theologian, the author makes abundant use of Scripture and tradition. Whilst avoiding all needless excursions into the fields of philology and hermeneutics, he does not refuse to handle the difficulties brought from these sciences. An instance of this is his vindication of the true sense of the famous [Greek: eph ô]—_in quo_—in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Whenever the question under discussion has been defined by the church, the decrees are carefully given and explained. We frequently find a series of definitions on the same subject, taken from councils held at various periods, proving the wonderful unity of the church’s teaching in various ages. Father Mazzella makes frequent use of the fathers and great scholastic writers. He generally quotes them word for word, thus ensuring conviction as to their real opinion, and familiarizing the reader with their peculiar modes of thought and expression, taking care, however, to explain all obscurities in the text.

Every student of theology is aware of the importance of mental philosophy in our days, when the repugnance of the supernatural to reason is so loudly and boldly asserted. Hence the author constantly appeals to it, but is careful to admit only such opinions as are approved by the authority of the schools, taking as his guides only St. Thomas and the ablest commentators of the Angelic Doctor, especially Suarez.

In the third disputation the author has made the natural sciences come to the aid of theology, especially when treating of the Mosaic cosmogony, of the origin and antiquity of the human race, etc. Certain devotees of modern experimental science, whose principles are built on mere hypotheses, and who insist on our taking mere possibilities as established facts, have declared a deadly war against revelation. It is difficult to convince such men of their errors by appealing to pure reason; for they are in a remarkable degree wanting in the logical faculty. You can overcome them only by opposing facts to facts, and by proving that their own pet studies contradict their theories. This Father Mazzella has aimed at doing; and he supports his position by bringing forward a mass of facts and disclaimers from the latest writings of the ablest scientists. The style is clear, simple, and straightforward—a most necessary quality in a book of the kind. Difficult terms are always explained, and neither order nor precision is ever sacrificed to a show of learning or rhetorical skill.

MODERN PHILOSOPHY, FROM DESCARTES TO SCHOPENHAUER AND HARTMANN. By Francis Bowen, A.M., Alford Professor of Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

The preface of Prof. Bowen prepossesses us at once in his favor. “No one,” says he, “can be an earnest student of philosophy without arriving at definite convictions respecting the fundamental truths of theology. In my own case, nearly forty years of diligent inquiry and reflection concerning these truths have served only to enlarge and confirm the convictions with which I began, and which are inculcated in this book. Earnestly desiring to avoid prejudice on either side, and to welcome evidence and argument from whatever source they might come, without professional bias, and free from any external inducement to teach one set of opinions rather than another, I have faithfully studied most of what the philosophy of these modern times and the science of our own day assume to teach. And the result is that I am now more firmly convinced than ever that what has been justly called[89] ‘the dirt-philosophy’ of materialism and fatalism is baseless and false. I accept with unhesitating conviction and belief the doctrine of the being of one personal God, the creator and governor of the world, and of one Lord Jesus Christ in whom ‘dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’; and I have found nothing whatever in the literature of modern infidelity which, to my mind, casts even the slightest doubt upon that belief.... Let me be permitted also to repeat the opinion, which I ventured to express as far back as 1849, that the time seems to have arrived for a more practical and immediate verification than the world has ever yet witnessed of the great truth that the civilization which is not based upon Christianity is big with the elements of its own destruction” (pp. vi., vii.).

These are sound and wise words, which we welcome with peculiar pleasure as emanating from a chair in Harvard University. The scope of _Modern Philosophy_ is more restricted, as the author distinctly premises, than the general title indicates. The authors whose systems are discussed _ex professo_ are Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Pascal, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann. There is also a general discussion of those great topics of metaphysics, the origin of ideas and the nature of the universals, of the freedom of the will and of the system of positivism, with an exposition of the relation of physical to metaphysical science. It is quite proper for the learned professor to select a particular range in modern philosophy for his lectures, but we respectfully submit that a less general title would have been more accurately definitive of his real object, and that he identifies too much the course of European thought with the direction of certain classes of thinkers. The revival of the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas in modern times is certainly worthy of notice, and is exercising a strong and decisive influence on modern European thought. The questions of ideology and the universals can hardly be adequately presented without consideration of their treatment by the able modern expositors of scholastic philosophy. We do not agree with Mr. Bowen in his estimate of Descartes, or in his general views of the superiority of modern to ancient and mediæval philosophy. Neither are we in accordance with his special views of ideology. Nevertheless, we recognize a current of very sound and discriminating thought throughout his whole course of argumentation, which tends always toward the most rational and Christian direction, taking up the good and positive elements which it meets with on the way, and rejecting their contraries. The author seems to have a subtle intellectual and moral affinity for the highest, most spiritual and ennobling ideas of the great men of genius, both heathen and Christian. Plato, Malebranche, and Leibnitz seem to be those with whom he is most in sympathy. His most marked antipathy is shown for the degrading pessimism of Schopenhauer. We feel sure, from the tone of his reasoning and the quality of his sentiments, that he would find the greatest pleasure in the perusal of the writings of such Catholic philosophers as Kleutgen, San Severino, Liberatore, Stöckl, and perhaps more than all of Laforet, on account of his Platonizing tendencies.

Mr. Bowen’s style is remarkably and elegantly classic. He throws a literary charm and glow over his discussions and expositions of abstruse ethical and metaphysical topics which we do not often find, except in the works of Italian authors, although some who write in English are beginning to cultivate this style, in which logical severity is combined with rhetorical grace. No one could write with more modesty and suavity of manner, or in a more calm and amiable temper. We hope this truly excellent volume, in such contrast with the common run of jejune and debasing trash which passes for science and philosophy, will be very much read, especially in the neighborhood of Boston, where it is sadly needed.

HISTORY OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE PORTUGUESE DOMINIONS. By the Rev. Alfred Weld, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This able work of Father Weld throws a flood of light on a very sad and gloomy page of history. Never was the Society of Jesus so fearfully tried and persecuted, and never did its virtues shine more conspicuously, than in the period referred to by the author—that is, during the twenty years preceding the entire suppression of the order by Clement XIV. in 1773.

We behold its holy and self-sacrificing members spreading themselves over the New as well as the Old World, making countless conquests for Christ, bearing every hardship and danger in order to teach the truths of faith to the most barbarous tribes and peoples, planting the standard of the cross in the most distant regions, and watering the seed of the Gospel by their blood. Wherever they went they gave evidence, in their own persons, of the highest apostolic virtues.

God could not but bless the efforts of such disinterested and self-sacrificing followers of his divine Son, and their labors were crowned with astonishing success. Take, for example, the history of their missions in Paraguay. No brighter or more cheering picture was ever displayed to the world than the fatherly government of the Jesuits over these poor children of the forest. Here civilization and religion went hand in hand, and peace and prosperity reigned. But the very success of the missionaries raised up against them powerful and bitter enemies. The more saintly they were, the more envy they excited; the more learned and influential, the more jealousy arose, until at last their enemies vowed their destruction.

Chief among those enemies, and most powerful in his opposition, was Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, the chief minister of state under Joseph I., King of Portugal. Having, by sycophancy, flattery, and deception, made himself master of this weak sovereign, and always finding means to prevent his evil designs from becoming known, he labored to destroy the authority of the Holy See throughout the kingdom of Portugal, and to establish, as nearly as possible, a national church. He saw that the faithful Society of Jesus would be an insuperable obstacle in his way. He accordingly determined on its destruction, or, if he could not effect this, at least its expulsion from the Portuguese dominions. Knowing the high esteem in which the learned body was held throughout Europe by kings, princes, nobles, and people, and, above all, by each succeeding Sovereign Pontiff, he made use of every means, and means always the most malicious, in order to destroy the character and influence of the Jesuits. There was no insinuation too low, no instrument too vile, no slander too base, of which he did not make use to effect their injury and ruin. He spread throughout Europe, especially in the principal courts, the grossest libels (many of them written by himself) against the society, and all under the hypocritical plea of serving religion, law, and order. Every species of tyranny that human malice, aided by a deeper malice, could invent or call into being to injure the glorious institute founded by that great soldier of Christ, St. Ignatius, Pombal exercised.

During his ministry nine thousand innocent persons, many of whom were of the noblest families in the kingdom or ecclesiastics of the highest character, were condemned either to prison or to death, without any trial, and often without even knowing the cause for which they were deprived of their life or liberty.

The sufferings of the poor Jesuits, many of whom had spent the chief portion of their lives as apostles in South America and had been brought back in chains to the dungeons of Portugal, were of the most harrowing description. Not a few died in their wretched prisons, and the few that survived at the end of eighteen years, when they were released by order of the Queen, were but miserable wrecks of their former selves.

On the day of the queen’s coronation, May 13, 1777, Francis da Silva, Judge of the Supreme Court, pronounced his memorable address, in which he thus denounces, in the name of the whole nation, the tyranny from which they were just freed: “The blood is still flowing from the wounds with which the heart of Portugal has been pierced by the unlimited and blind despotism from which we have just ceased to suffer. He (Pombal) was the systematic enemy of humanity, of religion, of liberty, of merit, and of virtue. He filled the prisons and the fortresses with the flower of the kingdom. He harassed the public with vexations and reduced it to misery. He destroyed all respect for the pontifical and episcopal authority; he debased the nobility, corrupted morals, perverted legislation, and governed the state with a sceptre of iron, in the vilest and most brutal manner that has ever been seen in the world.”

All the machinations of this politician are laid bare, and his miserable agents in this fearful persecution exposed to view, in this work of Father Weld. He does not ask us to take for granted his simple declarations, but fortifies every position which he takes by the clearest and most undeniable proofs. He has had access to authentic documents, which he has put to the best use. His style is clear and forcible, and in the arguments which he uses and the proofs with which he sustains them he gives us a noble, just, and triumphant vindication of the great society of which he is a member.

In reading this work we could not but call to mind the prophecy of St. Ignatius that “the heritage of the Passion should never fail the society”—“A prophecy,” says the Protestant writer Stewart Rose, “fulfilled up to this time; for they (the Jesuits) are still, as for three hundred years past, indefatigable in the saving of souls, perversely misrepresented and stupidly misunderstood.”

ANTAR AND ZARA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By Aubrey De Vere.

THE FALL OF RORA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By the same. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

These two volumes “comprise the author’s secular poetry previous to the ‘Legends of St. Patrick’ (1872), together with many poems composed before that date, though not published.” “His religious poems will be collected later in a separate volume.”

_Antar and Zara_, with many shorter pieces, first appeared in the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It was in those pages that the writer made Mr. De Vere’s acquaintance; and not a few of our readers, probably, are indebted to the same source for their introduction to the great Catholic poet of the day. To such it will be a welcome surprise, as it is to us, to find his cultured muse so prolific. The variety of themes, too, within these volumes affords a frequent ramble “to fresh fields and pastures new.” The poet himself has travelled. With Byron, he has “stood on the Alps,” and pondered in the “City of the Soul,” and basked in the “eternal summer” that “yet gilds the Isles of Greece.” At home, again, he has sung Erin’s glories and woes as though he had taken down the old Bardic harp from “Tara’s walls.”

As a poet, however, he shows the influence of two other great masters than Byron and Moore—though some of his Irish ballads remind us of the latter. He is chiefly a disciple of Wordsworth, while he has studied to good purpose the scholarly verse of Tennyson. With most imitators of Tennyson the classic perfections of the Laureate are turned to mere affectations. Not so with Mr. De Vere, who is equally a scholar himself. This scholarly taste, indeed, would have prevented him, we are sure, from adopting Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction, even had Tennyson never arisen to recall English poetry from the loose, inaccurate style into which his great predecessors, with the exception of Coleridge, had thrown so much splendid thought.

This conviction of ours regarding the combined influence of Tennyson and Wordsworth on our author’s poetry is confirmed by the discovery that _Antar and Zara_ is dedicated to the former by “his friend”; and, again, of the sonnet “Composed at Rydal, September, 1860,” with the two following sonnets “To Wordsworth, on Visiting the Duddon.” _Antar and Zara_, particularly in the shorter metre of _Zara’s_ “song,” is eminently Tennysonian. For example:

“He culled me grapes—the vintager; In turn, for song the old man prayed: I glanced around; but none was near: With veil drawn tighter, I obeyed.

“‘Were I a vine, and he were heaven, That vine would spread a vernal leaf To meet the beams of morn and even, And think the April day too brief.

“‘Were he I love a cloud, not heaven, That leaf would spread and drink the rain; Warm summer shower and dews of even Alike would take, and think them gain.

“‘It would not shrink from wintry rime Or echoes of the thunder-shock, But watch the advancing vintage-time, And meet it, reddening on the rock.’”

And again:

“Dear tasks are mine that make the weeks Too swift in passing, not too slow: I nurse the rose on faded cheeks, Bring solace to the homes of woe.

“I hear our vesper anthems swell; I track the steps of Fast and Feast; I read old legends treasured well Of Machabean chief or priest.

“I hear on heights of song and psalm The storm of God careering by; Beside His Deep, for ever calm, I kneel in caves of Prophecy.

“O Eastern Book! It cannot change! Of books beside, the type, the mould— It stands like yon Carmelian range By _our_ Elias trod of old!”

Here are the sonnets:

“COMPOSED AT RYDAL,

“SEPT, 1860.

“The last great man by manlier times bequeathed To these our noisy and self-boasting days In this green valley rested, trod these ways, With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed. True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed With wild-flowers only, singing Nature’s praise; But Nature turn’d, and crown’d him with her bays, And said, ‘Be thou _my_ Laureate.’ Wisdom sheathed In song love-humble; contemplations high, That built like larks their nests upon the ground; Insight and vision; sympathies profound, That spann’d the total of humanity: These were the gifts which God pour’d forth at large On men through him; and he was faithful to his charge.”

“TO WORDSWORTH, ON VISITING THE DUDDON.

I.

“So long as Duddon, ’twixt his cloud-girt walls Thridding the woody chambers of the hills, Warbles from vaulted grot and pebbled halls Welcome or farewell to the meadow rills; So long as linnets pipe glad madrigals Near that brown nook the laborer whistling tills, Or the late-reddening apple forms and falls ‘Mid dewy brakes the autumnal red-breast thrills; So long, last poet of the great old race, Shall thy broad song through England’s bosom roll. A river singing anthems in its place, And be to later England as a soul. Glory to Him who made thee, and increase, To them that hear thy word, of love and peace!”

II.

“When first that precinct sacrosanct I trod Autumn was there, but Autumn just begun; Fronting the portals of a sinking sun, The queen of quietude in vapor stood, Her sceptre o’er the dimly-crimsoned wood Resting in light. The year’s great work was done; Summer had vanish’d, and repinings none Troubled the pulse of thoughtful gratitude. Wordsworth! the autumn of our English song Art thou: ’twas thine our vesper psalms to sing: Chaucer sang matins; sweet his note and strong; His singing-robe the green, white garb of Spring: Thou like the dying year art rightly stoled— Pontific purple and dark vest of gold.”

Wordsworth was a giant at the sonnet. His sonnets are, in our judgment, by far his best productions, and those in which his theory of diction jars one least. We congratulate Mr. De Vere on following in the master’s footsteps by cultivating the sonnet, and without the defects of the leader. We are also proud to see him disregard the Petrarchian sonnet as the only correct type—a form in which the English language would be sadly monotonous, were it never allowed to vary the order of rhymes, particularly in the minor system. Surely our language has every right to a sonnet of its own—and that flexible.

We will only add that the objections commonly made to Mr. De Vere’s poetry—to wit, that it is elaborate and requires much thought—are of no weight against his mission as a poet. He aims, we presume, at interesting the cultured few rather than the uncultured many. A poet’s highest function is, we say, to teach. And a true Catholic poet, like our author, can reach intelligences, both within and without the church, through doors at which “divine philosophy” in dull, prosaic garb must knock in vain.

SADLIER’S ELEMENTARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By a Teacher of History. New York: William H. Sadlier. 1877.

This is a very pleasing and useful little manual for children. It presents the chief events of the history of this country in the form of question and answer, giving a prominence much needed to the great part which Catholics have played in the struggles of the Republic, and its material and social development. The plan was well conceived, and has been well executed. It is the last work of the enterprising and much-lamented young Catholic publisher who was so suddenly carried off at the opening of what promised to be a most useful and honorable career.

ANCIENT HISTORY. From the French of Rev. Father Gazeau, S.J. Revised and corrected, with questions at the end of each chapter. By a pupil of the Sisters of Notre Dame. First American edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1877.

This is another and useful addition to the Catholic Publication Society’s educational series. It is a very interesting, clear, and comprehensive history, embracing the chief powers and peoples of ancient times, and ending with the death of Alexander the Great and the division of his empire. The questions at the end of each chapter form an improved feature on the original, and the translation runs as smoothly as could be desired.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXVI., No. 154.—JANUARY, 1878.

BETWEEN THE YEARS.

1877–1878.

_Rogate, quæ ad pacem sunt, Jerusalem: et abundantia diligentibus te._—Ps. cxxi.

I.

Old with its sorrow, weary with the load Of angry strife and murderous thought of wrong It hath with such sad patience borne so long, The year draws near the judgment-seat of God. Signed at its birth with Heaven’s holiest name, Blessed with the chrism of self-sacrifice, It brought men gifts of more than royal price; Asked in return a pure and generous fame; Life’s book it opened at a clean white page— Whereon fell not the shadow of a stain— Set in man’s hand a consecrated pen Whose script should be the future’s heritage. Lo! we have written; shall we dare to see The closed book opened in eternity?

II.

_Jesu, Redemptor!_ at thy feet we kneel, Who burn the tapers round the dying year; Rest we beseech for him that lieth here, And on the blotted page thy mercy’s seal. Through this dark night we wait with hope the day, Ready the handmaid of thy grace to greet Who hear the rhythm of her strong, young feet— The fair New Year, advancing swift this way. Jesus, most patient, does thy morning break? Shall she we wait for, with thy Spirit’s breath Stir to new life a world that slumbereth? Shall last year’s thorns to fleecy blossom wake? Cometh thy kingdom? Shall thy will be done, And Calvary’s shade be lost in Thabor’s sun?

III.

To thee we look, O Jesus, our true light! With eyes, tear-dimmed, that, straining, gaze along The future’s ways the past o’ershades with wrong; That dread the glitter of this earthly night, Where every star is rivet of a cross. Still in the light of Child-blessed Bethlehem We feel the portent of Jerusalem, We hear the echoes of sad Rama’s loss. In thee we trust, and in her, crucified, Our holy mother Rome, thy spouse divine, In whose dear face eternal light doth shine, In whose maimed hands thy perfect gifts abide. In thee we rest, who know the future thine; Shape thou our deeds unto thy will divine.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.

CHRISTIANITY AS AN HISTORICAL RELIGION.[90]

The doctrine of natural development or evolution may be apprehended and presented in theoretical form under two diverse phases or aspects. One of these resembles the old scholastic theory of the eduction of forms from the potentiality of matter. The indeterminate something which is almost nothing takes on all kinds of specific determinations, which chase away and supplant one another, each one vanishing into nothingness like a melody when the harp-strings cease to vibrate. The animal soul, the highest of these determining principles, is only one of the evanescent forms, depending for existence on the body it animates, becoming extinct, like a sound or the trace of a bird in the air, as soon as death takes place. So, in the theory of pure natural evolution, history, polity, ethics, theology, science, educe themselves from the potential, determinable substratum of humanity, without efficient or final causes, in evanescent forms; and their animating spirit is no more than an _anima belluina_.

The other theory may be likewise illustrated from the same philosophy, comparing it with the doctrine of the rational soul, immediately created, self-subsisting, entering into composition with body but not immersed in it; like a swimmer in water, with head and shoulders above the surface; animating matter, but dominating over it and subordinating it to serve by its development and life the higher end of the spirit, which reaches beyond the temporal and sensible toward infinity and eternity. Thus all human development—though it is nature which is developed, though natural processes subserve its evolution, and its history is the history of human events, acts, thoughts, polities, religions—is informed and dominated by a superhuman, a divine spirit, power, action, for a supra-mundane end.

The true philosophy of history is constructed on this theory—meaning by theory what Aristotle and the Greeks meant, not a visionary conjecture, but an intellectual speculation by which the mind has true vision of intelligible realities, as it has of sensible objects by ocular vision. This true philosophy of history is partly identified with theology, or the science of God and all that which is divine; not only in so far as theology is the highest part of rational philosophy, but also inasmuch as it transcends reason. The knowledge of God and that which is divine transcending natural intelligence and reason, is the revelation of God in and through the Word, who “enlighteneth every man coming into this world,” and consequently casts light on everything pertaining to humanity. The creation, destination, fall, redemption and glorification of humanity in and through the Word, “who was made flesh and dwelt among us,” is the object of Christian theology, to which the immediate object of history is subordinate. The Incarnate Son of God is the central figure in human history, its circumference is drawn around this centre, and all its diameters pass through it.

A number of great historians have perceived this truth, and made universal history render up its testimony, which is sometimes latent and sometimes patent, to Christ and to his divine work of human regeneration. Leo, for instance, having first convinced himself of the truth of divine revelation by the study of history, made his entire work on the universal history of mankind a splendid and irrefutable demonstration of Christianity. The course of time and events before Christ is a preparation for his coming. The one great event in human history is the divine Epiphany, the visible manifestation of God in the Person of the Word through his assumed human nature, in which he was conceived and born of the Virgin, lived among men, died, and rose again to an immortal and glorious life, for the fulfilment of the divine purpose in creation and the consummation of the destiny of mankind. The course of time and events after Christ is the successive fulfilment of this divine purpose, to be completed in the final consummation at the end of the present order of the world.

In the six centuries immediately preceding Christ the preparation and convergence of events become more distinct and manifest; the features of human evolution are more marked; the progress and tendency of the universal movement are apparently accelerated in the direction of the common point of convergence; all human affairs, the objects of history, seem to rise out of its dim horizon, looming up in increasing magnitude, like the great ships of a squadron hastening from all points of the compass over a broad sea to their rendezvous. Before this period the expanse of time is to our eye almost like the waste solitudes of ocean. Confucius collected some remnants of Chinese historical documents going back to the ninth century b.c. Some imperfect records of Hindoo antiquity have been brought to light in modern researches. Hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions, like traces of a caravan on the sand, present to the curious modern eye vestiges of a remote past. Berosus wrote in the reign of Seleucus Nicator, Manetho in that of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Herodotus four centuries and a half before Christ. Varro, the most learned of the Romans, dates the beginning of authentic Roman history from the first Olympiad, B.C. 776. Authentic written history does not go back as far as Solomon, except as we find it in the sacred writings of the Old Testament. These priceless documents are the family records of the house of Nazareth, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the history of his predecessors and precursors; of inchoate Christianity, of the prophecy and providence, the promises and laws, the typical rites and preliminary covenants, the elementary revelations and the other preludes, by which, in divers places, times, and manners, the Word of God prepared the way for his coming upon earth to fulfil all prophecy and accomplish the expectation of all nations.

About five centuries and a half before Christ the prophet Daniel made his celebrated prediction of the great period of seventy weeks—_i.e._, four hundred and ninety years—from the rebuilding of the temple and city of Jerusalem to the Messias. This period is marked as the one of immediate expectation and preparation. As the time of the great Prophet drew near the succession of the minor prophets in Judea ceased. The Jewish people became less exclusively isolated, and came into relations with other nations which were quite new and marked with a transitional tendency. The Greek Scriptures of the second canon, like the writings of St. Paul in the New Testament, are more like the classic works of other nations than those of the first canon, which are marked with the peculiar Hebrew characteristics. A diffusion of the Jews, of their books and ideas; a general dissemination of the Greek language and literature, a world-wide unification of civilized, and in part of barbarous peoples under the Roman polity; a remarkable advancement of the human mind in the great works of philosophy, poetry, literature, art, and every species of civilization; are the principal second and concurrent causes directed by divine Providence to fulfil a purpose, analogous to the mission of St. John the Baptist, among the nations predestined to a Christian vocation.

There is nothing in this view which favors rationalism. Grace supposes nature, and God is the author of both. Natural and supernatural providence are distinct but not separate. Rational science and revealed doctrine are portions of the universal truth which has its measure in the divine intelligence and its primal origin in the divine essence. It is, moreover, characteristic of the divine operation to act on the rule of parsimony in the use of means. Where second causes are sufficient the first cause does not immediately intervene and supersede their action; where natural forces are sufficient they are not supplanted by those which are supernatural. What a long period elapsed before the earliest of the inspired books was written! How few have been the prophets, how comparatively few and rare miracles of the first order! In the beginning, religion, the church, the whole spiritual order, was identified with the common social and civil order. The special intervention of God in the calling of Abraham, the legation of Moses, the entire Jewish system, was a renovation of the more ancient and universal dispensation, confined within the limits of one nation, protected by special legislation, sanctioned by miracles, manifested in revelations through inspired men and prophets. As the time draws near when the church and religion were to become once more and finally Catholic, the supernatural providence of God over the Jewish people becomes less extraordinary, and his natural providence over the other nations more conspicuous. The great Prophet himself, the Messias, the Son of God in human form, performs miracles and appeals to them, as it were, with reserve and reluctance, hides his wisdom and power from men, refuses to exert his dominion over men and nature in defence of his own life, discloses himself after his resurrection to a few only, and departs, so to speak, _incognito_ from the earth to return to his heavenly abode with the Father. The gift of inspiration, by virtue of which the written documents of revelation are completed, is imparted to a small number only; their writings fill but a small compass; within fifty years from the opening of the New Testament canon by the first Gospel it is closed by the last book of the last of the apostles, St. John. No new David, or Isaias, or Daniel, or Paul, or John is henceforth to appear in the church. All this shows the purpose of God not to oppress the human by the divine in the deification of humanity, not to supersede the natural by the supernatural, or to supplant the activity of the human intelligence and will by an overbearing divine power. The Spirit of God brooded over the face of chaos in the beginning, gradually bringing it into form and order, and the same Spirit has been waving his wings[91] over the waters of human history during the entire period of the explication of God’s creative act in time and space through human actions and events. Where creative power is required—_i.e._, where it is the will of God to give being to a term educed from non-existence and from no pre-existing subject—God acts alone and immediately as first cause with no concurrent cause. He has created and continues to create all simple substances. Where supernatural power is required to bring from created substances certain results which presuppose a new form of being in them above their intrinsic substantial actuality, or some other augmentation of their natural force by an immediate divine act, God intervenes directly as the efficient cause of the effect produced. He is the author of second causes and principles, of the first germs of evolution, of generative powers, of all origin, and of all that is called in the German language _Urwesen_. He preserves everything, concurs with everything, directs everything toward proximate, remote, and final ends, bringing the creation which proceeded from him as first cause back to himself as final cause. And therefore, whenever there is a sufficient reason, he intervenes directly to overrule the order of second causes and the natural laws he has himself established. The especial reason for this is to prevent the thwarting of the legitimate action of beings endowed with con-creative power, through the illegitimate interference of other beings endowed with the same power. All spiritual beings have this con-creative power by virtue of intelligence and free-will. They may fail to exercise it when they should; they may be hindered from exercising it by equal or superior force. The order of moral probation requires that great freedom of movement should be allowed to these forces in voluntary efforts and in conflicts. But the final cause of this probation also exacts that the predetermined plans of God shall be infallibly executed, and that he shall overrule the wills both of men and angels for the fulfilment of his own sovereign will.

The natural and the supernatural are, therefore, not separate, much less disconnected, least of all hostile, in the order of divine providence, although they are distinct and placed in logical opposition to one another. Sacred and secular history, religion and civilization, theology and science, the eternal and temporal interests of mankind, cannot be separated from each other and relegated to mutually distant or hostile kingdoms, like the kingdoms of light and darkness in the system of the Manicheans. Any view which considers mankind as separated into two divisions of the elect and the reprobate by an antecedent decree, is false. The doctrine that the nature of man has become totally depraved, and that his entire rational and physical activity develops only sin which tends fatally to perdition, is utterly unchristian as well as unphilosophical. It is only from this doctrine that we could deduce a theory by which the society of the elect would be considered as a separated, isolated tribe, a small invisible church, without any real relation through a spiritual bond with the mass of mankind. The Catholic doctrine is expressed by the author of the Book of Wisdom in these beautiful words: “God created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth. For justice is perpetual and immortal.”[92]

The true philosophy of Christianity must, therefore, take into view the providence of God over the Gentiles, their history, philosophy, polity, and civilization, in order to appreciate the period of preparation for the Messias who was the expected of the nations. The philosophy of history, also, must take into view the whole cycle of special acts of divine providence recorded in the books of the Old Testament, and fulfilled between the epochs of the calling of Abraham and the appearance of the Messias in the history of the peculiar people of God. Mr. Formby, with his peculiar originality and vigor of thought, has brought out into more striking relief than any other author we know of the idea common to several excellent modern writers respecting the position of the two cities, Jerusalem and Rome, in the historical order of divine Providence. They are, as it were, the two great citadels of God, the two great capitals of the universal kingdom of Christ. During the thousand years immediately before the Incarnation the city of David, the seat of the royal ancestors of Jesus Christ our Lord, was the citadel of all the highest interests of humanity. All the hopes, the whole future destiny, of mankind were in David’s royal line, the sweet psalmist, the prophet, the king of Israel. For seven centuries God was preparing Rome, first the ally, then the arbiter, and finally the conqueror of Judea, to take the place of Jerusalem, and by its world-wide polity to serve as a medium for the promulgation and extension of the divine religion throughout the whole earth.

The true philosophy of history sets aside all theories which are exclusive on the one side or on the other—those which exclude the ordinary providence of God over all mankind under the natural law, and those which exclude his extraordinary providence over the church under the supernatural law—and includes both under one synthesis. The one exclusive view proceeds from an _à priori_ theological principle resulting in a conclusion with which a logical induction from facts cannot be reconciled, and therefore denies or misrepresents the facts. The other proceeds from an _à priori_ metaphysical principle with a similar result. The one is a pseudo-supernaturalism, the other a pseudo-naturalism. The first pretends to be the genuine spiritual religion, or pure Christianity; the second professes to be the genuine rational philosophy, or pure science. Both are counterfeits of the truth. The best corrective of these theoretical tendencies is to be found in the correct knowledge and exposition of history. Lacordaire has well said: “_On ne brûle pas les faits_.” Facts are incombustible; they cannot be made to evaporate in the gaseous elements of transcendental metaphysics, or vanish in clouds of smoke from the pipes of German neologists. Each of these make their gas or blow their clouds from products of their own imagination adroitly substituted for facts. Facts resist with an invincible inertia every combination with false theories of supernatural religion. In all branches of science pure reasoning and the investigation of facts must go together in harmony and mutually complete each other. Even in divine revelation God is careful to present facts with their evidence in connection with doctrine, and a large portion of the Bible is made up of historical records. The divine legation of Moses and the divine mission of Jesus Christ are great historical facts, and they are in synthetical connection with all the great events and epochs of human universal history. In this concurrence and harmony we find the most evident and tangible proof and corroboration in the order of natural reason of the truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ, which is the object of divine faith, and the soul of the complete substance of Christianity.

Jesus Christ came on the earth at the very juncture of the ages, at the moment for crystallization, at the epoch of crisis in human affairs, when Judaism, Grecian culture, and Roman jurisprudence combined with Roman valor, were ready to blend in a new combination; when the three strands spun by no blind fate, but by all-seeing Providence, were ready to be intertwined: the pure tradition of the patriarchs, the philosophy of the heathen sages, the organic polity of the imperial legislators—an electric cable to bind the earth and transmit the new movement of divine impulse. The Jews preserved and handed down the pure doctrine of monotheism, the promise of redemption, and the moral law—the germ of revealed doctrine and ethics, which, in the state of development, is the faith and law of Christianity. The Greeks furnished the intellectual human culture in philosophy, poetry, and art, of which the Christian religion availed itself, as of a precious vase in which to detain its subtle and sublime essence—an ideal atmosphere for the communication of its influence to the minds and imaginations of men in all ages and countries. Rome opened the way for diffusion and unification. Immobility in tradition, mobility in intelligence, motive power in organization, are the characters of Jewish, Greek, and Roman civilization, which were united in Christianity under a higher and controlling vital force.

They were each and all temporary and insufficient, subject to a law of internal decay, evanescent in their nature, and about vanishing when Jesus Christ came on the earth. That he came just in time to supersede them and to begin the universal regeneration of mankind; that he really did so without any purely human and natural means which were sufficient causes of the effects produced; is a proof that the God whose providence rules the world sent him to fulfil this mission, and that his work was a divine operation. God’s hand alone could spin and twine the threads of human destiny and make Time’s noiseless, incessant shuttle weave the woof and web into the successive figures of historical embroidery.

The miracles and resurrection of Jesus Christ, historically proved as certain, indubitable facts, authenticate his divine mission; they stamp a divine seal on his credentials as the Messias promised from the beginning of the world. This divine legation gives divine authority to his word and precepts. Whatever he teaches in the name of God is a divine revelation, and whatever he commands is a divine law. The authentic record of these miracles, the record of what Jesus said and did; the authentic account of his teaching respecting his own person, plan, doctrine, and law—that is, of the principles and the foundation of the Christian religion—is historical; it is an authentic testimony respecting facts. The authentic record of the actual founding of Christianity on the principles and plan of the Master, by the disciples to whom he entrusted the work of carrying his design into effect, is historical. This divine design necessarily embracing all that is contained in the idea of a continuity and development of divine providence over human affairs and destinies from the beginning to the end of the world, its actual carrying out through successive ages becomes matter of history for the time present in respect to times past. Its principles of continuity and development, in connection with the order of providence anterior to Christ, and with the progress of its movement from the apostolic age through the ages following, are to be sought for in its history, not to the exclusion of reasoning from abstract principles, but in connection with it. The historical documents of the New Testament, considered merely as credible testimony and apart from their inspiration, are of paramount importance in respect to the inquiry into the nature of the genuine, authentic Christianity promulgated and established as a world-religion by its Founder and his apostles. After these come all other documents containing historical record or indirect evidence respecting the earliest age of the Christian religion. In this aspect the study of dogmas of faith, of laws and rites, of the spirit and the organization of Christianity, is directed toward an historical term. The object of the inquiry is to ascertain what is Christianity, what was its legitimate development, where is to be found through all ages the real continuation, uninterrupted succession, perpetual life, and progressive expansion which connote the identity of its essence and its specific unity in all its distinct moments, as it proceeds from its beginning towards its end. Although its intrinsic truth and authority are established simultaneously with the exposition of its historical character, the argument is nevertheless distinct, in respect to its conclusive force in this direction, from the pure manifestation of the real essence and nature of the religion. The question as to its essential constituents and their logical connection is logically distinct from the question as to its material truth, although they are metaphysically one by an inseparable composition. Christ, manifesting himself in history, is a revelation of the infinite wisdom, power, and goodness of God in his divine works, which transcend the reach of all created and dependent forces. It is the Eternal Word speaking efficiently, as when he said: “Let there be light: and there was light.” If we can only see all objects by this light, through a pure medium, we cannot fail to be enlightened by the knowledge of the truth.

The able work of Dr. Fisher, the title of which is prefixed to this article, and which was briefly noticed in our last number, is based on the idea we have set forth in these preliminary remarks, although we do not profess to have given an exposition of the learned author’s precise thesis, or ascribe to him a view identical in all particulars with the one we have presented. We will employ his own language for this purpose, of showing his own individual conception of the historical environment of Christianity, and the conclusions to which investigation and reflection on the great facts and events connected with its beginnings have led him.

“Christianity is an historical religion. It is made up of events, or, to say the least, springs out of events which, however peculiar in their origin, form a part of the history of mankind.... The Apostle Paul refers to the birth of Christ as having occurred ‘when the fulness of time was come’ (Gal. iv. 4).

“His thought evidently is not only that a certain measure of time must run out, but that a train of historical events and changes must occur which have the coming of Christ for their proper sequence. Of the nature of these antecedents in the previous course of history he speaks when he has occasion to discuss the relation of the Mosaic dispensation to the Christian, and to point out the aims of Providence in regard to the Gentile nations. It was formerly a mistake of both orthodox and rationalist to look upon Christianity too exclusively as a system of doctrine addressed to the understanding. Revelation has been thought of as a communication written on high and let down from the skies—delivered to men as the Sibylline books were said to have been conveyed to Tarquin. Or it has been considered, like the philosophical system of Plato, a creation of the human intellect, busying itself with the problems of human life and destiny; the tacit assumption in either case being that Christianity is merely a body of doctrine. The truth is that revelation is at the core historical. It is embraced in a series of transactions in which men act and participate, but which are referable manifestly to an extraordinary agency of God, who thus discloses or reveals himself. The supernatural element does not exclude the natural; miracle is not magic. Over and above teaching there are laws, institutions, providential guidance, deliverance, and judgment. Here is the groundwork of revelation. For the interpretation of this extraordinary and exceptional line of historical phenomena prophets and apostles are raised up—men inspired to lift the veil and explain the dealings of Heaven with men. Here is the doctrinal or theoretical side of revelation. These individuals behold with an open eye the significance of the events of which they are witnesses or participants. The facts of secular history require to be illuminated by philosophy. Analogous to this office is the authoritative exposition and comment which we find in the Scripture along with the historical record. The doctrinal element is not a thing independent, purely theoretic, disconnected from the realities of life and history. These lie at the foundation; on them everything of a didactic nature is based. This fact will be impressively obvious to one who will compare the Bible, as to plan and structure, with the Koran.

“The character of revelation is less likely to be misconceived when the design of revelation is kept in view. The end is not to satisfy the curiosity of those who ‘seek after wisdom,’ by the solution of metaphysical problems. The good offered is not science, but salvation. The final cause of revelation is the recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true religion. Whatever knowledge is communicated is tributary to this end.

“Hence the grand aim, under the Old Dispensation and the New, was not the production of a book, but the training of a people. To raise up and train up a nation that should become a fit instrument for the moral regeneration of mankind was the aim of the old system.... Under the new or Christian system the object was not less the training of a people; not, however, with any limitations of race. The fount of the system was to be a community of men who should be ‘the light of the world,’ and ‘the salt of the earth....’

“The grand idea of the kingdom of God is the connecting thread that runs through the entire course of divine revelation. We behold a kingdom planted in the remote past, and carried forward to its ripe development, by a series of transactions in which the agency of God mingles in an altogether peculiar way in the current of human affairs. There is a manifestation of God in act and deed. Verbal teaching is the commentary attached to the historic fact, ensuring to the latter its true meaning.”

This is sound and Christian philosophy, admirably expressed and containing many fruitful germs of thought. What we have quoted may suffice to show that the historical nature of Christianity is the fundamental idea of Dr. Fisher’s argument in the work under review.

He recognizes also a law of historical and continuous development through all time in Christianity as resulting from its vital force, which differs from the previous historical stage in this: that “in the giving of revelation, at each successive stage, and especially at the consummation, there was an increment of its contents,” whereas “this is not true of Christianity since the apostolic age.” The touchstone and test of normal development, in the sense to which the signification of the term is restricted when it is used of the post-apostolic age, is that “it springs out of the primitive seed”—namely, the deposit of revealed truth contained in the teaching of Christ and the apostles in its state of ultimate completeness.

The historical method of determining the real origin and nature of Christianity is contrasted with the method which is purely _à priori_ and exclusively metaphysical in the following passage:

“The historical basis of Christianity marks the distinction between Christian theology and metaphysical philosophy. The starting-point of the philosopher is the intuitions of the mind; on them as a foundation, with the aid of logic, he builds up his system. His only postulates are the data of consciousness. In Christian theology, on the contrary, we begin with facts recorded in history, and explore, with the aid of inspired authors, their _rationale_. To reverse this course, and seek to evolve the Christian religion out of consciousness, to transmute its contents into a speculative system, after the manner of the pantheistic thinkers in Germany, is not less futile than would be the pretence to construct American history with no reference to the Puritan emigration, the Revolutionary war, or the Southern Rebellion. The distinctive essence of Christianity evaporates in an effort, like that undertaken by Schelling in his earlier system, and by Hegel, to identify it with a process of thought.”[93]

Farther on in his argument Dr. Fisher shows how this perverse employment of the _à priori_ method has produced the sceptical theories of the Tübingen school of criticism:

“As regards the credibility of the Gospel history, it ought to be clearly understood that the modern attack by Baur, Strauss, Zeller, and others is founded upon an _à priori_ assumption. It is taken for granted beforehand that whatever is supernatural is unhistorical. The testimony into which a miracle enters is stamped at once as incredible. Christianity, it was assumed, was an evolution of thought upon the natural plane. At a later day Strauss fell into a materialistic way of thinking, which rendered him, if possible, more deaf to all the evidence which, if admitted, implies the supernatural. From the point of view taken in the sceptical school, therefore, the New Testament histories, so far as they relate to the wonderful works of Christ, and his resurrection and manifestation to his disciples after his death, must be discredited. But their principle, or prejudice, carries the negative critics farther. It must affect their judgment as to the authorship of the narratives which record the miracles. It is rendered difficult to believe, if not quite improbable, that these histories emanate from apostles, eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus. The myths, or the consciously-invented stories, the product of a theological ‘tendency’ in the primitive church, cannot well be ascribed to the immediate followers of Christ. The fact that the New Testament histories contain accounts of miracles also tends to weaken and vitiate their general authority, in the estimation of the sceptical school. That is to say, the credulity of the Gospel writers, or their willingness to deceive, as evinced in the supernatural elements embraced in their books, makes them less entitled to trust in their record of ordinary events into which the miracle does not enter....

“Connected with the unscientific assumption first noticed, other assumptions were adopted by the Tübingen school which are equally unsound. It was assumed that Christianity is an evolution of thought according to the scheme of the Hegelian logic, where it is held as a law that a doctrine in an undeveloped form must divaricate into two opposites, to be recombined afterwards in a higher unity. Thus, it was assumed that Paulinism, and the sharply-defined Judaizing system attributed to Peter, were the antagonistic types of opinion which sprang out of the seed of doctrine planted by Christ, and which were reunited in the old Catholic theology, the evangelical legalism of the fathers of the second century.”[94]

This statement is supplemented by another succinct and pregnant passage containing the elements of an argument of great comprehension and irrefragable conclusiveness. After affirming that “the mythical theory is wrecked upon a variety of difficulties which it cannot evade or surmount”—a statement which has much more force, taken in connection with the entire context of thorough critical reasoning, than it can show as a mere isolated quotation—the learned professor proceeds:

“What is the rationalistic theory of the origin of the Christian religion? It is that Jesus, a carpenter of Nazareth, with no prestige derived from birth or social standing, taught in Galilee for about a year—for to this period the class of whom we speak would limit his public work. From these brief labors, made up wholly of verbal instruction, came that profound impression of his superhuman dignity which was made indelibly upon his disciples, and which his crucifixion as a criminal did not weaken, and that transforming power which went forth upon them, and, in ever-increasing measure, upon all subsequent generations. The Apostolic Church, the conversion of Paul, and his Epistles, the narratives of the four Gospels, with all that they contain, and Christianity, as it appears in the history of mankind, all spring from that one year of mere teaching! The effect is utterly disproportionate to the cause assigned.”[95]

We must take notice that the author, with a competent knowledge of the theories and arguments of the German Biblical critics, has carefully refuted them, and presented solid proofs of the genuineness and authenticity of the historical books of the New Testament, before arriving at this part of his argument. He is summing up his plea after an examination and discussion of evidence. His reasoning is not, therefore, based on mere hypothesis, but is the conclusion of a well-sustained thesis, with all the weight derived from his precedent proofs. And he is therefore logically entitled to make the demand that Christianity shall be estimated by the historical measure, according to the full value of its miraculous facts and supernatural qualities, to the exclusion of any hypothesis which pretends to be rational but is really only fantastic, and therefore unphilosophical as well as unchristian.

“It is much more consistent with a sound philosophy, instead of taking refuge in an unreasonable denial of facts historically established, to seek to comprehend them. At the outset the notion should be banished that miracles are repugnant to nature; that the supernatural is anti-natural. There is one system; and supernatural agency, however it may modify the course of nature, does no violence to the universal order. For there is no such unbending rigidity in the course of nature that it cannot be modified by the interposition of voluntary agency. A steamship, cutting its way through the billows in the teeth of wind and tide, moves by the force of machinery which is contrived and directed by the human will.[96] The volitions of man produce an effect which nature, independently of this spiritual force, could never occasion. Now, of the limits of the possible control of matter by the power of spirit, any more than of the essence and origin of matter itself, we cannot speak. It is a presumptuous affirmation that there is no being in the universe who can infinitely outdo the power of man, vast as it is, in this direction.”[97]

In this brief and sententious manner, with a few heavy and well-directed strokes of sound reason, the author effectually demolishes all the brittle ware of transcendental nonsense which calls itself rationalism. We are reminded of a sentence we once heard uttered by that singular genius, Henry Giles, in a railway carriage, respecting a matter quite different: “Such theories are shattered like rotten glass by a single thump of common sense.”

We find no reason for quoting anything from Dr. Fisher’s exposition of the historical preparation for Christianity in the propædeutic system of Judaism. For the present we will only refer to the notice which he takes of the dispersion of the Hebrews over the world at the epoch of the birth of Christ, adopting the language of Mommsen, which designates Judaism as “an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism” working in the same direction with the imperial Roman polity toward a blending of nationalities in the more general solidarity “the nationality of which was really nothing but humanity.” Of the providential office of Greece and Rome in connection with that of Judea he thus speaks:

“These were three nations of antiquity, each of which was entrusted with a grand providential office in reference to Christianity. The Greeks, whatever they may have learned from Babylon, Egypt, and Tyre, excelled all other races in a self-expanding power of intellect—in ‘the power of lighting their own fire.’ They are the masters in science, literature, and art. Plato, speaking of his own countrymen, made ‘the love of knowledge’ the special characteristic of ‘our part of the world,’ as the love of money was attributed with equal truth to the Phœnicians and Egyptians. The robust character of the Romans, and their sense of right, qualified them to rule, and to originate and transmit their great system of law and their method of political organization. Virgil lets Anchises define the function of the Roman people in his address to Æneas, a visitor to the abodes of the dead:

“‘Others, I know, more tenderly may beat the breathing brass, And better from the marble block bring living looks to pass; Others may better plead the cause, may compass heaven’s face, And mark it out, and tell the stars their rising and their place; But thou, O Roman! look to it the folks of earth to sway; For this shall be thine handicraft: peace on the world to lay, To spare the weak, to mar the proud by constant weight of war.’

“Greece and Rome had each its own place to fill; but true religion—the spirit in which man should live—comes from the Hebrews.”[98]

Dr. Fisher places the relation of sympathy or affinity between the mythological religion and Christianity in three things: first, in the stimulus and scope given to subjective religious sentiments; second, in the impulse towards “a goal hidden from sight,” the object of “an unfulfilled demand in the religious nature” of men seeking after God, whom they, in the language of St. Paul on Mars’ Hill, at Athens, “ignorantly worshipped”; third, in a growing “monotheistic tendency.”[99]

The topic of the relation of Greek philosophy to Christianity is handled by the learned author in a very judicious and discriminating manner, although we are disposed to take a considerably different view of the philosophy of Aristotle as compared with Platonism. We are pleased to observe his high estimate of the writings of Cicero. The chapter on this topic is thus introduced:

“The Greek philosophy was a preparation for Christianity in three ways: it dissipated, or tended to dissipate, the superstitions of polytheism; it awakened a sense of need which philosophy of itself failed to meet; and it so educated the intellect and conscience as to render the Gospel apprehensible and, in many cases, congenial to the mind. It did more than remove obstacles out of the way; its work was positive as well as negative: it originated ideas and habits of thought which had more or less direct affinity with the religion of the Gospel, and which found in this religion their proper counterpart. The prophetic element of the Greek philosophy lay in the glimpses of truth which it could not fully discern, and in the obscure and unconscious pursuit of a good which it could not definitely grasp.”[100]

In treating of “the close relation of the Roman Empire to Christianity” Prof. Fisher notices the extension of Roman citizenship, the cosmopolitan polity of Cæsar, the unifying influence of Roman jurisprudence, the assimilation of mankind in language and culture by the spread of the Romano-Hellenic civilization and the Greek and Latin languages, travel and intercourse, commerce and a general mingling of mankind from various causes, the mingling of religions, and the resuscitation of the idea of a common humanity. Without overlooking the external agency of Rome in paving the way for Christianity, the author more distinctly accentuates another kind of influence:

“The effect of the consolidation of so large a part of mankind in one political body, in breaking up local and tribal narrowness, and in awakening what may be termed a cosmopolitan feeling, is in the highest degree interesting. The Roman dominion was the means of a mental and moral preparation for the Gospel; and this incidental effect is worthy of special note. The kingdom of Christ proposed the unification of mankind through a spiritual bond. Whatever tended to melt down the prejudices of nation, and clan, and creed, and instil in the room of them more liberal sentiments, opened a path for the Gospel. Now, we find that under the political system established by Rome a variety of agencies co-operated to effect such a result. Powerful forces were at work whose effect was not limited to the creation of outward advantages for the dissemination of the religion of Christ, but tended to produce a more or less genial soil for its reception. We have, then, to embrace in one view the influence of the Roman Empire in both of these relations, in shaping outward circumstances, and in favoring a mental habit, which were propitious to the introduction of the new faith.”[101]

What the author proposes in the last clause of this quotation he fulfils in a very satisfactory manner in one of the most splendid chapters of his work.

The outline of the historical basis of Christianity having been drawn, and the principles of the sound historical construction of a true and logical theory or philosophy of the Christian religion established, the outline of the actual foundations, and the first course of the great structure itself, determining its plan of architecture, next demands our consideration. In plainer language, the actual “beginnings of Christianity” in the apostolic age, the earliest history of the religion of Christ, in respect to all its constitutive principles, presents itself for examination. What is Christianity in its essence, nature, integrity of organic constitution, its proper attributes; with a due distinction of its substance from its accidents, of its genuine and normal germs of future development from everything of a parasitic nature or in any way abnormal? This is the great question to be studied in the authentic records of the antiquities of Christianity, with all the light and aid which can be obtained from every source accessible to research.

The long-continued, widely-extended preparations of divine Providence for the great event of the coming of the Messias of the Jews and Gentiles, the immensity of the ground prepared to be the theatre of the future Christian history, the vast and mighty instrumentalities made ready to serve the fulfilment of the plan of Jesus and of the apostolic mission, all point toward something proportionate in grandeur to the grandeur of the inchoate order which preceded. The anticipation of Christ in history demands a corresponding realization of his actual presence and operation in the “fulness of time,” the age of the completion and consummation of human destinies on the earth. Moreover, the stupendous miracles, especially the crowning one of the Resurrection, which are among the first facts and events of historical Christianity, logically and rationally require that an ideal of Christianity shall be presented which justifies such an outlay of supernatural power, and the position of causes containing such infinite potential force. The end of all previous human history being found in the beginning of Christianity, the new beginning of all human history must be likewise found there. If the normal, legitimate development in later ages is tested by its origination from the primitive seed planted in the apostolic age, the nature and qualities of that seed must be correctly ascertained. If we would recognize the true genius of Christianity in its real manifestations from the days of the apostles to our own, and discriminate it from simulated apparitions, we must know what this genius really is, or the original error will falsify all subsequent processes of judgment and reasoning, like an ambiguous middle in a syllogism.

But we have proceeded as far as our limits will permit in the present article, and must postpone the consideration of what was actual Christianity in the apostolic age, and of the learned author’s theory on the subject, to a future opportunity.

TO THE WITCH-HAZEL.

“Last of their floral sisterhood, The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine, The tawny gold of Afric’s mind!” J. G. WHITTIER.

I.

No mocking dream art thou of summer sun, No fading shadow of the autumn’s gold; Thy sunset stars their yellow light unfold As some pale planet, when the day is done, Giveth unfailing promise of the night With its blessed hours of rest, its sparkling fields— The glittering harvest that the darkness yields Of unknown worlds far reaching out of sight. In the year’s twilight thy pale blossoms shine With faithful promise of the winter’s night— The broad, white fields with nameless stars a-light, The crystal glitter far outshining thine. In the late daylight that about thee lies, How soft thy radiance to sun-weary eyes!

II.

The brave arbutus fair foretold the spring With gleam auroral of the coming slow Of perfect summer’s full life’s noon-day glow, With undimmed sunshine, earth illumining. Thy stars, wan hazel, break amid the blaze Of gold and scarlet wherewith burn the hills— As when the pomp of royal burial fills The clouded skies that mourn the dying days. The gold grows spent, ashen the scarlet fires, The night too near for any song of bird; ‘Mid voice of streams and rustling leaves, foot-stirred, The grieving summer’s last earth-prayer expires. Brighter thy glow as golden pomp grows sere, O pale-hued Hesper of the westering year!

III.

No dreary harbinger art thou of woe, Of barren days, and warm life lost in death: On heav’n-kissed peaks is born the icy breath Whose touch unfolds the flowers of the snow. Spring’s buds, close-folded, lie along the bare And shivering boughs where calls the wild-voiced wind, And fine the leafless tracery is lined On blue undimmed as summer heavens wear. Hearts glow the warmer for the bitter wind, Stars are but brighter for the frosty night, Of earth despoiled love climbeth holy height, New, blossoming paths her feet, untiring, find. Thought of thy promise shining in dim skies Fills darkest hour with lights of Paradise.

IV.

Among thy boughs almost the sound I hear Of Christmas bells breaking on wintry gloom; Foretelling so, the glimmer of thy bloom The kindliest feast of all the saint-crowned year. O happy year! that for its twilight crown Wears the dim radiance of thy peaceful stars, Hears song of angels, where no harsh note jars, Filling the woods whence latest bird hath flown. O wailing bloom! bud forth thy prophecies, Thine earnest of a life fore’er renewed, Thy light in darkness, with fair hope imbued, Thy golden gift of love’s amenities. O conjurer’s wand! thy jewelled staff bend low, Show the bright waters living ‘neath the snow.

THE WOLF-TOWER.

A BRETON CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

I.

Long ago in Brittany, under the government of St. Gildas the Wise, seventh abbot of Ruiz, there lived a young tenant of the abbey who was blind in the right eye and lame in the left leg. His name was Sylvestre Ker, and his mother, Josserande Ker, was the widow of Martin Ker, in his lifetime the keeper of the great door of the Convent of Ruiz.

The mother and son lived in a tower, the ruins of which are still seen at the foot of Mont Saint-Michel de la Trinité, in the grove of chestnut-trees that belongs to Jean Maréchal, the mayor’s nephew. These ruins are now called the Wolf-Tower, and the Breton peasants shudder as they pass through the chestnut-grove; for at midnight around the Wolf-Tower, and close to the first circle of great stones erected by the Druids at Carnac, are seen the phantoms of a young man and a young girl—Pol Bihan and Matheline du Coat-Dor.

The young girl is of graceful figure, with long, floating hair, but without a face; and the young man is tall and robust, but the sleeves of his coat hang limp and empty, for he is without arms. Round and round the circle they pass in opposite directions, and, strange to tell, as the legend adds, they never meet, nor do they ever speak to each other.

Once a year, on Christmas night, instead of walking they run; and all the Christians who cross the heath to go to the midnight Mass hear from afar the young girl cry: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my beauty!” and the deep voice of the young man adds: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my strength!”

II.

And this has lasted for thirteen hundred years; therefore you may well think there is a story connected with it.

When Martin Ker, the husband of Dame Josserande, died, their son Sylvestre was only seven years old. The widow was obliged to give up the guardianship of the great door to a man-at-arms, and retire to the tower, which was her inheritance; but little Sylvestre Ker had permission to follow the studies in the convent school. The boy showed natural ability, but he studied little, except in the class of chemistry, taught by an old monk named Thaël, who was said to have discovered the secret of making gold out of lead by adding to it a certain substance which no one but himself knew; for certainly, if the fact had been communicated, all the lead in the country would have been quickly turned into gold. As for Thaël himself, he had been careful not to profit by his secret, for Gildas the Wise had once said to him: “Thaël, Thaël, God does not wish you to change the work of his hands. Lead is lead, and gold is gold. There is enough gold, and not too much lead. Leave God’s works alone; if not, Satan will be your master.”

Most assuredly such precepts would not be well received by modern industry; but St. Gildas knew what he said, and Thaël died of extreme old age before he had changed the least particle of lead into gold. This, however, was not from want of will, which was proved after his death, as the rumor spread about that Thaël did not altogether desert his laboratory, but at times returned to his beloved labors. Many a time in the lonely hours of the night the fishermen, in their barks, watched the glimmer of the light in his former cell; and Gildas the Wise, having been warned of the fact, arose one night before Lauds, and with quiet steps crossed the corridors, thinking to surprise his late brother, and perhaps ask of him some details of the other side of the dreaded door which separates life from death.

When he reached the cell he listened and heard Thaël’s great bellows puffing and blowing, although no one had yet been appointed to succeed him. Gildas suddenly opened the door with his master-key, and saw before him little Sylvestre Ker actively employed in relighting Thaël’s furnaces.

St. Gildas was not a man to give way to sudden wrath; he took the child by the ear, drew him outside, and said to him gently:

“Ker, my little Ker, I know what you are attempting and what tempts you to make the effort; but God does not wish it, nor I either, my little Ker.”

“I do it,” replied the boy, “because my dear mother is so poor.”

“Your mother is what she is; she has what God gives her. Lead is lead, and gold is gold. If you go against the will of God, Satan will be your master.”

Little Ker returned to the tower crestfallen, and never again slipped into the cell of the dead Thaël; but when he was eighteen years old a modest inheritance was left him, and he bought materials for dissolving metals and distilling the juice of plants. He gave out that his aim was to learn the art of healing; for that great purpose he read great books which treated of medical science and many other things besides.

He was then a youth of fine appearance, with a noble, frank face, neither one-eyed nor lame, and led a retired life with his mother, who ardently loved her only son. No one visited them in the tower, except the laughing Matheline, the heiress of the tenant of Coat-Dor and god-daughter of Josserande; and Pol Bihan, son of the successor of Martin Ker as armed keeper of the great door.

Both Pol and Matheline often conversed together, and upon what subject, do you think? Always of Sylvestre Ker. Was it because they loved him? No. What Matheline loved most was her own fair self, and Pol Bihan’s best friend was named Pol Bihan. Matheline passed long hours before her little mirror of polished steel, which faithfully reflected her laughing mouth, full of pearls; and Pol was proud of his great strength, for he was the best wrestler in the Carnac country. When they spoke of Sylvestre Ker it was to say: “What if some fine morning he should find the secret of the fairy-stone that is the mother of gold!”

And each one mentally added:

“I must continue to be friendly with him, for if he becomes wealthy he will enrich me.”

Josserande also knew that her beloved son sought after the fairy-stone, and even had mentioned it to Gildas the Wise, who shook his venerable head and said:

“What God wills will be. Be careful that your son wears a mask over his face when he seeks the cursed thing; for what escapes from the crucible is Satan’s breath, and the breath of Satan causes blindness.”

Josserande, meditating upon these words, went to kneel before the cross of St. Cado, which is in front of the seventh stone of Cæsar’s camp—the one that a little child can move by touching it with his finger, but that twelve horses, harnessed to twelve oxen, cannot stir from its solid foundation. Thus prostrate, she prayed: “O Lord Jesus! thou who hast mercy for mothers on account of the Holy Virgin Mary, thy mother, watch well over my little Sylvestre, and take from his head this thought of making gold. Nevertheless, if it is thy will that he should be rich, thou art the master of all things, my sweet Saviour!”

And as she rose she murmured: “What a beautiful boy he would be with a cloak of fine cloth and a hood bordered with fur, if he only had means to buy them!”

III.

It came to pass that as all these young people, Pol Bihan, Matheline, and Sylvestre Ker, gained a year each time that twelve months rolled by, they reached the age to think of marriage; and Josserande one morning proceeded to the dwelling of the farmer of Coat-Dor to ask the hand of Matheline for her son, Sylvestre Ker; at which proposal Matheline opened her rosy mouth so wide, to laugh the louder, that far back she showed two pearls which had never before been seen.

When her father asked her if the offer suited her she replied: “Yes, father and godmother, provided that Sylvestre Ker gives me a gown of cloth of silver embroidered with rubies, like that of the Lady of Lannelar, and that Pol Bihan may be our groomsman.”

Pol, who was there, also laughed and said: “I will assuredly be groomsman to my friend Sylvestre Ker, if he consents to give me a velvet mantle striped with gold, like that of the castellan of Gâvre, the Lord of Carnac.”

Whereupon Josserande returned to the tower and said to her son: “Ker, my darling, I advise you to choose another friend and another bride; for those two are not worthy of your love.”

But the young man began to sigh and groan, and answered: “No friendship or love will I ever know, except for Pol, my dear comrade, and Matheline, your god-daughter, my beautiful play-fellow.”

And Josserande having told him of the two new pearls that Matheline had shown in the back of her mouth, nothing would do but he must hurry to Coat-Dor to try and see them also.

On the road from the tower to the farm of Coat-Dor is the Point of Hinnic, where the grass is salt, which makes the cows and rams very fierce while they are grazing. As Sylvestre Ker walked down the path at the end of which is the Cross of St. Cado, he saw on the summit of the promontory Pol and Matheline strolling along, talking and laughing; so he thought:

“I need not go far to see Matheline’s two pearls.”

And, in fact, the girl’s merry laughter could be heard below, for it always burst forth if Pol did but open his lips; when, lo and behold! a huge old ram which had been browsing on the salt grass tossed back his two horns, and, fuming at the nostrils, bleated as loud as the stags cry when chased, and rushed in the direction of Matheline’s voice; for, as every one knows, the rams become furious if laughter is heard in their meadow.

He ran quickly, but Sylvestre Ker ran still faster, and arrived the first by the girl, so that he received the shock of the ram’s butting while protecting her with his body. The injury was not very great, only his right eye was touched by the curved end of one of the horns when the ram raised his head, and thus Sylvestre Ker became one-eyed.

The ram, prevented from slaughtering Matheline, dashed after Pol Bihan, who fled; reached him just at the end of the cliff, and pushed him into the sea, that beat against the rocks fifty feet below.

Well content with his work, the ram walked off, and the story says he laughed behind his woolly beard. But Matheline wept bitterly and cried:

“Ker, my handsome Ker, save Bihan, your sweet friend, from death, and I pledge my faith I will be your wife without any condition.”

At the same time, amid the roaring of the waves, was heard the imploring voice of Pol Bihan crying:

“Sylvestre, O Sylvestre Ker! my only friend, I cannot swim. Come quickly and save me from dying without confession, and all you may ask of me you shall have, were it the dearest treasure of my heart.”

Sylvestre Ker asked:

“Will you be my groomsman?”

And Bihan replied:

“Yes, yes, and I will give you a hundred crowns. And all that your mother may ask of me she shall have. But hasten, hasten, dear friend, or the waves will carry me off.”

Sylvestre Ker’s blood was pouring from the wound in his eye, and his sight was dimmed; but he was generous of heart, and boldly leaped from the top of the promontory. As he fell his left leg was jammed against a jutting rock and broke, so there he was, lame as well as one-eyed; nevertheless, he dragged Bihan to the shore and asked:

“When shall the wedding be?”

As Matheline hesitated in her answer—for Sylvestre’s brave deeds were too recent to be forgotten—Pol Bihan came to her assistance and gaily cried:

“You must wait, Sylvestre, my saviour, until your leg and eye are healed.”

“Still longer,” added Matheline (and now Sylvestre Ker saw the two new pearls, for in her laughter she opened her mouth from ear to ear)—“still longer, as limping, one-eyed men are not to my taste—no, no!”

“But,” cried Sylvestre Ker, “it is for your sakes that I am one-eyed and lame.”

“That is true,” said Bihan.

“That is true,” also repeated Matheline; for she always spoke as he did.

“Ker, my friend Ker,” resumed Bihan, “wait until to-morrow, and we will make you happy.”

And off they went, Matheline and he, arm-in-arm, leaving Sylvestre to go hobbling along to the tower, alone with his sad thoughts.

Would you believe it? Trudging wearily home, he consoled himself by thinking that he had seen two new pearls behind the smile. You may, perhaps, think you have never met such a fool. Undeceive yourself: it is the same with all the men, who only look for laughing girls with teeth like pearls.

But the sorrowful one was Josserande, the widow, when she saw her son with only one eye and one sound leg.

“Where did all this happen?” she asked with tears.

And as Sylvestre Ker gently answered, “I have seen them, mother; they are very beautiful,” Josserande divined that he spoke of her god-daughter’s two pearls, and cried:

“By all that is holy, he has also lost his mind!”

Then, seizing her staff, she went to the Abbey of Ruiz, to consult St. Gildas as to what could be done in this unfortunate case; and the wise man replied:

“You should not have spoken of the two pearls; your son would have remained at home. But now that the evil is done, nothing will happen to him contrary to God’s holy will. At high tide the sea comes foaming over the sands, yet see how quietly it retires. What is Sylvestre Ker doing now?”

“He is lighting his furnaces,” replied Josserande.

The wise man paused to reflect, and after a little while said:

“In the first place, you must pray devoutly to the Lord our God, and afterward look well before you to know where to put your feet. The weak buy the strong, the unhappy the happy; did you know that, my good woman? Your son will persevere in search of the fairy-stone that changes lead into gold, to pay for Pol’s wicked friendship and for the pearls behind the dangerous smiles of that Matheline. Since God permits it, all is right. Yet see that your son is well protected against the smoke of his crucible, for it is the very breath of Satan; and make him promise to go to the midnight Mass.”

For it was near the glorious Feast of Christmas.

IV.

Josserande had no difficulty in making Sylvestre Ker promise to go to the midnight Mass, for he was a good Christian; and she bought for him an iron armor to put on when he worked around his crucibles, so as to preserve him from Satan’s breath.

And it happened that, late and early, Pol Bihan now came to the tower, bringing with him the laughing Matheline; for it was rumored around that at last Sylvestre Ker would soon find the fairy-stone and become a wealthy man. It was not only two new pearls that Matheline showed at the corners of her rosy mouth, but a brilliant row, that shone, and chattered, and laughed, from her lips down to her throat; for Pol Bihan had said to her:

“Laugh as much as you can; for smiles attract fools, as the turning-mirror catches larks.”

We have spoken of Matheline’s lips, of her throat, and of her smile, but not of her heart; of that we can only say the place where it should have been was nearly empty; so she replied to Bihan:

“As much as you will. I can afford to laugh to be rich; and when the fool shall have given me all the gold of the earth, all the pleasures of the world, I will be happy, happy.... I will have them all for myself, for myself alone, and I will enjoy them.”

Pol Bihan clasped his hands in admiration, so lovely and wise was she for her age; but he thought: “I am wiser still than you, my beauty: we will share between us what the fool will give—one half for me, and the other also; the rest for you. Let the water run under the bridge.”

The day before Christmas they came together to the tower—Matheline carrying a basket of chestnuts, Pol a large jug, full of sweet cider—to make merry with the godmother. They roasted the chestnuts in the ashes, and heated the cider before the fire, adding to it fermented honey, wine, sprigs of rosemary, and marjoram leaves; and so delicious was the perfume of the beverage that even Dame Josserande longed for a taste.

On the way Pol had advised Matheline adroitly to question Sylvestre Ker, to know when he would at last find the fairy-stone. Sylvestre Ker neither ate chestnuts nor drank wine, so absorbed was he in the contemplation of Matheline’s bewitching smiles; and she said to him:

“Tell me, my handsome, lame, and one-eyed bridegroom, will I soon be the wife of a wealthy man?”

Sylvestre Ker, whose eye shot forth a lurid flame, replied:

“You would have been as rich as you are beautiful to-morrow, without fail, if I had not promised my dear mother to accompany her to the midnight Mass to-night. The favorable hour falls just at the first stroke of Matins.”

“To-day?”

“Between to-day and to-morrow.”

“And can it not be put off?”

“Yes, it can be put off for seven years.”

Dame Josserande heard nothing, as Pol was relating an interesting story, so as to distract her attention; but while talking he listened with all his ears.

Matheline laughed no longer, and thought:

“Seven years! Can I wait seven years?” Then she continued:

“Beautiful bridegroom, how do you know that the propitious moment falls precisely at the hour of Matins? Who told you so?”

“The stars,” replied Sylvestre Ker. “At midnight Mars and Saturn will arrive in diametrical opposition; Venus will seek Vesta; Mercury will disappear in the sun; and the planet without a name, that the deceased Thaël divined by calculation, I saw last night, steering its unknown route through space to come in conjunction with Jupiter. Ah! if I only dared disobey my dear mother.”

He was interrupted by a distant vibration of the bells of Plouharnel, which rang out the first signal of the midnight Mass. Josserande instantly left her wheel.

“It would be a sin to spin one thread more,” said she. “Come, my son Sylvestre, put on your Sunday clothes, and let us be off for the parish church, if you please.”

Sylvestre wished to rise, for never yet had he disobeyed his mother; but Matheline, seated at his side, detained him and murmured in silvery tones:

“My handsome friend, you have plenty of time.”

Pol, on his side, said to Dame Josserande:

“Get your staff, neighbor, and start at once, so as to take your time. Your god-daughter Matheline will accompany you; and I will follow with my friend Sylvestre, for fear some accident might happen to him with his lame leg and sightless eye.”

As he proposed, so was it done; for Josserande suspected nothing, knowing that her son had promised, and that he would not break his word. As they were leaving, Pol whispered to Matheline:

“Amuse the good woman well, for the fool must remain here.”

And the girl replied:

“Try and see the caldron in which our fortune is cooking. You will tell me how it is done.”

Off the two women started; a large, kind mother’s heart, full of tender love, and a sparrow’s little gizzard, narrow and dry, without enough room in it for one pure tear.

For a moment Sylvestre Ker stood on the threshold of the open door to watch them depart. On the gleaming white snow their two shadows fell; the one bent and already tottering, the other erect, flexible, and each step seemed a bound. The young lover sighed. Behind him Pol Bihan in a low voice said:

“Ker, my comrade, I know what you are thinking about, and you are right to think so; this must come to an end. She is as impatient as you are, for her love equals yours; for both of you it is too long to wait.”

Sylvestre Ker turned pale with joy.

“Do you speak truth?” he stammered. “Am I fortunate enough to be loved by her?”

“Yes, on my faith!” replied Pol Bihan, “she loves you too well for her own peace. When a girl laughs too much, it is to keep from weeping—that’s the real truth.”

V.

Well might they call him “the fool,” poor Sylvestre Ker! Not that he had less brains than another man—on the contrary, he was now very learned—but love crazes him who places his affections on an unworthy object. Sylvestre Ker’s little finger was worth two dozen Pol Bihans and fifty Mathelines; in spite of which Matheline and Pol Bihan were perfectly just in their contempt, for he who ascends the highest falls the lowest.

When Sylvestre had re-entered the tower Pol commenced to sigh heavily and said:

“What a pity! What a great, great pity!”

“What is a pity?” asked Sylvestre Ker.

“It is a pity to miss such a rare opportunity.”

Sylvestre Ker exclaimed:

“What opportunity? So you were listening to my conversation with Matheline?”

“Why, yes,” replied Pol. “I always have an ear open to hear what concerns you, my true friend. Seven years! Shall I tell you what I think? You would only have twelve months to wait to go with your mother to another Christmas Mass.”

“I have promised,” said Sylvestre.

“That is nothing; if your mother loves you truly, she will forgive you.”

“If she loves me!” cried Sylvestre Ker. “Oh! yes, she loves me with her whole heart.”

Some chestnuts still remained, and Bihan shelled one while he said:

“Certainly, certainly, mothers always love their children; but Matheline is not your mother. You are one-eyed, you are lame, and you have sold your little patrimony to buy your furnaces. Nothing remains of it. Where is the girl who can wait seven years? Nearly the half of her age!... If I were in your place I would not throw away my luck as you are about to do, but at the hour of Matins I would work for my happiness.”

Sylvestre Ker was standing before the fireplace. He listened, his eyes bent down, with a frown upon his brow.

“You have spoken well,” at last he said; “my dear mother will forgive me. I shall remain, and will work at the hour of Matins.”

“You have decided for the best!” cried Bihan. “Rest easy; I will be with you in case of danger. Open the door of your laboratory. We will work together; I will cling to you like your shadow!”

Sylvestre Ker did not move, but looked fixedly upon the floor, and then, as if thinking aloud, murmured:

“It will be the first time that I have ever caused my dear mother sorrow!”

He opened a door, but not that of the laboratory, pushed Pol Bihan outside, and said:

“The danger is for myself alone; the gold will be for all. Go to the Christmas Mass in my place; say to Matheline that she will be rich, and to my dear mother that she shall have a happy old age, since she will live and die with her fortunate son.”

VI.

When Sylvestre Ker was alone he listened to the noise of the waves dashing upon the beach, and the sighing of the wind among the great oaks—two mournful sounds. And he looked at the empty seats of Matheline, the madness of his heart; and of his dear mother, Josserande, the holy tenderness of all his life. Little by little had he seen the black hair of the widow become gray, then white, around her sunken temples. That night memory carried him back even to his cradle, over which had bent the sweet, noble face of her who had always spoken to him of God.

But whence came those golden ringlets that mingled with Josserande’s black hair, and which shone in the sunlight above his mother’s snowy locks? and that laugh, ah! that silvery laugh of youth; which prevented Sylvestre Ker from hearing in his pious recollections the calm, grave voice of his mother. Whence did it come?

Seven years! Pol had said, “Where is the girl who can wait seven years?” and these words floated in the air. Never had the son of Martin Ker heard such strange voices amid the roaring of the ocean, nor in the rushing winds of the forest of the Druids.

Suddenly the tower also commenced to speak, not only through the cracks of the old windows when the mournful wind sighed, but with a confusion of sounds that resembled the busy whispering of a crowd, that penetrated through the closed doors of the laboratory, under which a bright light streamed.

Sylvestre Ker opened the door, fearing to see all in a blaze, but there was no fire; the light that had streamed under the door came from the round, red eye of his furnace, and happened to strike the stone of the threshold. No one was in the laboratory; still the noises, similar to the chattering of an audience awaiting a promised spectacle, did not cease. The air was full of speaking things; the spirits could be felt swarming around, as closely packed as the wheat in the barn or the sand on the sea-shore.

And, although not seen, they spoke all kinds of phantom-words, which were heard right and left, before and behind, above and below, and which penetrated through the pores of the skin like quicksilver passing through a cloth. They said:

“The Magi have started, my friend.”

“My friend, the Star shines in the East.”

“My friend, my friend, the little King Jesus is born in the manger, upon the straw.”

“Sylvestre Ker will surely go with the shepherds.”

“Not at all; Sylvestre Ker will not go.”

“Good Christian he was.”

“Good Christian he is no longer.”

“He has forgotten the name of Joseph, the chaste spouse.”

“And the name of Mary, the ever Virgin Mother.”

“No, no, no!”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“He will go!”

“He will not go!”

“He will go, since he promised Dame Josserande.”

“He will not go, since Matheline told him to stay.”

“My friend, my friend, to-night Sylvestre Ker will find the golden secret.”

“To-night, my friend, my friend, he will win the heart of the one he loves.”

And the invisible spirits, thus disputing, sported through the air, mounting, descending, whirling around like atoms of dust in a sunbeam, from the flag-stones of the floor to the rafters of the roof.

Inside the furnace, in the crucible, some other thing responded, but it could not be well heard, as the crucible had been hermetically sealed.

“Go out from here, you wicked crowd,” said Sylvestre Ker, sweeping around with a broom of holly-branches. “What are you doing here? Go outside, cursed spirits, damned souls—go, go!”

From all the corners of the room came laughter; Matheline seemed everywhere.

Suddenly there was profound silence, and the wind from the sea brought the sound of the bells of Plouharnel, ringing the second peal for the midnight Mass.

“My friend, what are they saying?”

“They say Christmas, my friend—Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!”

“Not at all! They say, Gold, gold, gold!”

“You lie, my friend!”

“My friend, you lie!”

And the other voices, those that were grumbling in the interior of the furnace, swelled and puffed. The fire, that no person was blowing, kept up by itself, hot as the soul of a forge should be. The crucible became red, and the stones of the furnace were dyed a deep scarlet.

In vain did Sylvestre Ker sweep with his holly broom; between the branches, covered with sharp leaves, the spirits passed—nothing could catch them; and the heat was so great the boy was bathed in perspiration.

After the bells had finished their second peal he said: “I am stifling. I will open the window to let out the heat as well as this herd of evil spirits.”

But as soon as he opened the window the whole country commenced to laugh under its white mantle of snow—barren heath, ploughed land, Druid stones, even to the enormous oaks of the forest, with their glistening summits, that shook their frosty branches, saying: “Sylvestre Ker will go! Sylvestre Ker will not go!”

Not a spirit from within flew out, while all the outside spirits entered, muttering, chattering, laughing: “Yes, yes, yes, yes! No, no, no, no!” And I believe they fought.

At the same time the sound of a cavalcade advancing was heard on the flinty road that passed before the tower; and Sylvestre Ker recognized the long procession of the monks of Ruiz, led by the grand abbot, Gildas the Wise, arrayed in cope and mitre, with his crosier in his hand, going to the Mass of Plouharnel, as the convent-chapel was being rebuilt.

When the head of the cavalcade approached the tower the grand abbot cried out:

“My armed guards, sound your horns to awaken Dame Josserande’s son!”

And instantly there was a blast from the horns, which rang out until Gildas the Wise exclaimed:

“Be silent, for there is my tenant wide awake at his window.”

When all was still the grand abbot raised his crosier and said:

“My tenant, the first hour of Christmas approaches, the glorious Feast of the Nativity. Extinguish your furnaces and hasten to Mass, for you have barely time.”

And on he passed, while those in the procession, as they saluted Ker, repeated:

“Sylvestre Ker, you have barely time; make haste!”

The voices of the air kept gibbering: “He will go! He will not go!” and the wind whistled in bitter sarcasm.

Sylvestre Ker closed his window. He sat down, his head clasped by his trembling hands. His heart was rent by two forces that dragged him, one to the right, the other to the left: his mother’s prayer and Matheline’s laughter.

He was no miser; he did not covet gold for the sake of gold, but that he might buy the row of pearls and smiles that hung from the lips of Matheline....

“Christmas!” cried a voice in the air.

“Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!” repeated all the other voices.

Sylvestre Ker suddenly opened his eyes, and saw that the furnace was fiery red from top to bottom, and that the crucible was surrounded with rays so dazzling he could not even look at it. Something was boiling inside that sounded like the roaring of a tempest.

“Mother! O my dear mother!” cried the terrified man, “I am coming. I’ll run....”

But thousands of little voices stung his ears with the words:

“Too late, too late, too late! It is too late!”

Alas! alas! the wind from the sea brought the third peal of the bells of Plouharnel, and they also said to him: “Too late!”

VII.

As the sound of the bells died away the last drop of water fell from the clepsydra and marked the hour of midnight. Then the furnace opened and showed the glowing crucible, which burst with a terrible noise, and threw out a gigantic flame that reached the sky through the torn roof. Sylvestre Ker, enveloped by the fire, fell prostrate on the ground, suffocated in the burning smoke.

The silence of death followed. Suddenly an awful voice said to him: “Arise.” And he arose.

On the spot where had stood the furnace, of which not a vestige remained, was standing a man, or rather a colossus; and Sylvestre Ker needed but a glance to recognize in him the demon. His body appeared to be of iron, red-hot and transparent; for in his veins could be seen the liquid gold, flowing into, and then in turn retreating from, his heart, black as an extinguished coal.

The creature, who was both fearful and beautiful to behold, extended his hand toward the side of the tower nearest the sea, and in the thick wall a large breach was made.

“Look,” said Satan.

Sylvestre Ker obeyed. He saw, as though distance were annihilated, the interior of the humble church of Plouharnel where the faithful were assembled. The officiating priest had just ascended the altar, brilliant with the Christmas candles, and there was great pomp and splendor; for the many monks of Gildas the Wise were assisting the poor clergy of the parish.

In a corner, under the shadow of a column, knelt Dame Josserande in fervent prayer, but often did the dear woman turn toward the door to watch for the coming of her son.

Not far from her was Matheline du Coat-Dor, bravely attired and very beautiful, but lavishing the pearls of her smiles upon all who sought them, forgetting no one but God; and close to Matheline Pol Bihan squared his broad shoulders.

Then, even as Satan had given to Sylvestre Ker’s sight the power of piercing the walls, so did he permit him to look into the depth of hearts.

In his mother’s heart he saw himself as in a mirror. It was full of him. Good Josserande prayed for him; she united Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the holy family, whose feast is Christmas, in the pious prayer which fell from her lips; and ever and ever said her heart to God: “My son, my son, my son!”

In the heart of Pol Sylvestre Ker saw pride of strength and gross cupidity; in the spot where should have been the heart of Matheline he saw Matheline, and nothing but Matheline, in adoration before Matheline.

“I have seen enough,” said Sylvestre Ker.

“Then,” replied Satan, “listen!”

And immediately the sacred music resounded in the ears of the young tenant of the tower, as plainly as though he were in the church of Plouharnel. They were singing the _Sanctus_: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! The heavens and the earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”

Dame Josserande repeated the words with the others, but the refrain of her heart continued: “O Jesus, Infinite Goodness! may he be happy. Deliver him from all evil and from all sin. I have only him to love.... Holy, holy, holy, give me all the suffering, and keep for him all the happiness!”

Can you believe it? Even while piously inhaling the perfume of this celestial hymn the young tenant wished to know what Matheline was saying to God. Everything speaks to God—the wild beasts in the forest, the birds in the air, even the plants, whose roots are in the ground.

But miserable girls who sell the pearls of their smiles are lower than the animals and vegetables. Nothing is beneath them, Pol Bihan excepted. Instead of speaking to God, Pol Bihan and Matheline whispered together, and Sylvestre Ker heard them as distinctly as if he had been between them.

“How much will the fool give me?” asked Matheline.

“The idiot will give you all,” replied Pol.

“And must I really squint with that one-eyed creature, and limp with the lame wretch?”

Sylvestre Ker felt his heart die away within him.

Meanwhile, Josserande prayed: “O ever Virgin Mother! pray for my dear child. As Jesus is your adorable heart, Sylvestre Ker is my poor heart....”

“Never mind,” continued Bihan, “it is worth while limping and squinting for a time to win all the money in the world.”

“That is true; but for how long?”

Sylvestre Ker held his breath to hear the better.

“As long as you please,” answered Pol Bihan.

There was a pause, after which the gay Matheline resumed in a lower tone:

“But ... they say after a murder one can never laugh, and I wish to laugh always....”

“Will I not be there?” replied Bihan. “Some time or other the idiot will certainly seek a quarrel with me, and I will crack his bones by only squeezing him in my arms; you can count upon my strength.”

“I have heard enough,” said Sylvestre Ker to Satan.

“And do you still love this Bihan?”

“No, I despise him.”

“And Matheline—do you love her yet?”

“Yes, oh! yes, ... but ... I hate her!”

“I see,” said Satan, “that you are a coward and wicked like all men. Since you have heard and seen enough at a distance, listen, and look at your feet....”

The wall closed with a loud crash of the stones as they came together, and Sylvestre Ker saw that he was surrounded by an enormous heap of gold-pieces, as high as his waist, which gently floated, singing the symphony of riches. All around him was gold, and through the gap in the roof the shower of gold fell and fell and fell.

“Am I the master of all this?” asked Sylvestre Ker.

“Yes,” replied Satan; “you have compelled me, who am gold, to come forth from my caverns; you are therefore the master of gold, provided you purchase it at the price of your soul. You cannot have both God and gold. You must choose one or the other.”

“I have chosen,” said Sylvestre Ker. “I keep my soul.”

“You have firmly decided?”

“Irrevocably.”

“Once, twice, ... reflect! You have just acknowledged that you still love the laughing Matheline.”

“And that I hate her; ... yes, ... it is so, ... but in eternity I wish to be with my dear mother Josserande.”

“Were there no mothers,” growled Satan, “I could play my game much better in the world!”

And he added:

“For the third time, ... adjudged!”

The heap of gold became as turbulent as the water of a cascade, and leaped and sang; the millions of little sonorous coins clashed against each other, then all was silent and they vanished. The room appeared as black as a place where there had been a great fire; nothing could be seen but the lurid gleam of Satan’s iron body.

Then said Sylvestre Ker:

“Since all is ended, retire!”

VIII.

But the demon did not stir.

“Do you think, then,” he asked, “that you have brought me hither for nothing? There is the law. You are not altogether my slave, since you have kept your soul; but as you have freely called me, and I have come, you are my vassal. I have a half-claim over you. The little children know that; I am astonished at your ignorance.... From midnight to three o’clock in the morning you belong to me, in the form of an animal, restless, roving, complaining, without help from God. This is what you owe to your strong friend and beautiful bride. Let us settle the affair before I depart. What animal do you wish to be—roaring lion, bellowing ox, bleating sheep, crowing cock? If you become a dog you can crouch at Matheline’s feet, and Bihan can lead you by a leash to hunt in the woods....”

“I wish,” cried Sylvester Ker, whose anger burst forth at these words—“I wish to be a wolf, to devour them both!”

“So be it,” said Satan; “wolf you shall be three hours of the night during your mortal life.... Leap, wolf!”

And the wolf Sylvestre Ker leaped, and with one dash shattered the casement of the window as he cleared it with a bound. Through the aperture in the roof Satan escaped, and, spreading a pair of immense wings, rapidly disappeared in an opposite direction from the steeple of Plouharnel, whose chimes were ringing at the Elevation.

IX.

I do not know if you have ever seen a Breton village come forth after the midnight Mass. It is a joyous sight, but a brief one, as all are in a hurry to return home, where the midnight meal awaits them—a frugal feast, but eaten with such cheerful hearts. The people, for a moment massed in the cemetery, exchange hospitable invitations, kind wishes, and friendly jokes; then divide into little caravans, which hurry along the roads, laughing, talking, singing. If it is a clear, cold night, the clicking of their wooden shoes may be heard for some time; but if it is damp weather the sound is stifled, and after a few moments the faint echo of an “adieu” or Christmas greeting is all that can be heard around the church as the beadle closes it.

In the midst of all this cheerfulness Josserande alone returned with a sad heart; for through the whole Mass she had in vain watched for her beloved son. She walked fifty paces behind the cavalcade of the monks of Ruiz, and dared not approach the Grand-Abbot Gildas, for fear of being questioned about her boy. On her right was Matheline du Coat-Dor, on her left Bihan—both eager to console her; for they thought that by that time Sylvestre Ker must have learned the wonderful secret which would secure him untold wealth, and to possess the son they should cling to the mother; therefore there were promises and caresses, and “will you have this, or will you have that?”

“Dear godmother, I shall always be with you,” said Matheline, “to comfort and rejoice your old age; for your son is my heart.”

Pol Bihan continued:

“I will never marry, but always remain with my friend, Sylvestre Ker, whom I love more than myself. And nothing must worry you; if he is weak I am strong, and I will work for two.”

To pretend that Dame Josserande paid much attention to all these words would be false; for her son possessed her whole soul, and she thought:

“This the first time he has ever disobeyed and deceived me. The demon of avarice has entered into him. Why does he want so much money? Can all the riches of the world pay for one of the tears that the ingratitude of a beloved son draws from his mother’s eyes?”

Suddenly her thoughts were arrested, for the sound of a trumpet was heard in the still night.

“It is the convent-horn,” said Matheline.

“And it sounds the wolf-alarm!” added Pol.

“What harm can the wolf do,” asked Josserande, “to a well-mounted troop like the cavalry of Gildas the Wise? And, besides, cannot the holy abbot with a single word put to flight a hundred wolves?”

They had arrived at the heath of Carnac, where are the two thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine Druid stones, and the monks had already passed the round point where nothing grows, neither grass nor heath, and which resembles an enormous caldron—a caldron wherein to make oaten porridge—or rather a race-course, to exercise horses.

On one side might be seen the town, dark and gloomy; on the other, as far as the eye could reach, rows of rugged obelisks, half-black, half-white, owing to the snow, which threw into bold relief each jagged outline. Josserande, Matheline, and Pol Bihan had just turned from the sunken road which branches toward Plouharnel; and the moon played hide-and-go-seek behind a flock of little clouds that flitted over the sky like lambs.

Then a strange thing happened. The cavalcade of monks was seen to retreat from the entrance of the avenues to the middle of the circle, while the horn sounded the signal of distress, and loud cries were heard of “Wolf! wolf! wolf!”

At the same time could be distinguished the clashing of arms, the stamping of horses, and all the noise of a ferocious struggle, above which rose the majestic tones of Gildas the Wise, as he said with calmness:

“Wolf, wicked wolf, I forbid you to touch God’s servants!”

But it seemed that the wicked wolf was in no hurry to obey, for the cavalcade plunged hither and thither, as though shaken by convulsion; and the moon having come forth from the clouds, there was seen an enormous beast struggling with the staffs of the monks, the halberds of the armed guard, the pitch-forks and spears of the peasants, who had hastened from all directions at the trumpet-call from Ruiz.

The animal received many wounds, but it was fated not to die. Again and again it charged upon the crowd, rushed up and down, round and round, biting, tearing with its great teeth so fearfully that a large circle was made around the grand abbot, who was finally left alone in face of the wolf.

For a wolf it was.

And the grand abbot having touched it with his crosier, the wolf crouched at his feet, panting, trembling, and bloody. Gildas the Wise bent over it, looked at it attentively, then said:

“Nothing happens contrary to God’s holy will. Where is Dame Josserande?”

“I am here,” replied a mournful voice full of tears, “and I dread a great misfortune.”

She also was alone; for Matheline and Pol Bihan, seized with terror, had rushed across the fields at the first alarm and abandoned their precious charge. The grand abbot called Josserande and said:

“Woman, do not despair. Above you is the Infinite Goodness, who holds in his hands the heavens and the whole earth. Meanwhile, protect your wolf; we must return to the monastery to gain from sleep strength to serve the Lord our God!”

And he resumed his course, followed by his escort.

The wolf did not move; his tongue lay on the snow, which was reddened by his blood. Josserande knelt beside him and prayed fervently. For whom? For her beloved son. Did she already know that the wolf was Sylvestre Ker? Certainly; such a thing could scarcely be divined, but under what form cannot a mother discover her darling child?

She defended the wolf against the peasants, who had returned to strike him with their pitch-forks and pikes, as they believed him dead. The two last who came were Pol Bihan and Matheline. Pol Bihan kicked him on the head and said, “Take that, you fool!” and Matheline threw stones at him and cried: “Idiot, take that, and that, and that!”

They had hoped for all the gold in the world, and this dead beast could give them nothing more.

After a while two ragged beggars passed by and assisted Josserande in carrying the wolf into the tower. Where is charity most often found? Among the poor, who are the figures of Jesus Christ.

X.

Day dawned. A man slept in the bed of Sylvestre Ker, where widow Josserande had laid a wolf. The room still bore the marks of a fire, and snow fell through the hole in the roof. The young tenant’s face was disfigured with blows, and his hair, stiffened with blood, hung in heavy locks. In his feverish sleep he talked, and the name that escaped his lips was Matheline’s. At his bedside the mother watched and prayed.

When Sylvestre Ker awoke he wept, for the thought of his condemnation returned, but the remembrance of Pol and Matheline dried the tears in his burning eyes.

“It was for those two,” said he, “that I forgot God and my mother. I still feel my friend’s heel upon my forehead, and even to the bottom of my heart the shock of the stones thrown at me by my betrothed!”

“Dearest,” murmured Josserande, “dearer to me than ever, I know nothing; tell me all.”

Sylvestre Ker obeyed; and when he had finished Josserande kissed him, took up her staff, and proceeded toward the convent of Ruiz to ask, according to her custom, aid and counsel from Gildas the Wise. On her way men, women, and children looked curiously at her, for throughout the country it was already known that she was the mother of a wolf. Even behind the hedge which enclosed the abbey orchard Matheline and Pol were hidden to see her pass; and she heard Pol say: “Will you come to-night to see the wolf run round?”

“Without fail,” replied Matheline; and the sting of her laughter pierced Josserande like a poisonous thorn.

The grand abbot received her, surrounded by great books and dusty manuscripts. When she wished to explain her son’s case he stopped her and said:

“Widow of Martin Ker, poor, good woman, since the beginning of the world Satan, the demon of gold and pride, has worked many such wickednesses. Do you remember the deceased brother, Thaël, who is a saint for having resisted the desire of making gold—he who had the power to do it?”

“Yes,” answered Josserande; “and would to heaven my Sylvestre had imitated him!”

“Very well,” replied Gildas the Wise, “instead of sleeping I passed the rest of the night with St. Thaël, seeking a means to save your son, Sylvestre Ker.”

“And have you found it, father?”

The grand abbot neither answered yes nor no, but he began to turn over a very thick manuscript filled with pictures; and while turning the leaves he said: “Life springs from death, according to the divine word; death seizes the living according to the pagan law of Rome; and it is nearly the same thing in the order of miserable temporal ambition, whose inheritance is a strength, a life, shot forth from a coffin. This is a book of the defunct Thaël’s, which treats of the question of maladies caused by the breath of gold—a deadly poison.... Woman, would you have the courage to strike your wolf a blow on his head powerful enough to break the skull?”

At these words Josserande fell her full length upon the tiles, as if she had been stabbed to the heart; but in the very depth of her agony—for she thought herself dying—she replied:

“If you should order me to do it, I would.”

“You have this great confidence in me, poor woman?” cried Gildas, much moved.

“You are a man of God,” answered Josserande, “and I have faith in God.”

Gildas the Wise prostrated himself on the ground and struck his breast, knowing that he had felt a movement of pride. Then, standing up, he raised Josserande, and kissed the hem of her robe, saying:

“Woman, I adore in you the most holy faith. Prepare your axe, and sharpen it!”

XI.

In Brittany, when this legend is repeated, the relater here adds a current proverb of the province: “Christians, there is nothing greater than Faith, that is the mother of Hope, and thus the grandmother of Holy Love, that carries one above to the Paradise of God.”

In the days of Gildas the Wise intense silence always reigned at night through the dense oak forests of the Armorican country. One of the most lonely places was Cæsar’s camp, the name given to the huge masses of stone that encumbered the barren heath; and it was the common opinion that the pagan giants supposed to be buried under them rose from their graves at midnight, and roamed up and down the long avenues, watching for the late passers-by to twist their necks.

This night, however—the night after Christmas—many persons could be seen about eleven o’clock on the heath before the stones of Carnac, all around the Great Basin or circle, whose irregular outline was clearly visible by moonlight.

The enclosure was entirely empty. Outside no one was seen, it is true; but many could be heard gabbling in the shadow of the high rocks, under the shelter of the stumps of oaks, even in the tufts of thorny brambles; and all this assemblage watched for something, and that something was the wolf, Sylvestre Ker.

They had come from Plouharnel, and also from Lannelar, from Carnac, from Kercado, even from the old town of Crach, beyond La Trinité.

Who had brought together all these people, young and old, men and women? The legend does not say, but very probably Matheline had strewn around the cruel pearls of her laughter, and Pol Bihan had not been slow to relate what he had seen after the midnight Mass.

By some means or other the entire country around for five or six leagues knew that the son of Martin Ker, the tenant of the abbey, had become a man-wolf, and that he was doomed to expiate his crime in the spot haunted by the phantoms—the Great Basin of the Pagans, between the tower and the Druid stones.

Many of the watchers had never seen a man-wolf, and there reigned in the crowd, scattered in invisible groups, a fever of curiosity, terror, and impatience; the minutes lengthened as they passed, and it seemed as though midnight, stopped on the way, would never come.

There were at that time no clocks in the neighborhood to mark the hour, but the matin-bell of the convent of Ruiz gave notice that the wished-for moment had arrived.

While waiting there was busy conversation: they spoke of the man-wolf, of phantoms, and also of betrothals, for the rumor was spread that the bans of Matheline du Coat-Dor, the promised bride of Sylvestre Ker, with the strong Pol Bihan, who had never found a rival in the wrestling-field, would be published on the following Sunday; and I leave you to imagine how Matheline’s laughter ran in pearly cascades when congratulated on her approaching marriage.

By the road which led up to the tower a shadow slowly descended; it was not the wolf, but a poor woman in mourning, whose head was bent upon her breast, and who held in her hand an object that shone like a mirror, and the brilliant surface of which reflected the moonbeams.

“It is Josserande Ker!” was whispered around the circle, behind the rocks, in the brambles, and under the stumps of the oaks.

“’Tis the widow of the armed keeper of the great door!”

“’Tis the mother of the wolf, Sylvestre Ker!”

“She also has come to see....”

“But what has she in her hand?”

Twenty voices asked this question. Matheline, who had good eyes, and such beautiful ones, replied:

“It looks like an axe.... Happy am I to be rid of those two, the mother and son! With them I could never laugh.”

But there were two or three good souls who said in low tones:

“Poor widow! her heart must be full of sorrow.”

“But what does she want with that axe?”

“It is to defend her wolf,” again replied Matheline, who carried a pitch-fork.

Pol Bihan held an enormous holly stick which resembled a club. Every one was armed either with threshing flails or rakes or hoes; some even bore scythes, carried upright; for they had not only come to look on, but to make an end of the man-wolf.

Again was heard the chime of the Matin-bells of the convent of Ruiz, and immediately a smothered cry ran from group to group:

“Wolf! wolf! wolf!”

Josserande heard it, for she paused in her descent and cast an anxious look around; but, seeing no one, she raised her eyes to heaven and clasped her hands over the handle of her axe.

The wolf, in the meantime, with fuming nostrils and eyes which looked like burning coals, leaped over the stones of the enclosure and began to run around the circle.

“See, see!” said Pol Bihan, “he no longer limps.”

And Matheline, dazzled by the red light from his eyes, added: “It seems he is no longer one-eyed!”

Pol brandished his club and continued:

“What are we waiting for? Why not attack him?”

“Go you first,” said the men.

“I caught cold the other day, and my leg is stiff, which keeps me from running,” answered Pol.

“Then I will go first!” cried Matheline, raising her pitch-fork. “I will soon show how I hate the wretch!”

Dame Josserande heard her and sighed:

“Girl, whom I blessed in baptism, may God keep me from cursing you now!”

This Matheline, whose pearls were worth nothing, was no coward; for she carried out her words, and marched straight up to the wolf, while Bihan stayed behind and cried:

“Go, go, my friends; don’t be afraid! Ah! but for my stiff leg I would soon finish the wolf, for I am the strongest and bravest.”

Round and round the circle galloped the wolf as quickly as a hunted stag; his eyes darted fire, his tongue was hanging from his mouth. Josserande, seeing the danger that threatened him, wept and cried out:

“O Bretons! is there among you all not one kind soul to defend the widow’s son in the hour when he bitterly expiates his sin?”

“Let us alone, godmother,” boldly replied Matheline.

And from afar Pol Bihan added:

“Don’t listen to the old woman; go!”

But another voice was heard in answer to Dame Josserande’s appeal, and it said:

“As last night, we are here!”

Standing in front of Matheline, and barring the passage, were two ragged beggars with their wallets, leaning upon their staffs. Josserande recognized the two poor men who had so charitably aided her the night before; and one of them, who had snow-white hair and beard, said:

“Christians, my brethren, why do you interfere in this? God rewards and punishes. This poor man-wolf is not a damned soul, but one expiating a great crime. Leave justice to God, if you do not wish some great misfortune to happen to you.”

And Josserande, who was kneeling down, said imploringly:

“Listen, listen to the saint!”

But from behind Pol Bihan cried out:

“Since when have beggars been allowed to preach sermons? Ah! if it were not for my stiff leg.... Kill him, kill him! ... wolf! wolf! wolf!”

“Wolf! wolf!” repeated Matheline, who tried to drive off the old beggar with her pitch-fork.

But the fork broke like glass in her hands, as it touched the poor man’s tatters, and at the same time twenty voices cried:

“The wolf! the wolf! Where has the wolf gone?”

Soon was seen where the wolf had gone. A black mass dashed through the crowd, and Pol Bihan uttered a horrible cry:

“Help! help! Matheline!”

You have often heard the noise made by a dog when crunching a bone. This was the noise they heard, but louder, as though there were many dogs crunching many bones. And a strange voice, like the growling of a wolf, said:

“The strength of a man is a dainty morsel for a wolf to eat. Bihan, traitor, I eat your strength!”

The black mass again bounded through the terrified crowd, his bloody tongue hanging from his mouth, his eyes darting fire.

This time it was from Matheline that a scream still more horrible than that of Pol’s was heard; and again there was the noise of another terrible feast, and the voice of the wild beast, which had already spoken, growled:

“The pearls of a smile make a dainty morsel for a wolf to eat. Matheline, serpent that stung my heart, seek for your beauty. I have eaten it!”

XIII.

The white-haired beggar had endeavored to protect Matheline against the wolf, but he was very old, and his limbs would not move as quickly as his heart. He only succeeded in throwing down the wolf. It fell at Josserande’s feet and licked her knees, uttering doleful moans. But the people, who had come thither for entertainment, were not well pleased with what had happened. There was now abundance of light, as men with torches had arrived from the abbey in search of their holy saint, Gildas the Wise, whose cell had been found empty at the hour of Compline.

The glare from the torches shone upon two hideous wounds made by the wolf, who had devoured Matheline’s beauty and Pol’s strength—that is to say, the face of the one and the arms of the other: flesh and bones. It was frightful to behold. The women wept while looking at the repulsive, bleeding mass which had been Matheline’s smiling face; the men sought in the double bloody gaps some traces of Pol’s arms, for the powerful muscles, the glory of the athletic games; and every heart was filled with wrath.

The legend says that the tenant of Coat-Dor, Matheline’s poor father, knelt beside his daughter and felt around in the blood for the scattered pearls, which were now as red as holly-berries.

“Alas!” said he, “of these dead stained things, which when living were so beautiful, which were admired and envied and loved, I was so proud and happy.”

Alas! indeed, alas! Perhaps it was not the girl’s fault that her heart was no larger than a little bird’s; and yet for this defect was not Matheline most cruelly punished?

“Death to the wolf! death to the wolf! death to the wolf!”

From all sides was this cry heard, and brandishing pitch-forks, cudgels, ploughshares, and mallets, came rushing the people toward the wolf, who still lay panting, with open jaws and pendent tongue, at the feet of Dame Josserande. Around them the torch-bearers formed a circle: not to throw light upon the wolf and Dame Josserande, but to render homage to the white-haired beggar, in whom, as though the scales had suddenly fallen from their eyes, every one recognized the Grand-Abbot of Ruiz, Gildas the Wise.

The grand abbot raised his hand, and the armed crowd’s eager advance was checked, as if their feet had been nailed to the ground. Calmly he surveyed them, blessed them, and said:

“Christians, the wolf did wrong to punish, for chastisement belongs to God alone; therefore the wolf’s fault should not be punished by you. In whom resides the power of God? In the holy authority of fathers and mothers. So here is my penitent Josserande, who will rightfully judge the wolf and punish him, since she is his mother.”

When Gildas the Wise ceased speaking you could have heard a mouse run across the heath. Each one thought to himself: “So the wolf is really Sylvestre Ker.” But not a word was uttered, and all looked at Dame Josserande’s axe, which glistened in the moonlight.

Josserande made the sign of the cross—ah! poor mother, very slowly, for her heart sank within her—and she murmured:

“My beloved one, my beloved one, whom I have borne in my arms and nourished with my milk—ah! me, can the Lord God inflict this cruel martyrdom upon me?”

No one replied, not even Gildas the Wise, who silently adjured the All-Powerful, and recalled to him the sacrifice of Abraham.

Josserande raised her axe, but she had the misfortune to look at the wolf, who fixed his eyes, full of tears, upon her, and the axe fell from her hands.

_It was the wolf who picked it up_, and when he gave it back to her he said: “I weep for you, my mother.”

“Strike!” cried the crowd, for what remained of Pol and Matheline uttered terrible groans. “Strike! strike!”

While Josserande again seized her axe the grand abbot had time to say:

“Do not complain, you two unhappy ones, for your suffering here below changes your hell into purgatory.”

Three times Josserande raised the axe, three times she let it fall without striking; but at last she said in a hoarse tone that sounded like a death-rattle: “I have great faith in the good God!” and then, says the legend, she struck boldly, for the wolf’s head split in two halves.

XIV.

A sudden wind extinguished the torches, and some one prevented Dame Josserande from falling, as she sank fainting to the ground, by supporting her in his arms. By the light of the halo which shone around the blessed head of Gildas the Wise, the good people saw that this somebody was the young tenant, Sylvestre Ker, no longer lame nor one-eyed, but with two straight legs and two perfect eyes.

At the same time there were heard voices in the clouds chanting the _Te Deum_. Why? Because heaven and earth quivered with emotion at witnessing this supreme act of faith soaring from the depth of anguish in a mother’s heart.

XV.

This is the legend that for many centuries has been related at Christmas time on the shores of the Petite-Mer, which in the Breton tongue is called _Armor bihan_, the Celtic name of Brittany.

If you ask what moral these good people draw from this strange story, I will answer that it contains a basketful. Pol and Matheline, condemned to walk around the Basin of the Pagans until the end of time, one without arms, the other without a face, offer a severe lesson to those fellows who are too proud of their broad shoulders and brute force, and gossiping flirts of girls with smiling faces and wicked hearts; the case of Sylvestre Ker teaches young men not to listen to the demon of money; the blow of Josserande’s axe shows the miraculous power of faith; the part of Gildas the Wise proves that it is well to consult the saints.

Still further, that you may bind together these diverse morals in one, here is a proverb which is current in the province: “Never stoop to pick up the pearls of a smile.” After this ask me no more.

As to the authenticity of the story, I have already said that the chestnut-grove belongs to the mayor’s nephew, which is one guaranty; and I will add that the spot is called Sylvestreker, and that the ruins, hung with moss, have no other name than “The Wolf-Tower!”

MR. FROUDE ON THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM.[102]

We have seen what Mr. Froude thinks of the “Revival of Romanism.” Let us now see what he has to say on a subject nearer his heart—the decline of Protestantism.

He has much to say; and, to use an ordinary phrase, he makes no bones about saying it. At the outset we would dispose of what seems a fair objection. If, it may be urged, you make Mr. Froude so very untrustworthy a witness against Catholics and the Catholic Church, why should he not be equally untrustworthy when assailing Protestantism?

The objection is more plausible than real. Mr. Froude is a professed Protestant. In the cause of Protestantism he is earnest even to aggressiveness. He believes in and loves it with all his heart and soul, as really as he disbelieves in and detests Catholicity. He can say nothing that is too good of the early Protestant Reformers and of their “Reform.” He doubts about nothing, apologizes for nothing, attempts to palliate nothing either in the Reformers or their Reform. He sees nothing in either to apologize for or to palliate. He can only regret that, so far as Protestant belief and work and workers go, the nineteenth century is not as the sixteenth. He is altogether on his own ground here; and we submit that the testimony of such a man in such a matter is of value, the more so when it is confirmed to-day by concurrent Protestant testimony on all sides. The only difference between Mr. Froude and the great mass of non-Catholic writers on this subject is that he is more frank than they, and lays his finger unshrinkingly on very tender Protestant spots.

Of the actual state of Protestantism he has little that is good or hopeful to say, with one notable exception—North Germany—which will be considered later on. Protestantism to-day Mr. Froude finds weak-kneed as well as weak-headed. It has not that aggressive strength of the early teachers and preachers of Reform. The modern teachers have lost that pronounced faith in themselves and in their doctrines, that burning zeal, that fierce hatred of Catholicity, of falsehood, and of sham, that Mr. Froude is pleased to discover in the early Reformers.

“Religion speaks with command,” he says very rightly. It “lays down a set of doctrines, and says, ‘Believe these at your soul’s peril.’ A certain peremptoriness being thus of the essence of the thing, those religious teachers will always command most confidence who dare most to speak in positive tones.” All of which is, of course, most true.

Speaking “in positive tones,” however, does not necessarily imply a divine mission, or even an erroneous sense of a divine mission. It may be bluster; it may be calculated lying; it may be the mistaken enthusiasm of a weak intellect and fervid imagination. To be real it must stand the severest tests. Of a man who asserts his mission from heaven as a teacher of religion something more than his own word is demanded, however positive that word may be. In the preaching and the teaching of the truth there is in all ages a unity of voice, a community of feeling and of purpose, a singleness of eye, of aim, of method, a union of heart and of soul, that is unmistakable and carries conviction with it. There is no change in it; no fleck or flaw. What is new agrees with what is old; is generally a consequence flowing out of the old. It preaches only one God and one law from the beginning. It never contradicts itself; it never narrows or broadens its moral lines to suit the convenience or the whim of persons or of nationalities. It never compromises with humanity. It enlightens the intellect while appealing to the heart of man. It makes no divisions between men or nations; no special code for this or for that. It is awful in its inflexibility; majestic in its calm; eternal in its vigilance; “the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” This is living Truth; this is God’s; and he who speaks the word of God is known by these signs.

Mr. Froude is at a loss to find this spirit now abroad in the world. The nearest approach to it he finds, oddly enough for him, in the Catholic Church. But, of course, that is owing to some devilish ingenuity of which the Catholic Church alone has the secret. As for Protestants, “it is no secret,” he says, “that of late years Protestant divines have spoken with less boldness, with less clearness and confidence, than their predecessors of the last generation.” “They are not to be blamed for it,” he adds, and we quite agree with him. “Their intellectual position has grown in many ways perplexed. Science and historical criticism have shaken positions which used to be thought unassailable” (p. 99). We pointed out one of those “positions”—the Protestant Reformation in England—but that is not in the contemplation of Mr. Froude. To him, even if to him alone, that position still stands, “unassailable.”

“Doctrines once thought to carry their own evidence with them in their inherent fitness for man’s needs have become, for some reason or other, less conclusively obvious. The state of mind to which they were addressed has been altered—altered in some way either for the worse or for the better. And where the evangelical theology retains its hold, it is rather as something which it is unbecoming to doubt than as a body of living truth which penetrates and vitalizes the heart” (p. 99).

It is to be regretted that Mr. Froude does not specify these “doctrines.” He fails to do so in any place, and in such matters, as indeed in all, there is nothing like accuracy in order to arrive at a clear understanding of what is wrong. Some of them, however, may be easily guessed at. In these days it would be hard to discover what precise “doctrines” “evangelical” or any but Catholic theologians do hold, if hard pushed and driven to make an explicit statement of what they do and what they do not believe. The expression “evangelical theology” may help to enlighten us as to Mr. Froude’s meaning. That we take to mean a theology based on the Bible as the first, final, and only guide to man’s knowledge of God and all implied in that knowledge. This view of his meaning is confirmed by another passage (p. 100), wherein, contrasting the doctrinal position of the Catholic and Protestant, he says:

“It” (the Catholic Church) “stands precisely on the same foundation on which the Protestant religion stands—on the truth of the Gospel history. Before we can believe the Gospel history we must appeal to the consciousness of God’s existence, which is written on the hearts of us all.”

There is a mistake here which will be obvious to any instructed reader. There is no more reason “to appeal to the consciousness of God’s existence” for the truth of “the Gospel history” than for the truth of any other history. As a history, history it is and no more, to be judged as to its accuracy on the known laws of historical criticism. It contains a written record of events, and stands or falls on the truth of what it records, just as does Mr. Froude’s own history. If it can be shown that it is false, there is an end of it; false it is, and no man is bound to believe it. The foundation of Protestantism, as Mr. Froude very rightly says, stands “on the truth of the Gospel history”—that is, on the Bible, and the Bible alone. Christ, however, did not build his church on the Bible, but on Peter, the chief of the apostles: “I say to thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Those are very plain, strong, and unmistakable words; and in their comprehension lies a fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants.

Out of this difference comes a singular effect, more noticeable in these than in former days. Catholics reverence the Bible more really because more truly than do Protestants. Over-reverence is irreverence. They never made the mistake of accepting the Bible as the foundation of Christ’s church, any more than in human affairs we should take a history of a commonwealth, with the digest of its laws, the sayings of some of its wise men, their documents to their contemporaries and to posterity, as the commonwealth itself. Protestants withdrew from the body of the church, which may have had, and had, sore spots and diseased members; they took up the written record and said: Here are the laws; here are the words of Christ; here are the sayings of the fathers; here is truth; here let us build our church anew—each one judging for himself as to what the church was and ought to be. Difficulties that were essential to such a position and that are obvious at sight arose at once and continued all the way down, until at last, in these days of all others, there sprang up in the very bosom of Protestantism a school of assailants of the Bible itself. This is the school of modern scientists, which rejects revelation, rejects God, rejects the truth of the Bible history, rejects Christ—rejects, in a word, everything, save what approves itself to it by so-called positive testimony. Hence arises the perplexity of the “intellectual position” of Protestant divines, which Mr. Froude notices. The very foundation of their creed is questioned, and questioned at every inch. So, until everything is satisfactorily cleared up and the “scientists” absolutely refuted, Protestantism is in a state of dissolution. It has no foundation on which to stand, while Catholics have their living church, to which they adhered steadfastly from the very beginning, which existed, and was called into being, entirely independent of the Bible, and which would have been what it is had the Bible never been written at all. So that, _per impossibile_, even were the Bible shown to be false, it would not affect the fundamental Catholic position. Of course we do not intimate for a moment that the Bible is false, and that the scientists can prove anything against it. We only bring forward this instance of an essential difference between Catholics and Protestants, and the effect of it on their minds, as showing the reason why Catholics take the criticism of the new school of inquirers very calmly, while the result of this criticism on Protestants is disastrous.

Catholics are just as steadfast in their belief as they ever were; Protestants are daily becoming less and less so. Inquiry, or “criticism,” as it is called, while it strengthens, if possible, Catholicity, destroys Protestantism. Truth can stand all things. “Science and historical criticism _have_ shaken positions which used to be thought unassailable” by Protestants, who find themselves in the false position of being compelled to question or reject as false what their fathers pinned their faith to—Germany always excepted, according to Mr. Froude. It is a hard thing indeed to preach and teach as divine truth a doctrine, or by our very profession to subscribe to a doctrine, which in our heart we doubt about or disbelieve. This is a moral phenomenon which Protestantism presents to us every day, and in no one of its infinite branches more conspicuously than in the Anglican.

If men are preaching what they disbelieve or are in grave doubt about, it is simply natural that “where truth” (or what was taken for truth) “was once flashed out like lightning, and attended with oratorical thunders, it is now uttered with comparative feebleness.”

“The most honest, perhaps, are the most uncomfortable and most hesitating, while those who speak most boldly are often affecting a confidence which in their hearts they do not feel” (p. 99). “From some cause, it seems they” (Protestant preachers) “dare not speak, they dare not think, like their fathers. Too many of them condescend to borrow the weapons of their adversaries. _They are not looking for what is true; they are looking for arguments to defend positions which they know to be indefensible._ Their sermons are sometimes sophistical, sometimes cold and mechanical, sometimes honestly diffident. Any way, they are without warmth and cannot give what they do not possess” (p. 100).

This is a very heavy indictment; we leave to others to judge of its truth. It is a mistake, however, to draw the line at “their fathers.” These men are what their fathers have made them. The characteristics that mark the present teachers of Protestantism run down the whole line of the Protestant tradition. Incoherency and inconsistency, not to use harsher terms, necessarily stamped Protestantism from the first.[103] These characteristics are only more apparent to-day because the constant fire of criticism has exposed and brought them more prominently into view.

The practical results of teaching what is necessarily and inherently contradictory scarcely need to be pointed out. “The Protestant,” says Mr. Froude, “finding three centuries ago that the institution called the Church was teaching falsehood, refused to pin his faith upon the Church’s sleeve thenceforward. He has relied on his own judgment, and times come when he is perplexed.” The whole story is told here. It was too late in the day to find that “the Church was teaching falsehood.” The Christian Church can err or it cannot err. There is room for no _via media_ here. If it can err, it could have erred just as easily in the first century as in the fifteenth or sixteenth. If it could err at all there is no necessary reason to suppose that it ever was right; there is no belief to be placed in the promise of Christ; there is no belief to be placed in Christ himself more than in any other man. And again, if it could err, who was right, and who was going to set it right? The church being abandoned as a teacher of falsehood, there is no hope of escape from constant perplexity to the Christian mind; for the Bible itself, being left to private judgment, is of course open to any interpretation that private judgment may be pleased to extract from it. And this in itself is destruction, quite apart from the assaults of hostile criticism. To make the church at all, or at any time, or by any possibility a teacher of falsehood is to strike the divinity from it and convert it into a human institution of the most monstrous assumptions and absurd pretensions.

This is Protestantism, which never had any spiritual life in itself. It was from the beginning, as it still is, a convenient and very powerful political agent, as was Mahometanism. Mr. Froude says very truly, what all men are coming to say, that “there is no real alternative between the Catholic Church and atheism” (p. 100), which leaves Mr. Froude and his fellow-Protestants in a pleasant position.

In the general perplexity of the Protestant mind “the Romanist,” as Mr. Froude graciously puts it, “has availed himself of the opportunity.”

“His church stands as a visible thing, which appears [appeals?] to the imagination as well as the reason. The vexed soul, weary of its doubts, and too impatient to wait till it pleases God to clear away the clouds, demands a certainty on which it can repose—never to ask a question more. By an effort of will which, while claiming the name of faith, is in reality a want of faith, it seizes the Catholic system as a whole. Foregoing the use of the natural reason for evermore, it accepts the word of a spiritual director as an answer to every difficulty, and finds, as it supposes, the peace for which it longed, as the body which is drugged with opium ceases to feel pain” (p. 101).

Such is Mr. Froude’s picture of conversion to the Catholic faith. A man is drugged into Catholicity, and remains drugged to the end of the chapter. Whenever a gleam of his lost reason returns he hurries to the confessional box; his “spiritual director” administers another dose, and the drowsy patient slumbers away again content. We do not pretend to Mr. Froude’s singular gift of prescience which enables him to read so readily the hearts of thousands of men and women who to all the world save Mr. Froude are intellectually and morally strong. He has traced their secret emotions and followed them up even into the confessional box. He has seen the opiate administered and satisfied himself of the process. To ordinary persons the conversion of a man to the Catholic faith is the result of a long and most painful struggle which only the strongest conviction of right can bring about. Leaving him there, deprived of “the use of the natural reason for evermore,” let us see what becomes of those who retain the use of their natural reason and all the noble gifts and faculties that accompany it. Protestants alone see clearly the roads to heaven and hell, according to Mr. Froude; which road do they take?

We have seen the position of their preachers. Were we not deprived of “our natural reason for evermore,” we should describe that position as most pitiable, where it is not dishonest and intellectually immoral. The God of Protestantism, if we believe its expounders, is truly a strange being. He teaches everything, or he teaches nothing, with equal facility and pleasing variety. He teaches that there are three persons in one God; he teaches no such doctrine. He teaches that Christ is truly God and truly man; he is rather doubtful about the matter. He teaches the eternity of punishment; he teaches no such monstrous doctrine. He commands that all men be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, if they would enter the kingdom of heaven; he does not know of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. His views of baptism and its necessity are rather mixed. There is no baptism unless a man is wholly immersed. It is just as good a baptism if a man’s feet be immersed. It is equally good if water be poured on a man’s head. A man is just as fit for the kingdom of heaven, and just as good a Christian, if he be not baptized at all. God teaches that the Blessed Sacrament is really and truly the body and blood of Christ, and to be adored. He teaches that it is only a figure of Christ, and that to adore it is to commit the sin of idolatry. He teaches that man has free-will; he teaches that man has not free-will, and that all he can do is worthless, heaven or hell being portioned out for him from all eternity quite apart from his own endeavor. He teaches that good works as well as faith in him are necessary for salvation; he teaches that faith alone is necessary, and that provided a man believe right he may do wrong. And so on _ad infinitum_ down to the grossest and most abhorrent tenets.

But this is Protestantism, or reliance on one’s “own judgment.” One’s own judgment is very apt to favor one’s own self. One’s own judgment makes a god of self, and right and wrong matters of whim, appetite, and inclination. Let us see its outcome as pictured by Mr. Froude.

In section iv. of his study he considers the “Causes of Weakness in Modern Protestant Churches.” The words “modern” and “churches” are themselves contradictory of unity and of a church built on Christ. He sets out by drawing a glowing picture of what the early “Reformers” did and what they were, which we may let pass as not immediately bearing on our present purpose. “After the middle of the seventeenth century,” he says (p. 111), “Protestantism ceased to be aggressive.”

... “As it became established it adapted itself to the world, laid aside its harshness, confined itself more and more to the enforcement of particular doctrines, and abandoned, at first tacitly and afterward deliberately, the pretence to interfere with private life or practical business.”

Is this true? Did Protestantism cease to be aggressive after the middle of the seventeenth century? We have already said that Mr. Froude was generally the best refutation of Mr. Froude. He shall be his own judge.

Did Protestantism cease to be aggressive in Ireland, for instance, after the middle of the seventeenth century? We might bring many unimpeachable witnesses on the stand to prove our point. Mr. Froude will suffice for us, and we quote him at some length because his words here set forth in the strongest contrast what Protestantism can do to degrade a people, and what Catholicity can do to lift a people out of the slough of degradation. Herein we see the spirits of both in deadly conflict, and the lesson of the struggle is a lesson for to-day, when the same spirits are locked again in strife.

Writing not of the middle of the seventeenth, but of the beginning of the eighteenth, century (1709), Mr. Froude thus describes the second Act against Popery in Ireland:

“The code of law which was designed to transfer the entire soil of Ireland to members of the Established Church, and reduce the Catholics to landless dependents, was finally completed.... By the new act every settlement, every lease on lives, every conveyance made by a Catholic owner since 1704, by which any Protestant or Protestants had been injured,[104] was declared void, and the loop-holes were closed by which the act of that year had been evaded. To defeat Protestant heirs, Catholics had concealed the true value of their property. Children were now enabled to compel their fathers to produce their title-deeds and make a clear confession. Catholic gentlemen had pretended conversion to qualify themselves for being magistrates and sheriffs, for being admitted to the bar, or for holding a seat in Parliament, while their children were being bred up secretly in the old faith. The education of their families was made a test of sincerity, and those whose sons were not brought up as churchmen remained under the disabilities.

“Nor, if words could hinder it, were the acts directed against the priests to be any more trifled with. Fifty pounds reward was now offered for the conviction of any Catholic archbishop, bishop, or vicar-general; twenty pounds reward for the conviction of friar, Jesuit, or unregistered parish priest.... It was now made penal for a priest to officiate anywhere except in the parish church for which he was registered, and the last rivet was driven into the chain by the compulsory imposition of the Abjuration Oath, which every priest was made to swear at his registration. As if this was not enough, any two magistrates received power to summon any or every Irish subject above the age of sixteen, to offer him the oath, and to commit him to prison if he refused it. They might also, if he was a Catholic, ask him where he last heard Mass, and by whom it was celebrated. If the priest officiating was found to have been unregistered he was liable to be transported.

“A fatal clause was added that any Protestant whatever who discovered and was able to prove before a Protestant jury the existence of any purchase or lease of which a Catholic was to have secretly the advantage, should himself be put in possession of the property which was the subject of the fraud” (pp. 332–334).[105]

Even Mr. Froude cannot help remarking on this last clause that “the evasion of a law so contrived that every unscrupulous scoundrel in Ireland was its self-constituted guardian became impossible”; and he adds with gratifying frankness: “That it was unjust in itself never occurred as a passing emotion to any Protestant in the two kingdoms, not even to Swift, who speaks approvingly of what he deems must be the inevitable result.”

Writing still of the Penal Laws, he says that “the practice of the courts” in regard to them “was a very school of lying and a discipline of evasion. No laws could have been invented, perhaps, more ingeniously demoralizing” (p. 374).

Writing of a period still later in the eighteenth century, after the Protestant emigration and the ruin of Irish trade and industry had been brought about by English legislation, he thus describes the condition of the Irish peasant class, who composed the bulk of the population:

“The tenants were forbidden in their leases to break or plough the soil. The people, no longer employed, were driven away into holes and corners, and eked out a wretched subsistence by potato gardens, or by keeping starving cattle of their own on the neglected bogs. Their numbers increased, for they married early, and they were no longer liable, as in the old times, to be killed off like dogs in forays. They grew up in compulsory idleness, encouraged once more in their inherited dislike of labor, and enured to wretchedness and hunger; and, on every failure of the potato crop, hundreds of thousands were starving.”

Horrible as such a picture is, it is but a faint sketch of the reality. All readers of Irish history know it, and no student of English legislation should forget or pass over that dark chapter in England’s history. Our own readers have seen the whole system vividly sketched in these pages recently in the series of papers on “English Rule in Ireland.” What, in human nature and human possibilities, was to become of a people thus submitted to so long and unbending and systematic a course of degradation? They had nothing left but their faith, and the eternal truth of the promise that this is the victory which overcometh the world; and that our faith shall make us free was never more gloriously and wondrously made manifest than in the case of the Irish people.

Ignorance was made compulsory by this Protestant government. The statute law of Ireland forbade Catholics to open schools or to teach in them. The Irish people, of all peoples, have ever had a craving for knowledge. What was left to them to do?

“The Catholics,” says Mr. Froude, “with the same steady courage and unremitting zeal with which they had maintained and multiplied the number of their priests, had established open schools in places like Killarney, where the law was a dead-letter. In the more accessible counties, where open defiance was dangerous, they extemporized class teachers under ruined walls or in the dry ditches by the roadside, where ragged urchins, in the midst of their poverty, learnt English and the elements of arithmetic, and even to read and construe Ovid and Virgil. With institutions which showed a vitality so singular and so spontaneous repressive acts of Parliament contended in vain.”

Ignorance is esteemed to be the prolific mother of vice. The social condition of the Irish people was made as bad as legislation could make it. Where was the room for morality in such a case? In vainly trying to explain away that most brutal project of law for the mutilation of the Irish priests, Mr. Froude says (vol. i. p. 557): “They (the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council) did propose, not that all the Catholic clergy in Ireland, as Plowden says, but that unregistered priests and friars coming in from abroad, should be liable to castration”; and he adds in a note:

“Not, certainly, as implying a charge of immorality. Amidst the multitude of accusations which I have seen brought against the Irish priests of the last century, I have never, save in a single instance, encountered a charge of unchastity. Rather the exceptional and signal purity of Irish Catholic women of the lower class, unparalleled probably in the civilized world, and not characteristic of the race, which in the sixteenth century was no less distinguished for licentiousness, must be attributed wholly and entirely to the influence of the Catholic clergy.”

Mr. Froude cannot be wholly generous and honest in a matter of this kind, but what is true in this is sufficient for our purpose without inquiring into what is false. It is plain from his own words that the one thing that saved the Irish people from perdition, body and soul, was their Catholic faith. Yet this is the man who, having thus testified to the rival effects of Catholicity and Protestantism on a people, has the effrontery to tell us in the “Revival of Romanism” that

“If by this [conversions] or any other cause the Catholic Church anywhere recovers her ascendency, she will again exhibit the detestable features which have invariably attended her supremacy. Her rule will once more be found incompatible either with justice or intellectual growth, and our children will be forced to recover by some fresh struggle the ground which our forefathers conquered for us, and which we by our pusillanimity surrendered” (p. 103).

With his own testimony before us we may well ask in amazement, Of which church is he writing? It would seem as though Heaven, which through all ages has looked down upon and permitted martyrdom for the faith, had in this instance called upon, not a tender virgin or a strong youth, not an old man tottering into the grave or an innocent child, to step into the arena and offer up their life and blood for the cause of Christ, but a whole people. And the martyrdom of this people was not for a day or an hour; it was the slow torture of centuries. A legacy of martyrdom was “bequeathed from bleeding sire to son.” Life was hopeless to the Irish people under the Penal Laws; the world a wide prison; the earth a grave. They could only lift their eyes and hearts to heaven and wait patiently for merciful death to come. This was the supreme test of faith to a noble and passionate race, as it was faith’s supremest testimony. No work of the saints, no writings of the fathers, no Heaven-illumined mind ever brought to the aid of faith stronger reason for conviction than this. As words pale before deeds, as the blood of a martyr speaks more loudly to men, and cries more clamorously to heaven, than all that divine philosophy can utter or inspired poet sing, so the attitude of the Irish people, so opposed to all the instincts of their quick and passionate nature, bore the very noblest testimony to the reality of the Christian religion. A world looked down into that dark arena and waited for some sign of faltering in the victim, for some sign of pity in the persecutor. Neither came. The victim refused to die or sacrifice to the gods; the persecutor to relent. The struggle ended at length through the sheer weariness of the latter, and brighter times came because darker could not be devised.

Faith conquered. The Irish people arose from its grave, and at once spread abroad over the world to preach the Gospel and to plant the church which for two centuries it had watered with its blood. The Act of Catholic Emancipation was the first real sign of resurrection, and that was only passed in 1829.

So much for Protestantism having “ceased to be aggressive after the middle of the seventeenth century.” How aggressive are certain Protestant powers to-day all men know.

Another thing happened to Protestantism after the middle of the seventeenth century:

“It no longer produced men conspicuously nobler and better than Romanism,” says Mr. Froude, “and therefore it no longer made converts. As it became established, it adapted itself to the world, laid aside its harshness, confined itself more and more to the enforcement of particular doctrines” (of no doctrines in particular, we should be inclined to say), “and abandoned, at first tacitly and afterward deliberately, the pretence to interfere with private life or practical business.”

In plainer words, Protestantism, having secured its place in this world, left the next world to take care of itself, and left men free to go to the devil or not just as they pleased. Mr. Froude faithfully pictures the result:

“Thus Protestant countries are no longer able to boast of any special or remarkable moral standard; and the effect of the creed on the imagination is analogously impaired. Protestant nations show more energy than Catholic nations because the mind is left more free, and the intellect is undisturbed by the authoritative instilment of false principles” (p. 111).

This strikes us as a very easy manner of begging a very important question. However, we are less concerned now with Mr. Froude’s Catholics than with his Protestants.

“But,” he goes on, “Protestant nations have been guilty, as nations, of enormous crimes. Protestant individuals, who profess the soundest of creeds, seem, in their conduct, to have no creed at all, beyond a conviction that pleasure is pleasant, and that money will purchase it. Political corruption grows up; sharp practice in trade grows up—dishonest speculations, short weights and measures, and adulteration of food. The commercial and political Protestant world, on both sides of the Atlantic, has accepted a code of action from which morality has been banished; and the clergy have for the most part sat silent, and occupy themselves in carving and polishing into completeness their schemes of doctrinal salvation. They shrink from offending the wealthy members of their congregation.” (We believe we heard concordant testimony to this from distinguished members of the late Protestant Episcopalian Convention and Congress.) “They withdraw into the affairs of the other world, and leave the present world to the men of business and the devil.”

Mr. Froude having thus placidly handed Protestantism over to the devil, we might as well leave it there, as the devil is proverbially reported to know and take care of his own. And certainly, if Protestantism be only half what Mr. Froude depicts it, it is the devil’s, and a more active and fruitful agent of evil he could not well desire. One thing is beyond dispute: if Protestantism be what so ardent an advocate as Mr. Froude says it is, it is high time for a change. It is time for some one or something to step in and dispute the devil’s absolute sovereignty. If this is the result of the Protestant mind being “left more free” than the Catholic, the sooner such freedom is curtailed the better. It is the freedom of lethargy and license which has yielded up even the little that it had of real freedom and truth to its own child, Materialism, the modern name for paganism.

“They” (the Protestant clergy), says Mr. Froude, “have allowed the Gospel to be superseded by the new formulas of political economy. This so-called science is the most barefaced attempt that has ever yet been openly made on this earth to regulate human society without God or recognition of the moral law. The clergy have allowed it to grow up, to take possession of the air, to penetrate schools and colleges, to control the actions of legislatures, without even so much as opening their lips in remonstrance.”

Yes, because they had nothing better to offer in its place. And this Mr. Froude advances with much truth as one of the causes of the “Revival of Romanism”:

“I once ventured,” he tells us, “to say to a leading Evangelical preacher in London that I thought the clergy were much to blame in these matters. If the diseases of society were unapproachable by human law, the clergy might at least keep their congregations from forgetting that there was a law of another kind which in some shape or other would enforce itself. He told me very plainly that he did not look on it as part of his duty. He could not save the world, nor would he try. The world lay in wickedness, and would lie in wickedness to the end. His business was to save out of it individual souls by working on their spiritual emotions, and bringing them to what he called the truth. As to what men should do or not do, how they should occupy themselves, how and how far they might enjoy themselves, on what principles they should carry on their daily work—on these and similar subjects he had nothing to say.

“I needed no more to explain to me why Evangelical preachers were losing their hold on the more robust intellects, or why Catholics, who at least offered something which at intervals might remind men that they had souls, should have power to win away into their fold many a tender conscience which needed detailed support and guidance” (pp. 112–113).

One ray of light in the universal darkness now enshrouding Protestantism shines before the eyes of Mr. Froude. It falls on the present German Empire. Here at least the weary watchman crying out the hours of heaven may call “All is well” to the sleepers. Here Protestantism had its true birth; here it finds its true home. In this blessed land lies hope and salvation for a lost world. But the picture is so graphic that we give it in Mr. Froude’s own words:

“As the present state of France,” he says, “is the measure of the value of the Catholic revival, so Northern Germany, spiritually, socially, and politically, is the measure of the power of consistent Protestantism. Germany was the cradle of the Reformation. In Germany it moves forward to its manhood; and there, and not elsewhere, will be found the intellectual solution of the speculative perplexities which are now dividing and bewildering us” (pp. 130–131).

“Luther was the root in which the intellect of the modern Germans took its rise. In the spirit of Luther this mental development has gone forward ever since. The seed changes its form when it develops leaves and flowers. But the leaves and flowers are in the seed, and the thoughts of the Germany of to-day lay in germs in the great reformer. Thus Luther has remained through later history the idol of the nation whom he saved. The disputes between religion and science, so baneful in their effects elsewhere, have risen into differences there, but never into quarrels” (p. 132).

“Protestant Germany stands almost alone, with hands and head alike clear. Her theology is undergoing change. Her piety remains unshaken. Protestant she is, Protestant she means to be.... By the mere weight of superior worth the Protestant states have established their ascendency over Catholic Austria and Bavaria, and compel them, whether they will or not, to turn their faces from darkness to light.[106] ... German religion may be summed up in the word which is at once the foundation and the superstructure of all religion—Duty! No people anywhere or at any time have understood better the meaning of duty; and to say that is to say all” (pp. 134–135).

These glowing periods are very tempting to the critic; but it is a mark of cruelty and savagery to gloat over an easy prey. We forbear all verbal criticism, then, and simply deny _in toto_ the truth of Mr. Froude’s statement. It is so very wrong that we can only think he wrote from his imagination—a weakness from which he suffers oftenest when he wishes most to be effective. Had he searched the world he could not have found a worse instance to prove his point than North Germany.

Prussia is the leading North German and Protestant state, and in various passages Mr. Froude shows that he takes it as his beau-ideal of a Protestant power. How stands Protestantism in Prussia to-day?

The indications for more than a quarter of a century past have been that Protestantism in Prussia was little more than the shadow of a once mighty name. These indications have become more marked of late years, especially since the consolidation of the new German Empire. Earnest German Protestants are continually deploring the fact; the press proclaims it; the Protestant ministers avow it, and all the world knew of it, save, apparently, Mr. Froude. “Protestantism in Prussia” formed the subject of a letter from the Berlin correspondent of the London _Times_ as recently as Sept. 7, 1877. His testimony on such a subject could scarcely be called in question, but even if it could be the facts narrated speak for themselves.

“Forty years ago,” he says, “the clergy of the Established Church of this country, including the leading divines and the members of the ecclesiastical government, almost to a man were under the influence of free-thinking theories.

“It was the time when German criticism first undertook to dissect the Bible. History seemed to have surpassed theology, and divines had recourse to ‘interpreting’ what they thought they could no longer maintain according to the letter. The movement extended from the clergy to the educated classes, gradually reaching the lower orders, and ultimately pervaded the entire nation. At this juncture atheism sprang forward to reap the harvest sown by latitudinarians. Then reaction set in. The clergy reverted to orthodoxy, and their conversion to the old faith happening to coincide with the return of the government to political conservatism, subsequent to the troublous period of 1848, the stricter principles embraced by the cloth were systematically enforced by consistory and school....

“The clergy turned orthodox twenty-five years ago; _the laity did not_. The servants of the altar, having realized the melancholy effect of opposite tenets, resolutely fell back upon the ancient dogmas of Christianity; _the congregations declined to follow suit_. Hence the few ‘liberal’ clergymen remaining after the advent of the orthodox period had the consolation of knowing themselves to be in accord, if not with their clerical brethren, at least with the majority of the educated, and, perhaps, even the uneducated, classes.”

He proceeds to mention various cases of prominent Lutheran clergymen who denied the divinity of Christ, or other doctrines equally necessary to be maintained by men professing to be Christians, and of the unsuccessful attempts made to silence them. As the correspondent says “irreverent liberal opinion on the case is well reflected in an article in the Berlin _Volks-Zeitung_,” which is so instructive that we quote it for the especial benefit of Mr. Froude:

“As long as Protestant clergymen are appointed by provincial consistories officiating in behalf of the crown our congregations will have to put up with any candidates that may be forced upon them. They may, perhaps, be allowed to nominate their pastors, but they will be impotent to exact the confirmation of their choice from the ecclesiastical authorities. Nor do we experience any particular curiosity as to the result of the inquiry instituted against Herr Hossbach. In matters of this delicate nature judicious evasions have been too often resorted to by clever accused, and visibly favored by ordained judges of the faith, for us to care much for the result of the suit opened. A sort of fanciful and imaginative prevarication has always flourished in theological debate, and the old artifice, it is to be foreseen, will be employed with fresh versatility in the present instance. Should the election of Herr Hossbach be confirmed, the consistorial decree will be garnished with so many ‘ifs’ and ‘althoughs’ that the brilliant ray of truth will be dimmed by screening assumptions, like a candle placed behind a colored glass. Similarly, should the consistory decline to ratify the choice of the vestry, the refusal is sure to be rendered palatable by the employment of particularly mild and euphonious language. In either case the triumph of the victorious party will be but half a triumph.... It is not a little remarkable that the Protestant Church in this country should be kept under the control of superimposed authorities, while Roman Catholics and Jews are free to preach what they like. The power of the Catholic hierarchy has been broken by the new laws. _Catholic clergymen deviating from the approved doctrine of the Church are protected by the Government from the persecution of their bishops. Catholic congregations are positively urged and instigated to profit by the privileges accorded them, and assert their independence against bishop and priest._ Jewish rabbis, too, are free to disseminate any doctrine without being responsible for their teaching to spiritual or secular judges. Only Protestant congregations enjoy the doubtful advantage of having the election of their clergy controlled, and the candor of their clergy made the theme of penal inquiry.... And yet Protestant congregations have a ready means of escape at their disposal. Let them leave the church, and they are free to elect whomsoever they may choose as their minister. As it is, the indecision of the congregations maintains the _status quo_ by forcing liberal clergymen into the dogmatic straight-waistcoat of the consistories.”

“In the above argument one important fact is overlooked,” says the _Times_’ correspondent.

“Among the liberals opposed to the consistories there are many atheists, but few sufficiently religious to care for reform. Hence the course taken by the consistories may be resented, but the preaching of the liberal clergy is not popular enough to create a new denomination or to compel innovation within the pale of the church. The fashionable metaphysical systems of Germany are pessimist.”

A week previous to the date of this letter the Lutheran pastors held their annual meeting at Berlin. The Rev. Dr. Grau, who is referred to as “a distinguished professor of theology,” speaking of the task of the clergy in modern times—certainly a most important subject for consideration—said:

“These are serious times for the church. The protection of the temporal power is no longer awarded to us to anything like the extent it formerly was. _The great mass of the people is either indifferent or openly hostile to doctrinal teaching._ Not a few listen to those striving to combine Christ with Belial, and to reconcile redeeming truth with modern science and culture. _There are those who dream of a future church erected on the ruins of the Lutheran establishment, which by these enterprising neophytes is already regarded as dead and gone.”_

“The meeting,” observes the correspondent, “by passing the resolutions proposed by Dr. Grau, endorsed the opinions of the principal speaker.” And he adds:

“While giving this unmitigated verdict upon the state of religion among the people, the meeting displayed open antagonism to the leading authorities of the church. To the orthodox pastors the sober and sedative policy pursued by the Ober Kirchen Rath is a dereliction even more offensive than the downright apostasy of the liberals. To render their opposition intelligible the change that has recently supervened in high quarters should be adverted to in a few words. Soon after his accession to the throne the reigning sovereign, in his capacity as _summus episcopus_, recommended a lenient treatment of liberal views. Though himself strictly orthodox, as he has repeatedly taken occasion to announce, the emperor is tolerant in religion, and too much of a statesman to overlook the undesirable consequences that must ensue from permanent warfare between church and people. He therefore appointed a few moderate liberals members of the supreme council, accorded an extensive degree of self-government to the synods, at the expense of his own episcopal prerogative, and finally sanctioned civil marriage and ‘civil baptism,’ as registration is sarcastically called in this country, to the intense astonishment and dismay of the orthodox. The last two measures, it is true, were aimed at the priests of the Roman Catholic Church, who were to be deprived of the power of punishing those of their flock siding with the state in the ecclesiastical war; but, as the operation of the law could not be restricted to one denomination, Protestants were made amenable to a measure which, to the orthodox among them, was quite as objectionable as to the believing adherents of the Pope. The supreme council of the Protestant Church, having to approve these several innovations adopted by the crown, gradually accustomed itself to regard compromise and bland pacification as one of the principal duties imposed upon it.”

The correspondent ends his letter thus:

“When all was over orthodoxy was at feud with the people as well as with the authoritative guardians of the church. Yet neither people nor guardians remonstrated. For opposite reasons both were equally convinced they could afford to ignore the charges made.”

So important was the letter that the London _Times_ made it the subject of an editorial article, wherein it speaks of “the singular revival of theological and ecclesiastical controversy, which is observable in all directions,” having “at last reached the slumbering Protestantism of Prussia.” It confesses that

“The state of things as described by our correspondent is certainly a very anomalous one. The Prussian Protestant Church has, of late years at least, had but little hold on the respect and affections of the great majority of the people; they are at best but indifferent to it when they are not actively hostile. We are not concerned to investigate the causes of this lack of popularity; we are content to take it as a fact manifest to all who know the country and acknowledged by all observers alike.”

“German Protestantism _was_ a power and an influence,” it says,

“To which the modern world is deeply indebted, and with which, now that ultramontanism is triumphant in the Church of Rome and priestcraft is again striving in all quarters to exert its sway, the friends of freedom and toleration can ill afford to dispense. There is no more ominous sign in the history of an established church than a divorce between intelligence and orthodoxy. This is what, to all appearances, has happened in Prussia.”

We could corroborate this by abundance of testimony from all quarters; but surely the evidence here given is sufficient to convince any man of the deplorable state of Protestantism in Prussia. Why Mr. Froude should have chosen that country of all others for his Protestant paradise we cannot conceive, unless on the ground that he is Mr. Froude. “The world on one side, and Popery on the other,” he says, “are dividing the practical control over life and conduct. North Germany, manful in word and deed, sustains the fight against both enemies and carries the old flag to victory. A few years ago another Thirty Years’ War was feared for Germany. A single campaign sufficed to bring Austria on her knees. _Protestantism, as expressed in the leadership of Prussia_, assumed the direction of the German Confederation” (pp. 135–136).

And whither does this leadership tend? To the devil, if the London _Times_, if Dr. Grau, if every observant man who has written or spoken on this subject, is to be believed. The only religion in Prussia to-day is the Catholic; Protestantism has yielded to atheism or nothingism. The persecution has only proved and tempered the Catholic Church; not even a strong and favoring government can infuse a faint breath of life into the dead carcase of Prussian Protestantism. It is much the same story all the world over. Mr. Froude sees clearly enough what is coming. Protestantism as a religious power is dead. It has lost all semblance of reality. It had no religious reality from the beginning. It will still continue to be used as an agent by political schemers and conspirators; but in the fight between religion and irreligion it is of little worth. The fight is not here, but where Mr. Froude rightly places it—between the irreligious world and Catholicity, which “are dividing the practical control over life and conduct.”

And thus heresies die out; they expire of their own corruption. Their very offspring rise up against them. Their children cry for bread and they give them a stone. The fragments of truth on which they first build are sooner or later crushed out by the great mass of falsehood. The few good seeds are choked up by the harvest of the bad, and only the ill weeds thrive, until all the space around them is desolate of fruit or light or sweetness, or anything fair under heaven. Then comes the husbandman in his own good time, and curses the barren fig-tree and clears the desolate waste. It will be with Protestantism as it has been with all the heresies; Christians will wonder, and the time would seem not to be very far distant when they will wonder that Protestantism ever should have been. It will go to its grave, the same wide grave that has swallowed up heresy after heresy. Gnosticism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Protestantism, all the isms, are children of the same family, live the same life, die the same death. The everlasting church buries them all, and no man mourns their loss.

A RAMBLE AFTER THE WAITS.

“CHRISTMAS comes but once a year, So let us all be merry,”

saith the old song. And now, as the festal season draws nigh, everybody seems bent on fulfilling the behest to the uttermost. The streets are gay with lights and laughter; the shops are all a-glitter with precious things; the markets are bursting with good cheer. The air vibrates with a babble of merry voices, until the very stars seem to catch the infection and twinkle a thought more brightly. The faces of those you meet beam with joyous expectation; huge baskets on their arms, loaded with good things for the morrow, jostle and thump you at every turn, but no one dreams of being ill-natured on Christmas Eve; mysterious bundles in each hand contain unimagined treasures for the little ones at home. And hark! do you not catch a jingle of distant sleigh-bells, a faint, far-off patter and scrunching of tiny hoofs upon the snow? It is the good St. Nicholas setting out upon his merry round; it is Dasher and Slasher and Prancer and Vixen scurrying like the wind over the house-tops. And high over all—“the poor man’s music”—the merry, merry bells of Yule, the solemn, the sacred bells, peal forth the tidings of great joy. Is it not hard to conceive that the time should have been when Christmas was not? impossible to conceive that any in a Christian land should have wished to do away with it—should have been willing, having had it, ever to forego a festival so fraught with all holy and happy memories?

Yet once such men were found, and but little more than two centuries ago. It was on the 24th day of December, 1652—day for ever to be marked with the blackest of black stones, nay, with a bowlder of Plutonian nigritude—that the British House of Commons, being moved thereto “by a terrible remonstrance against Christmas day grounded upon divine Scripture, wherein Christmas is called Antichrists masse, and those masse-mongers and Papists who observe it,” and after much time “spent in consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed order to that effect, and resolved to sit upon the following day, which was commonly called Christmas day.” Whether this latter resolution was carried into effect we do not know. If so, let us hope that their Christmas dinners disagreed with them horribly, and that the foul fiend Nightmare kept hideous vigil by every Parliamentary pillow.

But think of such an atrocious sentiment being heard at all in Westminster! How must the very echoes of the hall have shrunk from repeating that monstrous proposition—how shuddered and fled away into remotest corners and crevices as that

“Hideous hum Ran through the arch’d roof in words deceiving”!

How must they have disbelieved their ears, and tossed the impious utterance back and forth from one to another in agonized questioning, growing feebler and fainter at each repulse, until their voices, faltering through doubt into dismay, grew dumb with horror! How must “Rufus’ Roaring Hall”[107] have roared again outright with rage and grief over that strange, that unhallowed profanation! What wan phantoms of old-time mummeries and maskings, what dusty and crumbling memories of royal feast and junketing, must have hovered about the heads of those audacious innovators, shrieking at them what unsyllabled reproaches from voiceless lips, shaking at them what shadowy fingers of entreaty or menace! And if the proverb about ill words and burning ears be true, how those crop-ears must have tingled!

Within those very walls England’s kings for generations had kept their Christmas-tide most royally with revelry and dance and wassail. There Henry III. on New Year’s day, 1236, to celebrate the coronation of Eleanor, his queen, entertained 6,000 of his poorer subjects of all degrees; and there twelve years later, though he himself ate his plum-pudding at Winchester, he was graciously pleased to bid his treasurer “fill the king’s Great Hall from Christmas day to the Day of Circumcision with poor people and feast them.” There, too, at a later date Edward III. had for sauce to his Christmas turkey—not to mention all sorts of cates and confections, tarts and pasties of most cunning device, rare liquors and spiced wines—no less than two captive kings, to wit, David of Scotland and John of France. Poor captive kings! _Their_ turkey—though no doubt their princely entertainer was careful to help them to the daintiest tidbits, and to see that they had plenty of stuffing and cranberry sauce—must have been but a tasteless morsel, and their sweetbreads bitter indeed. Another Scottish king, the first James, of tuneful and unhappy memory, had even worse (pot) luck soon after. Fate, and that hospitable _penchant_ of our English cousins in the remoter centuries for quietly confiscating all stray Scotch princes who fell in their way, as though they had been contraband of war, gave him the enviable opportunity of eating no less than a score of Christmas dinners on English soil. But he seems to have been left to eat them alone or with his jailer in “bowery Windsor’s calm retreat” or the less cheerful solitude of the Tower. It does not appear that either the fourth or the fifth Henry, his enforced hosts, ever asked him to put his royal Scotch legs under their royal English mahogany. Had Richard II. been in the place of “the ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke,” we may be sure that his northern guest would not have been treated so shabbily. In his time Westminster and his two thousand French cooks (shades of Lucullus! what an appetite he must have had, and what a broiling and a baking and a basting must they have kept up among them; the proverb of “busier than an English oven at Christmas” had reason then, at least) were not long left idle; for it was their sovereign’s jovial custom to keep open house in the holidays for as many as ten thousand a day—a comfortable tableful. It was his motto plainly to

“Be merry, for our time of stay is short.”

Such a device, however, the third Richard might have made his own with still greater reason. That ill-used prince, who was no doubt a much better fellow at bottom than it has pleased Master Shakspeare to represent him—if Richmond had not been Queen Bess’ grandpapa, we should like enough have had a different story and altogether less about humps and barking dogs—made the most of a limited opportunity to show what he could do in the way of holiday dinner-giving. The only two Christmases he had to spend as king at Westminster—for him but a royal stage on his way to a more permanent residence at Bosworth Field—he celebrated with extraordinary magnificence, as became a prince “reigning,” says Philip de Comines, “in greater splendor than any king of England for the last hundred years.” On the second and last Christmas of his reign and life the revelry was kept up till the Epiphany, when “the king himself, wearing his crown, held a splendid feast in the Great Hall similar to his coronation.” Wearing his crown, poor wretch! He seems to have felt that his time was short for wearing it, and that he must put it to use while he had it. Already, indeed, as he feasted, rapacious Fortune, swooping implacable, was clawing it with skinny, insatiable claws, estimating its value and the probable cost of altering it to fit another wearer, and thinking how much better it would look on the long head of her good friend Richmond, who had privately bespoken it. No doubt some cold shadow of that awful, unseen presence fell across the banquet-table and poisoned the royal porridge.

What need to tell over the long roll of Christmas jollities, whose memory from those historic walls might have pleaded with or rebuked the sour iconoclasts planning gloomily to put an end to all such for ever; how even close-fisted Henry VII.—no fear of his losing a crown, if gripping tight could keep it—feasted there the lord-mayor and aldermen of London on the ninth Christmas of his reign, sitting down himself, with his queen and court and the rest of the nobility and gentry, to one hundred and twenty dishes served by as many knights, while the mayor, who sat at a side-table, no doubt, had to his own share no fewer than twenty-four dishes, followed, it is to be feared, if he ate them all, by as many nightmares; how that meek and exemplary Christian monarch, Henry VIII., “welcomed the coming, sped the parting” wife at successive Christmas banquets of as much splendor as the spoils of something over a thousand monasteries could furnish forth;[108] how good Queen Bess, who had her own private reading of the doctrine “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” sat in state there at this festival season to accept the offerings of her loyal lieges, high and low, gentle and simple, from prime minister to kitchen scullion, until she was able to add to the terrors of death by having to leave behind her something like three thousand dresses and some trunkfuls of jewels in Christmas gifts; or what gorgeous revels and masques—Inigo Jones (Inigo Marquis Would-be), Ben Jonson, and Master Henry Lawes (he of “the tuneful and well-measured song”) thereto conspiring—made the holidays joyous under James and Charles. Some ghostly savor of those bygone banquets might, one would think, have made even Praise-God Barebone’s mouth water, and melted his surly virtue into tolerance of other folks’ cakes and ale—what virtue, however ascetic, could resist the onslaught of two thousand French cooks? Some faint, far echo of all these vanished jollities should have won the ear, if not the heart, of the grimmest “saint” among them. Or if they were proof against the blandishments of the world’s people, if they fled from the abominations of Baal, could not their own George Wither move them to spare the cheery, harmless frivolities, the merry pranks of Yule? Jovially as any Cavalier, shamelessly as any Malignant of them all, he sings their praises in his

“CHRISTMAS CAROL.

“So now is come our joyful’st feast, Let every man be jolly; Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine, Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.

“Now all our neighbors’ chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with bak’d meats choke, And all their spits are turning. Without the door let sorrow lie; And if for cold it hap to die, We’ll bury’t in a Christmas pye. And evermore be merry.

“Now every lad is wondrous trim, And no man minds his labor; Our lasses have provided them A bagpipe and a tabor. Young men and maids, and girls and boys, Give life to one another’s joys; And you anon shall by their noise Perceive that they are merry....

“Now poor men to the justices With capons make their errants; And if they hap to fail of these, They plague them with their warrants: But now they feed them with good cheer, And what they want they take in beer; For Christmas comes but once a year, And then they shall be merry....

“The client now his suit forbears, The prisoner’s heart is eased, The debtor drinks away his cares, And for the time is pleased. Though others’ purses be more fat, Why should we pine or grieve at that? Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat, And therefore let’s be merry....

“Hark! now the wags abroad do call Each other forth to rambling; Anon you’ll see them in the hall, For nuts and apples scrambling. Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound; Anon they’ll think the house goes round, For they the cellar’s depths have found. And there they will be merry.

“The wenches with the wassail-bowls About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare[109] in is bringing. Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box, And to the kneeling of the ox Our honest neighbors come by flocks, And here they will be merry.

“Now kings and queens poor sheep-cotes have, And mate with everybody; The honest now may play the knave, And wise men play at noddy. Some youths will now a-mumming go, Some others play at Rowland-boe, And twenty other gambols moe, Because they will be merry.

“Then wherefore, in these merry days, Should we, I pray, be duller? No, let us sing some roundelays, To make our mirth the fuller; And, while we thus inspired sing, Let all the streets with echoes ring— Woods and hills and everything Bear witness we are merry.”

Or Master Milton, again, Latin secretary to the council, author of the famous _Iconoclastes_, shield (or, as some would have put it, official scold) of the Commonwealth, the scourge of prelacy and conqueror of Salmasius—he was orthodox surely; yet what of _Arcades_ and _Cornus_? Master Milton, too, had written holiday masques, and, what is more, they had been acted; nay, he had even been known more than once, on no less authority than his worshipful nephew, Master Philips, “to make so bold with his body as to take a gaudy-day” with the gay sparks of Gray’s Inn. Alas! such carnal-minded effusions belonged to the unregenerate days of both these worthy brethren, when they still dwelt in the tents of the ungodly, before they had girded on the sword of Gideon and gone forth to smite the Amalekite hip and thigh. Vainly might the menaced festival look for aid in that direction. So far from saying a word in its favor, they would now have been fiercest in condemnation, if only to cover their early backsliding; if only to avert any suspicion that they still hankered after the fleshpots. Poor Christmas was doomed.

So, by act of Parliament, “our joyful’st feast” was solemnly stricken out of the calendar, cashiered from its high pre-eminence among the holidays of the year, and degraded to the ranks of common days. All its quaint bravery of holly-berries and ivy-leaves was stripped from it, its jolly retinue of boars’ heads and wassail-bowls, of Yule-clogs and mistletoe-boughs, of maskers and mummers, of waits and carols, Lords of Misrule and Princes of Christmas, sent packing. Then began “the fiery persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; plum-porridge was denounced as mere popery, and roast-beef as anti-Christian.” ’Twas a fatal, a perfidious, a short-lived triumph. The nation, shocked in its most cherished traditions, repudiated the hideous doctrine; the British stomach, deprived of its holiday beef and pudding, so to speak, revolted. The reign of the righteous was speedily at an end. History, with her usual shallowness, ascribes to General Monk the chief part in the Restoration; it was really brought about by that short-sighted edict of the 24th of December, 1652. Charles or Cromwell, king or protector—what cared honest Hodge who ruled and robbed him? But to forego his Christmas porridge—that was a different matter; and Britons never should be slaves. So, just eight years after it had been banished, Christmas was brought back again with manifold rejoicing and bigger wassail-bowls and Yule-clogs than ever; and, as if to make honorable amends for its brief exile, the Lord of Misrule himself was crowned and seated on the throne, where, as we all know, to do justice to his office, if he never said a foolish thing he never did a wise one.

And from that time to this Christmas has remained a thoroughly British institution, as firmly entrenched in the national affections, as generally respected, and perhaps as widely appreciated as Magna Charta itself. Sit on Christmas day! A British Parliament now would as soon think of sitting on the Derby day. To how many of their constituents have the two festivals any widely differing significance perhaps it would be wise not to inquire too closely. Each is a holiday—that is, a day off work, a synonym for “a good time,” a little better dinner than usual, and considerably more beer. Like the children, “they reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand anything in it beyond the cake and orange.” “La justice elle-même,” says Balzac, “se traduit aux yeux de la halle par le commissaire—personage avec lequel elle se familiarise.” His epigram the author of _Ginx’s Baby_ may translate for us—English epigrams, like English plays, being for the most part matter of importation free of duty; _e.g._, that famous one in _Lothair_ about the critic being a man who has failed in literature or art, another consignment from Balzac—when he makes Ginx’s theory of government epitomize itself as a policeman. So Ginx’s notion of Christmas, we suspect, is apt to be beef and beer and Boxing-night—with perhaps a little more beer.

Certainly the attachment of the British public to these features of the day—we are considering it for the moment in the light in which a majority of non-Catholics look upon it, apparently, as a merely social festival, and not at all in its religious aspect (though to a Catholic, of course, the two are as indistinguishably blended as the rose and the perfume of the rose)—has never been shaken. If one may judge from a large amount of the English fiction which at this season finds its way to the American market—and the novels of to-day, among a novel-reading people, are as straight and sure a guide to its heart as were ever its ballads in the time of old Fletcher of Saltoun—if one may judge from much of English Christmas literature, these incidents of the day are, if not the most important, certainly the most prominent and popular. What we may call the Beef and Beer aspect of the season these stories are never tired of glorifying and exalting. Dickens is the archpriest of this idolatry, which, indeed, he in a measure invented, or at least brought into vogue; and his _Christmas Stories_, as most of his stories, fairly reek with the odors of the kitchen and the tap-room. Material comfort, and that, too, usually of a rather coarse kind, is the universal theme, and even the charity they are supposed to inculcate can scarcely be called a moral impulse, so much as the instinct of a physical good-nature, well-fed and content with itself and the world—of a good-humored selfishness willing to make others comfortable, because thereby it puts away from itself the discomfort of seeing them otherwise. It is a kind of charity which, in another sense than that of Scripture, has to cover a multitude of sins.

One may say this of Dickens, without at all detracting from his many great qualities as a writer, that he has done more, perhaps, than any other writer to demoralize and coarsen the popular notion of what Christmas is and means; to make of his readers at best but good-humored pagans with lusty appetites for all manner of victuals and an open-handed readiness to share their good things with the first comer. These are no doubt admirable traits; but one gets a little tired of having them for ever set forth as the crown and completion of Christian excellence, the sum and substance of all that is noble and exalted in the sentiment of the season. Let us enjoy our Christmas dinner by all means; let the plum-pudding be properly boiled and the turkey done to a turn, and may we all have enough to spare a slice or two for a poorer neighbor! But must we therefore sit down and gobble turkey and pudding from morning till night? Should we hang up a sirloin and fall down and worship it? Is that all that Christmas means? Turn from the best of these books to this exquisite little picture of Christmas Eve in a Catholic land:

“Christmas is come—the beautiful festival, the one I love most, and which gives me the same joy as it gave the shepherds of Bethlehem. In real truth, one’s whole soul sings with joy at this beautiful coming of God upon earth—a coming which here is announced on all sides of us by music and by our charming _nadalet_[110] Nothing at Paris can give you a notion of what Christmas is with us. You have not even the midnight Mass. We all of us went to it, papa at our head, on the most perfect night possible. Never was there a finer sky than ours was that midnight—so fine that papa kept perpetually throwing back the hood of his cloak, that he might look up at the sky. The ground was white with hoar-frost, but we were not cold; besides, the air, as we met it, was warmed by the bundles of blazing torchwood which our servants carried in front of us to light us on our way. It was delightful, I do assure you; and I should like you to have seen us there on our road to church, in those lanes with the bushes along their banks as white as if they were in flower. The hoar-frost makes the most lovely flowers. We saw a long spray so beautiful that we wanted to take it with us as a garland for the communion-table, but it melted in our hands; all flowers fade so soon! I was very sorry about my garland; it was mournful to see it drop away and get smaller and smaller every minute.”

It is Eugénie de Guérin who writes thus—that pure and delicate spirit so well fitted to feel and value all that is beautiful and touching in this most beautiful and touching service of the church. To come from the one reading to the other is like being lifted suddenly out of a narrow valley to the free air and boundless views of a mountain-top; like coming from the gaslight into the starlight; it is like hearing the song of the skylark after the twitter of the robin—a sound pleasant and cheery enough in itself, but not elevating, not inspiring, not in any way satisfying to that hunger after ideal excellence which is the true life of the spirit, and which strikes the true key-note of this festal time.

But Eugénie de Guérin is perhaps too habitual a dweller on those serene heights to furnish a fair comparison; let us take a homelier picture from a lower level. It is still in France; this time in Burgundy, as the other was in Languedoc:

“Every year, at the approach of Advent, people refresh their memories, clear their throats, and begin preluding, in the long evenings by the fireside, those carols whose invariable and eternal theme is the coming of the Messias. They take from old pamphlets little collections begrimed with dust and smoke, ... and as soon as the first Sunday of Advent sounds they gossip, they gad about, they sit together by the fireside, sometimes at one house, sometimes at another, taking turns in paying for the chestnuts and white wine, but singing with one common voice the praises of the _Little Jesus_. There are very few villages, even, which during all the evenings of Advent do not hear some of these curious canticles shouted in their streets to the nasal drone of bagpipes.

“More or less, until Christmas Eve, all goes on in this way among our devout singers, with the difference of some gallons of wine or some hundreds of chestnuts. But this famous eve once come, the scale is pitched upon a higher key; the closing evening must be a memorable one.... The supper finished, a circle gathers around the hearth, which is arranged and set in order this evening after a particular fashion, and which at a later hour of the night is to become the object of special interest to the children. On the burning brands an enormous log has been placed; ... it is called the _Suche_ (the Yule-log). ‘Look you,’ say they to the children, ‘if you are good this evening Noel will rain down sugar-plums in the night.’ And the children sit demurely, keeping as quiet as their turbulent little natures will permit. The groups of older persons, not always as orderly as the children, seize this good opportunity to surrender themselves with merry hearts and boisterous voices to the chanted worship of the miraculous Noel. For this final solemnity they have kept the most powerful, the most enthusiastic, the most electrifying carols.

“This last evening the merry-making is prolonged. Instead of retiring at ten or eleven o’clock, as is generally done on all the preceding evenings, they wait for the stroke of midnight; this word sufficiently proclaims to what ceremony they are going to repair. For ten minutes or a quarter of an hour the bells have been calling the faithful with a triple-bob-major; and each one, furnished with a little taper streaked with various colors (the Christmas candle), goes through the crowded streets, where the lanterns are dancing like will-o’-the-wisps at the impatient summons of the multitudinous chimes. It is the midnight Mass.”

There you have fun, feasting, and frolic, as, indeed, there may fitly be to all innocent degrees of merriment, on the day which brought redemption to mankind. But there is also, behind and pervading all this rejoicing and harmless household gayety, the religious sentiment which elevates and inspires it, which chastens it from commonplace and grossness, which gives it a meaning and a soul. The English are fond of calling the French an irreligious people, because French literature, especially French fiction, from which they judge, takes its tone from Paris, which is to a great extent irreligious. But outside of the large cities, if a balance were struck on this point between the two countries, it would scarcely be in favor of England.

This, however, by way of episode and as a protest against this grovelling, material treatment of the most glorious festival of the Christian year. As we were about to say when interrupted, though Christmas regained its foothold as a national holiday at the Restoration, it came back sadly denuded of its following and shorn of most of its old-time attractions. So it fared in old England. In New England it can scarcely be said ever to have won a foothold at all, or at best no more than a foothold and a sullen toleration. Almost the first act of those excellent Pilgrim Fathers who did _not_ land at Plymouth Rock was to anticipate by thirty years or so the action of their Parliamentary brethren at home in abolishing the sacred anniversary, which must, indeed, have been a tacit rebuke to the spirit of their creed. They landed on the 16th of December, and “on ye 25th day,” writes William Bradford, “began to erect ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods.” And lest this might seem an exception made under stress, we find it recorded next year that “on ye day caled Christmas day ye Gov’r caled them out to worke.” So it is clear New England began with a calendar from which Christmas was expunged. In New England affections Thanksgiving day replaces it—an “institution” peculiarly acceptable, we must suppose, to the thrift which can thus wipe out its debt of gratitude to Heaven by giving one day for three hundred and sixty-four—liquidating its liabilities, so to speak, at the rate of about three mills in the dollar. In the Middle States and in the South the day has more of its time-old observance, but neither here nor elsewhere may we hope to encounter many of the quaint and cheery customs with which our fathers loved to honor it, and which made it for them the pivot of the year. Wither has told us something of these; let a later minstrel give us a fuller picture of what Merry Christmas was in days of yore:

“And well our Christian sires of old Loved, when the year its course had rolled, And brought blithe Christmas back again, With all its hospitable train. Domestic and religious rite Gave honor to the holy night: On Christmas Eve the bells were rung; On Christmas Eve the Mass was sung; That only night of all the year Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear. The damsel donned her kirtle sheen; The hall was dressed with holly green; Forth to the wood did merry men go To gather in the mistletoe. Then opened wide the baron’s hall To vassals, tenants, serf, and all. The heir, with roses in his shoes, That night might village partner choose; The lord, underogating, share The vulgar game of ‘post and pair.’ All hailed with uncontrolled delight, And general voice, the happy night That to the cottage, as the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down.

The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, Went roaring up the chimney wide; The huge hall-table’s oaken face, Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace, Bore then upon its massive board No mark to part the squire and lord. Then was brought in the lusty brawn By old blue-coated serving-man; Then the grim boar’s head frowned on high, Crested with bays and rosemary.... The wassail round in good brown bowls, Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls. There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by Plum-porridge stood and Christmas pye. Then came the merry masquers in And carols roared with blithesome din; If unmelodious was the song, It was a hearty note and strong. Who lists may in their mumming see Traces of ancient mystery.... England was merry England then— Old Christmas brought his sports again; ’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale; ’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft would cheer A poor man’s heart through half the year.”

Let Herrick supplement the picture with his

“CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMASSE.

“Come, bring with a noise, My merrie, merrie boyes, The Christmas log to the firing; While my good dame, she Bids ye all be free And drink to your hearts’ desiring.

“With the last yeeres brand Light the new block, and For good successe in his spending On your psaltries play, That sweet luck may Come while the log is a-teending.

“Drink now the strong beere, Cut the white loafe here, The while the meate is a-shredding For the rare mince-pie, And the plums stand by To fill the paste that’s a-kneading.”

Does the picture please you? Would you fain be a guest at the baron’s table, or lend a hand with jovial Herrick to fetch in the mighty Yule-log? Are you longing for a cut of that boar’s head or a draught of the wassail, or curious to explore the contents of that mysterious “Christmas pye,” which seems to differ so much from all other pies that it has to be spelled with a _y_? Well, well, we must not repine. Fate, which has denied us these joys, has given us compensations. No doubt the baron, for all his Yule-logs, would sometimes have given his baronial head (when he happened to have a cold in it) for such a fire—let it be of sea-coal in a low grate and the curtains drawn—as the reader and his humble servant are this very minute toasting their toes at. Those huge open fireplaces are admirably effective in poetry, but not altogether satisfactory of a cold winter’s night, when half the heat goes up the chimney and all the winds of heaven are shrieking in through the chinks in your baronial hall and playing the very mischief with your baronial rheumatism. Or do we believe that boar’s head was such a mighty fascinating dish after all, or much, if anything, superior to the soused pig’s head with which good old Squire Bracebridge replaced it? No, every age to its own customs; we may be sure that each finds out what is best for it and for its people.

Yet one custom we do begrudge a little to the past, or rather to the other lands where it still lingers here and there in the present. That is the graceful and kindly custom of the waits. These were Christmas carols, as the reader no doubt knows, chanted by singers from house to house in the rural districts during the season of Advent. In France they were called noels, and in Longfellow’s translation of one of these we may see what they were like:

“I hear along our street Pass the minstrel throngs; Hark! they play so sweet. On their hautboys, Christmas songs! Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire!...

“Shepherds at the grange Where the Babe was born Sang with many a change Christmas carols until morn. Let us, etc.

“These good people sang Songs devout and sweet; While the rafters rang, There they stood with freezing feet. Let us, etc.

“Who by the fireside stands Stamps his feet and sings; But he who blows his hands Not so gay a carol brings. Let us, etc.”

In some parts of rural England, too, the custom is still to some extent kept up, and the reader may find a pleasant, and we dare say faithful, description of it in a charming English story called _Under the Greenwood Tree_, by Mr. Thomas Hardy, a writer whose closeness of observation and precision and delicacy of touch give him a leading place among the younger writers of fiction.

Very pleasant, we fancy, it must be of a Christmas Eve when one is, as aforesaid, toasting one’s toes at the fire over a favorite book, or hanging up the children’s stockings, let us say, or peering through the curtains out over the moonlit snow, and wondering how cold it is out-doors with that little perfunctory shiver which is comfort’s homage to itself—there should always be snow upon the ground at Christmas, for then Nature

“With speeches fair Woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow”;

but let us have no wind, since

“Peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the world began. The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the wild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave”—

at such a time, we say, it would be pleasant to hear the shrill voices of the Waits cleaving the cold, starlit air in some such quaint old ditty as the “Cherry-tree Carol” or “The Three Ships.” No doubt, too, would we but confess it, there would come to us a little wicked enhancement of pleasure in the reflection that the artists without were a trifle less comfortable than the hearer within. That rogue Tibullus had a shrewd notion of what constitutes true comfort when he wrote, _Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem_—which, freely translated, means, How jolly it is to sit by the fireside and listen to other fellows singing for your benefit in the cold without! But that idea we should dismiss as unworthy, and even try to feel a little uncomfortable by way of penance; and then, when their song was ended, and we heard their departing footsteps scrunching fainter and fainter in the snow, and their voices dying away until they became the merest suggestion of an echo, we should perhaps find—for these are to be ideal Waits—that their song had left behind it in the listener’s soul a starlit silence like that of the night without, but the stars should be heavenly thoughts.

These are ideal Waits; the real ones might be less agreeable or salutary. But have we far to look for such? Are there not on the shelves yonder a score of immortal minstrels only waiting our bidding to sing the sacred glories of the time? Shall we ask grave John Milton to tune his harp for us, or gentle Father Southworth, or impassioned Crashaw, or tender Faber? These are Waits we need not scruple to listen to, nor fail to hear with profit.

Milton’s _Ode on the Nativity_ is, no doubt, the finest in the language. Considering the difficulties of a subject to which, short of inspiration, it is next to impossible to do any justice at all, it is very fine indeed. It is not all equal, however; there are in it stanzas which remind one that he was but twenty-one when he wrote it. Yet other stanzas are scarcely surpassed by anything he has written.

“Yea, Truth and Justice then Will down return to men, Orb’d in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing Mercy will sit between, Thron’d in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering, And heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

“But wisest Fate says, No, It must not yet be so; The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both himself and us to glorify; Yet first to those ychained in sleep The wakeful trump of doom must thunder thro’ the deep,

“With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, While the red fire and smould’ring clouds out-brake. The aged earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake; When at the world’s last session The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

—————

“The oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathèd spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

“The lonely mountains o’er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament. From haunted spring, and dale Edg’d with poplar pale, The parting genius is with sighing sent. With flower-inwoven tresses torn, The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicket mourn.”

Seldom has Milton sung in loftier strains than this. What a magnificent line is that:

“The wakeful trump of doom shall thunder through the deep.”

The poet evidently had his eye on that wonderful verse of the _Dies Iræ_:

“Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionum, Cogit omnes ante thronum,”

but the imitation falls little short of the original. Dr. Johnson characteristically passes this ode over in silence—perhaps because of his opinion that sacred poetry was a contradiction in terms. His great namesake, and in some respects curious antitype, was more generous to another poem we shall quote—Father Southwell’s “Burning Babe.” “So he had written it,” he told Drummond, “he would have been content to destroy many of his.”

“As I, in hoary winter’s night, stood shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear, Who, scorchéd with exceeding heat, such floods of tears did shed As though his floods should quench his flames with what his tears were fed; ‘Alas!’ quoth he, ‘but newly born, in fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I. My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shames and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals; The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiléd souls; For which, as now in fire I am to work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.’ With this he vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrank away, And straight I calléd unto mind that it was Christmas day.”

The fire is getting low in the grate, the stars are twinkling pale, and though the minstrels are many we should have been glad to introduce to the reader—grand old St. Thomas of Aquin; silver-tongued Giacopone, whose lately-discovered _Stabat Mater Speciosa_ is one of the loveliest of the mediæval hymns; rapturous St. Bernard—they must wait a fitter time. We can hear but another of our Christmas waits—one of the most effective English poems on the Nativity, considered as mere poetry, it has been our fortune to meet. The author is the hero of Browning’s verses, “What’s become of Waring?”—Alfred H. Dommett; a poet who, perhaps, would be better known had he been a worse poet. And with this we must wish our readers “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

“It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars; Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.

“’Twas in the calm and silent night! The senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot’s flight, From lonely revel rolling home. Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away In the solemn midnight Centuries ago?

“Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay, Fallen through a half-shut stable-door, Across his path. He passed; for naught Told what was going on within. How keen the stars! his only thought; The air how calm and cold, and thin! In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.

“O strange indifference! Low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares; The earth was still, but knew not why; The world was listening unawares. How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever! To that still moment none would heed; Man’s doom was linked, no more to sever, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.

“It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy now! The night, that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay, new-born, The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven, In the solemn midnight Centuries ago.”

THE DESCENT OF MAN.

Mr. Charles Darwin, in his _Descent of Man_, proposes to himself to show that man is nothing more than a modified beast, and that his remote ancestors are to be found among some tribes of brutes. A paradox of this kind, in a work of fiction such as Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, would not offend an intelligent reader; but in a work which professes to be serious and scientific it is extremely offensive, for it amounts to a deliberate insult to all humanity in general and to every human being in particular. Mr. Darwin’s work violates the dignity of human nature, blots out of our souls the image and likeness of our Creator, and totally perverts the notions most cherished by civil and Christian society. This effort does certainly not entitle him to credit for wisdom. A man of ordinary prudence, before he undertakes to maintain in the face of the public a theory which conflicts with a doctrine thoroughly established and universally received, would examine both sides of the case, and ascertain that he is in possession of sufficient evidence to make good his assertions and to defend them against the arguments of the opposite side. Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, seems to have satisfied himself that a man of his eminence in natural history had a right to be believed, whatever he might venture to say, even though he was to give no satisfactory evidence in support of his views, and no answer to the objections which he ought to refute.

We do not say that Mr. Darwin did not do his best to prove his new doctrine on man; we only say that he has signally failed in his attempt, and that his failure is as inexcusable as it is ignominious. A man of his ability should have seen that the origin of man was not a problem to be solved by physiology; and he ought also to have considered that a man of science could only stultify himself by submitting to the test of science a historical fact of which science, as such, is entirely incompetent to speak. Indeed, we scarcely know which to admire most in Mr. Darwin, the serenity with which he ignores the difficulty of his philosophic position, or the audacity with which he affirms things which he cannot prove. What a pity that a man so richly endowed by nature has been so entirely absorbed by the study of material organisms as to find no time for the more important study of philosophy, especially of psychology, without which it is impossible to form a rational theory respecting the origin and the destiny of man! Shall we add that a sound scientific theory cannot be the outcome of illogical reasoning? And yet it is a plain fact, though our advanced thinkers will deny it, that Mr. Darwin’s logic, to judge from his _Descent of Man_, is as mischievous as most of his assumptions are reckless.

It would be impossible within the limits of our space to enter into a detailed examination of the logical and metaphysical blunders to which the Darwinian theory owes its existence. We shall, therefore, at present confine ourselves to a short criticism of the first chapter of the work in question; for, if we are not mistaken, every impartial reader will be able, after a sufficient analysis of this first chapter, to judge of the kind of logic that characterizes the whole treatise.

Mr. Darwin begins thus:

“He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form would probably first inquire whether man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties; and, if so, whether the variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals. Again, are the variations the result, as far as our ignorance permits us to judge, of the same general causes, and are they governed by the same general laws, as in the case of other organisms—for instance, by correlation, the inherited effects of use and disuse, etc.? Is man subject to similar malconformations, the result of arrested development, of reduplication of parts, etc., and does he display in any of his anomalies reversion to some former and ancient type of structure? It might also naturally be inquired whether man, like so many other animals, has given rise to varieties and sub-races, differing but slightly from each other, or to races differing so much that they must be classed as doubtful species? How are such races distributed over the world; and how, when crossed, do they react on each other in the first and succeeding generations? And so with many other points.”

This preamble, which superficial readers may have considered perfectly harmless, contains the seed of all the mischievous reasonings scattered through the rest of the work. It comes to this: “If we find that man varies, however slightly, according to the same laws which prevail with the lower animals, we shall be justified in concluding that man is a modified descendant of some pre-existing form.” Now, this assertion is evidently nothing but clap-trap for the ignorant. In the first place, Mr. Darwin takes for granted that mankind wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form. This gratuitous supposition implies that mankind is still ignorant or doubtful of its true origin; which is by no means the case. We have an authentic record of the origin of man; and we know that the first man and the first woman were not the descendants of any lower pre-existing form. The Bible tells us very clearly that God created them to his own image and likeness; and so long as Mr. Darwin does not demolish the Biblical history of creation he has no right to assume that there may be the least reasonable doubt regarding the origin of man. Mr. Darwin, it is true, makes light of the Biblical history; but contempt is no argument. On the other hand, philosophy and common sense, and science, if not perverted, unanimously agree with the Mosaic record in proclaiming that the origin of man must be traced to a special creation. Thus there has never been, nor is there at present, among thinking men, any real doubt as to the origin of our race; whence we infer that the question raised by the _Descent of Man_ is a mere fiction which would deserve no answer but a smile of pity.

In the second place, granting for the sake of argument that there may be an honest doubt about the origin of man, and that physiology and other kindred sciences are competent to answer it, would the inquiry suggested by Mr. Darwin convince an honest doubter that man is the descendant of a lower animal? Suppose that “man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties”; suppose that “such variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with the lower animals”; and suppose that all the other conditions enumerated by Mr. Darwin are verified—would we then be justified in concluding that “man is a modified descendant of some pre-existing form”? Evidently not. The utmost that logic would allow us to grant is that the present form of human beings, owing to the slight variations transmitted to us by our human ancestors, may exhibit some accidental features slightly different from those which were possessed by the primitive men, yet without any change of the specific form, which must always remain essentially the same. But Mr. Darwin is not content with this. His peculiar logic allows him to confound the accidental and unimportant variations that occur within the limits of any single species with a gradual transition from one species to another—a transition which science no less than philosophy utterly rejects. Nowhere in nature do we find an instance of such a pretended transition. Varieties are indeed very numerous, but none of them show the least departure from the species to which they belong. The oak emits every year thousands of leaves, of which each one differs from every other in some accidental feature; but who has ever seen the oak-leaves change into fir-leaves, or fig-leaves, or maple-leaves, or any other leaves? If nature admitted such a specific change, a thousand indications would awaken our attention to the fact. The transition, being gradual, would leave everywhere innumerable traces of its reality. There would be all around us a host of transitional forms from the fish to the lizard, from the lizard to the bird, from the bird to the ape, and from the ape to man. But where do we find such transitional forms? Science itself proclaims that they have no existence. Hence to affirm the transition from one species to another is a gross scientific blunder, whatever Mr. Darwin and his eminent associates may say to the contrary.

In the third place, even admitting that a gradual transition from one species to another were not rejected by science, Mr. Darwin’s view would still remain a ludicrous absurdity. In fact, the pretended transition from a form of a lower to a form of a higher species would be an open violation of the principle of causality; and therefore, if any transition were to be admitted at all, it could only be a transition from a higher to a lower species. Thus, the transition from a human to a brutish form by continual deterioration and degradation, though repugnant to other principles, would not conflict with the principle of causality, inasmuch as deterioration and degradation are negative results, which may be brought about by mere lack of intellectual, moral, and social development. But the transition from a brutish to a human form would be a positive effect without a positive proportionate cause. The lower cannot generate the higher, because to constitute the higher something is necessary which the lower cannot impart. Just as a force = 10 cannot produce an effect = 20, so cannot the irrational brute produce the rational man. To assume the contrary is to assume that the less contains the greater, that emptiness begets fulness—in a word, that nature is a standing contradiction.

A full development of this last consideration would lead us too far from our line of argument, as it would require a psychological treatment of the subject. We will merely remark that _rational_ and _irrational_ differ not only in degree but in kind; that the human soul is not produced by the forces of nature, but proceeds directly and immediately from God’s creative action; and that Darwinism, which ignores the soul’s spirituality and immortality, is, on this account also, a monument of philosophical ignorance.

But let us proceed. The author considers it an important point to ascertain “whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate as to lead to occasional severe struggles for existence, and consequently to beneficial variations, whether in body or in mind, being preserved, and injurious ones eliminated.” This is another of Mr. Darwin’s delusions. It is not in the nature of man that the stronger should murder the weaker. Man, as a rule, is benevolent towards his kind, and even savages respect the life of the weak; whereas it is always the stronger that go to battle and fall in the struggle. Thus a struggle for existence, occasioned by a too rapid increase, would deprive the race of its best men and mar its further development. On the other hand, if at any time or in any place there has been a struggle for existence, it is in our large cities that we can best study the nature of its results. Is it in London, Paris, Berlin, or Vienna that we meet the best specimens of the race? Surely, if there is a tremendous struggle for existence anywhere, it is in such capitals as these; and yet no one is ignorant that such proud cities would, in a few generations, sink into insignificance, were they not continually refurnished with new blood from the country, where the best propagators of the race are brought up in great numbers and without any apparent struggle for existence. But we need not dwell any further on this point. A struggle for existence presupposes existence; and if man existed before struggling, the origin of man does not depend on his struggle. Hence the so-called “important point” has really no importance whatever.

Then he asks: “Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally become extinct?” and he answers the question in the affirmative. To this we have no objection. We only remark that “races” and “species” are not synonymous; hence it is surprising how a naturalist of Mr. Darwin’s celebrity could show the least hesitation which of the two terms he ought to apply to mankind.

He proceeds to examine “how far the bodily structure of man shows traces, more or less plain, of his descent from some lower form,” and he contends that the existence of such “traces” can be proved, first, from the similarity of bodily structure in men and beasts; secondly, from the similarity of their embryonic development; thirdly, from the existence of rudimentary organs, which show that man and all other vertebrate animals have been constructed on the same general model.

Bearing in mind that Mr. Darwin’s object is to prove that there are “traces,” more or less plain, of man’s descent from some lower form, we cannot help expressing our astonishment when we find that he has failed to see the necessity of grounding his proofs on a secure foundation. That the bodily structure of man has some resemblance to the structure of other mammals; that all the bones of his skeleton can be compared with corresponding bones in a monkey, bat, or seal; that this comparison may be extended to his muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, and internal viscera; that the brain, the most important of all organs, follows the same law, etc., etc., are indeed well-known facts, from which we rightly infer that man is constructed on the same _general_ type as other mammals. But can these same facts be considered as “traces,” more or less plain, of man’s descent from any lower form? Mr. Darwin says _Yes_; but instead of giving any conclusive reason for his assertion, he loses his time in accumulating superfluous anatomical and physiological details which, however instructive, have no bearing upon the thesis he has engaged to prove.

To prove his assumption he ought to have made a syllogism somewhat like the following:

Wherever there is similarity of bodily structure or development there are “traces” of a common origin or descent;

But man and other mammals have similar bodily structures and a similar development;

Therefore man and other mammals show “traces” of a common origin or descent.

This argument would have left no escape to the most decided adversary of the Darwinian view, if its first proposition had been susceptible of demonstration. But Mr. Darwin, seeing the utter impossibility of demonstrating it, and yet being unable to dispense with it, resorted to the ordinary trick of his school, which consists in assuming latently what they dare not openly maintain; and thus he turned the whole attention of his reader to the second proposition, which had no need of demonstration, as it was not questioned by instructed men. Thus the twenty pages of physiologic lore with which Mr. Darwin in this chapter distracts and amuses his readers may be styled, in a logical point of view, a prolonged _ignoratio elenchi_—an effort to prove that which is conceded instead of that which is denied—a blunder into which men of science of the modern type are sure to fall when they presume to meddle with matters above their reach.

There is one sense only in which it may be affirmed that the similarity of bodily structure in men and lower animals proves their common origin, and it is this: that men and animals have been made by the same Creator on a similar ideal type of homogeneous organic arrangements; in other terms, that their organic similarity proves them to be the work of the same Maker. Man was destined to live on this earth among other inferior animals and surrounded by like conditions. His animal life was therefore to be dependent on similar means of support, exposed to similar influences, and subject to similar needs. It is not surprising, then, that he should have received from a wise Creator an organic constitution similar to that of the inferior creatures that were placed around him. This fully accounts for the similarity of the human organism with that of other mammals. But to say that because the bodily structure of man is similar to that of the ape, therefore man is the descendant of the ape, is as nonsensical as to say that because the bodily structure of the ape is similar to that of man, therefore the ape is the descendant of man. How was it possible for Mr. Darwin to lay down such an absurd principle, and not foresee how easily it might be turned against his own conclusion?

Thus the argument drawn from the similarity of bodily structure is a mere delusion. It avails nothing to say that man is liable to receive from the lower animals, and to communicate to them, certain diseases, as hydrophobia, variola, the glanders, syphilis, cholera, herpes, etc. This fact, says Mr. Darwin, “proves the similarity of their tissues and blood, both in minute structure and composition, far more plainly than does their comparison under the best microscope or by the aid of the best chemical analysis.” But this is a mistake; for the evidence afforded by the microscope as to existing diversities cannot be negatived by any guesses of ours respecting the communication of diseases and its conditions; it being evident that what is obscure and mysterious is not calculated to weaken the certitude of a fact which we see with our own eyes. Nor does it matter that “medicines produce the same effect on them [monkeys] as on us,” or that many monkeys “have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors,” or even that a certain monkey “smoked tobacco with pleasure” in Mr. Darwin’s presence. These and other details of the same nature may be interesting, but they are no indication of a common origin, except in the sense which we have pointed out—viz., that they are the work of the same Maker.

But, says Mr. Darwin, “the homological construction of the whole frame in the members of the same class is intelligible, if we admit their descent from a common progenitor, together with their subsequent adaptation to diversified conditions. On any other view the similarity of pattern between the hand of a man or monkey, the foot of a horse, the flipper of a seal, the wing of a bat, etc., is utterly inexplicable. It is no scientific explanation to assert that they have all been formed on the same ideal plan.” These words, which occur at the end of the chapter we are examining, show how little Mr. Darwin understands the duty of his position as author of a new theory. To say that an explanation is not _scientific_ is a very poor excuse for setting it aside. Science, if not perverted, is an excellent thing, but it does not profess to give an explanation of every subject we may think of. Its range is co-extensive with the material world, but only with respect to matter and its modifications as known by observation and experiment. This means that there are numberless things about which science is altogether incompetent to speak, because such things do not fall under observation and experiment. To pretend, therefore, that an explanation which is not scientific has no claim to be heeded by a man of science, is like pretending that a man of science, as such, must remain in blissful ignorance of everything which transcends experiment and observation. Will Mr. Darwin reject historical explanations of historical events, philosophical explanations of philosophical conclusions, mathematical explanations of mathematical questions? The origin of things is not a scientific but a philosophic problem. Science cannot speak of creation, of which it can have no experimental knowledge; it gives it up to the philosopher and the theologian, who alone know the grounds on which it must be demonstrated. The question, then, whether mammals have all been formed on the same _ideal_ plan, is not scientific, and therefore it needs no scientific explanation. The plea that the explanation is not scientific might be held valid, if Mr. Darwin had humbly acknowledged his inability to rise above matter, and his incompetency to give a judgment in philosophic matters; but his disregard of the explanation shows that, when he calls it _not scientific_, he desires his reader to believe that it is _anti-scientific_ or irreconcilable with science; and this is as absurd as if he pretended that reason and science destroy one another.

On the other hand, what shall we say of the pretended “scientific” explanation offered by Mr. Darwin? “The homological construction of the whole frame in the members of the same class is intelligible, if we admit their descent from a common progenitor.” Is this appeal to a common progenitor a scientific explanation of the fact in question? If a common progenitor accounts scientifically for the fact, why should not a common Creator account scientifically for it? Science—that is, Mr. Darwin’s science—does not know a common Creator; it knows even less of a common progenitor; and yet it sets up the latter to exclude the former, and boasts that its gratuitous and degrading hypothesis is a “scientific” explanation! Yet all true scientists aver that no instance has ever been found of a transition from one species to another; philosophers go even further, and show that such a transition is against nature. Hence Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, far from being scientific, contradicts science and philosophy, observation and experiment, reason and fact. The descent from a common progenitor, even if it made “intelligible” the similarity of different mammals, would still be unscientific. The ancients accounted for the movement of the heavenly bodies by putting them under the control of intellectual agents. This hypothesis made the astronomical phenomena intelligible. The fall of heavy bodies was accounted for by assuming that all such bodies had a natural intrinsic tendency to a central point. This hypothesis, too, made the fall of bodies intelligible. Even in modern physics a number of hypotheses have been proposed regarding light, magnetism, electricity, chemical changes, etc., to make phenomena intelligible. But hypotheses, however satisfactory at first, are soon discarded when a deeper study of the facts reveals new features and new relations for which such hypotheses cannot account. This is why the hypothesis of the descent of all mammals from a common progenitor, even if it seems to make their homological construction intelligible in a manner, must be rejected. For in every species of mammals we find features for which the hypothesis cannot account, and relations of genetic opposition by which the hypothesis is reduced to nothing.

Mr. Darwin says that, “on any other view, the similarity of pattern between the hand of a man or monkey, the foot of a horse, the flipper of a seal, the wing of a bat, etc., is utterly inexplicable.” We do not see any great similarity between the hand of a man and the foot of a horse or the flipper of a seal, etc. We would rather say, with Mr. Darwin’s permission, that we see in all such organs a great dissimilarity. Each of them has a special adaptation to a special end, and each of them is constructed on a different specific pattern. Their similarity is therefore generic, not specific; and, accordingly, each species must have its own distinct progenitors. We might make other remarks, but we are afraid that we have already taxed the patience of the reader to a greater extent than the case requires; and therefore we will now pass to the second argument of the author.

This second argument is drawn from the consideration of the embryonic development. “Man,” says Mr. Darwin, “is developed from an ovule about the 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.” This is a very reckless assertion. For how does Mr. Darwin happen to know that the human ovule “differs in no respect” from the ovules of other animals? When a man of science lays down an assertion as the groundwork of his doctrine, he must be able to show that the assertion is true. Hence we are entitled to ask on what foundation our great scientist can maintain his proposition. Will he appeal to the microscope? Probably he will, but to no purpose; for he has just declared, as we have seen, that the best microscope does not reveal everything with sufficient distinction. On the other hand, if he resorts to the mode of reasoning which he has just employed while speaking of diseases—that is, if he argues from the effects to the causes—he cannot but defeat himself; for, as similarity of diseases was, in his judgment, a proof of similar organic structure, so now the dissimilarity of the final development of two ovules will be a proof that the two ovules are really dissimilar. One ovule constantly develops into a monkey, another constantly develops into a dog, and a third constantly develops into a man. Is it conceivable that the three ovules are identically the same, so as to “differ in no respect”? We do not know what Mr. Darwin will reply. At any rate he cannot reply on scientific grounds; for science neither knows the intimate constitution of the ovules, nor is it likely ever to know it, as the primordial organic molecules baffle the best microscopic investigations.

“The embryo itself,” he adds, “at a very early period can hardly be distinguished from that of other members of the vertebrate kingdom.... At a somewhat later period, when the extremities are developed, ‘the feet of lizards and mammals,’ as the illustrious Von Baer remarks, ‘the wings and feet of birds, no less than the hands and feet of man, all arise from the same fundamental form.’ It is, says Prof. Huxley, ‘quite in the later stages of development that the young human being presents marked differences from the young ape.’”

If these assertions and quotations are intended as a proof that the human ovule “differs in no respect” from the ovules of lower animals, we must confess that our advanced scientific thinkers are endowed with a wonderful power of blinding themselves. We have two ovules: the one develops into hands and feet; the other develops into wings and feathers; and yet we are told that they are both “_the same_ fundamental form”! What is the fundamental form? Who has seen it? We are sure that neither Prof. Huxley nor the illustrious Von Baer has had the privilege of inspecting and determining the proper form of the mysterious organism known under the name of ovule. Much less have they, or has Mr. Darwin, discerned what is fundamental and what is not in its constitution. They are, therefore, not more competent to judge of the fundamental sameness of two ovules than is the blind to judge of colors; and their view, as founded on nothing but presumption and ignorance, must be considered altogether unscientific.

The same view is also, as we have already shown, eminently unphilosophic. If two ovules are essentially the same and “differ in no respect” from one another, what is it that causes them invariably to develop into different specific organisms? Does a constant difference in the effects countenance the idea that they proceed from identical causes? It is evident that a theory which resorts to such absurdities for its support has no claim to be accepted, or even tolerated, by lovers of reason and truth. The very boldness of its affirmations, its air of dogmatism, its allegation of partisan authorities, and its contempt of fundamental principles prove it to be nothing but a flippant attempt at imposition.

Although Mr. Darwin has insisted so strongly on the similarity between our bodily structure and that of the lower animals, and although he has endeavored to convince us that the human ovule differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals, yet he is compelled by abundant evidence to admit that there is something in man which does not exist in the lower animals, and something in the lower animals which does not exist in man. How does he account for these organic differences? Men of science, only twenty years ago, would have explained the fact by the old philosophical and scientific axiom, _Omne animal generat simile sibi_, which means that each species of animals has progenitors of the same species; whence they would have inferred by legitimate deduction that animals of different species owe their specific differences to their having issued from progenitors of different species. This explanation was universally received, as it was supported by an induction based on centuries of observation, without a single example to the contrary. It was, therefore, a truly scientific explanation. But twenty years are passed, and with them (if we believe Mr. Darwin) the axioms, the logic, and the experimental knowledge of all centuries have disappeared from the world of science, to make room for higher and deeper conceptions. It was not an easy task, that of giving the lie to a uniform and perpetual experience; but to Mr. Darwin nothing is difficult. He needs only a word. With one word, “Rudiments,” he is confident that he will transform the objections of the old science into arguments in his favor, just as King Midas by the touch of his hand transmuted everything into shining gold.

The world has hitherto believed that man has only two hands, whereas the monkey has four. But we must not say this in Mr. Darwin’s face. If we did, he would inform us that we are strangely mistaken. Man, he pretends, belongs to the order of quadrumana; hence he has four hands no less than the monkey, though two of them are used as feet, which may be considered as rudimentary or undeveloped hands. If we were to remark in his presence that monkeys have a tail, whilst man can boast of no such elegant appendage, he would immediately confound our ignorance by informing us that we all possess a rudimentary tail, which might be made to develop and grow by mere local irritation.

In this way he explains all the organic differences which separate one species from another. Every difference is made to depend either on the development in man of an organ which is undeveloped and rudimentary in lower animals, or on the development in lower animals of some organ which is rudimentary and undeveloped in man. To explain this theory he reasons as follows:

“The chief agents in causing organs to become rudimentary seem to have been disuse at that period of life when the organ is chiefly used (and this is generally during maturity), and also inheritance at a corresponding period of life. The term ‘disuse’ does not relate merely to the lessened action of muscles, but includes a diminished flow of blood to a part or organ from being subjected to fewer alterations of pressure, or from becoming in any way less habitually active. Rudiments, however, may occur in one sex of those parts which are normally present in the other sex; and such rudiments, as we shall hereafter see, have often originated in a way distinct from those here referred to. In some cases organs have been reduced by means of natural selection, from having become injurious to the species under changed habits of life. The process of reduction is probably often aided through the two principles of compensation and economy of growth; but the later stages of reduction, after disuse has done all that can fairly be attributed to it, and when the saving to be effected by the economy of growth would be very small, are difficult to understand. The final and complete suppression of a part already useless and much reduced in size, in which case neither compensation nor economy can come into play, is perhaps intelligible by the aid of the hypothesis of pangenesis.”

On this passage, which forms the main foundation of the Darwinian theory of rudiments, much might be said; but we must limit ourselves to the following obvious remark. Science and philosophy reason on ascertained facts, but do not invent them; whereas Mr. Darwin in this very passage, as in many others, not only invents with poetic liberty all the facts which he needs to build up his theory, but also violates the laws of reasoning by drawing from his imaginary facts such conclusions as even real facts would not warrant. Philosophy would certainly not allow him to assume without proof that “organs _become_ rudimentary”; for this is not an ascertained fact. Nor would philosophy permit the gratuitous introduction of rudiments derived “from the corresponding organs of other more developed animals”; for there is no evidence that such has ever been the case. Nor would philosophy sanction “the final and complete suppression of a part already useless”; for on the one hand we have no means of knowing whether a part be really useless, and on the other no total suppression of organic parts has ever been known to occur (except in monsters) within the range of any given species. Nor would philosophy permit an appeal to the hypothesis of pangenesis or to the principle of compensation to evade the difficulties of which the new theory cannot give a solution; for the hypothesis of pangenesis is itself in need of proof, and the principle of compensation involves, in our case, a begging of the question, inasmuch as it assumes the mutability of species—the very thing which the theory is intended to demonstrate.

But, says Mr. Darwin, perhaps the hypothesis of pangenesis would make “intelligible” the suppression of a useless part. Let it be so, though we hold the contrary to be true; what then? Is all hypothesis to be accepted which would make a thing “intelligible”? The succession of days and nights was intelligible in the Ptolemaic hypothesis; the loss of a battle becomes intelligible by the hypothesis of treason; the death of an old woman is intelligible by the hypothesis of starvation; but no man of sense would mistake the hypothesis for a fact. The truth is that Mr. Darwin, before attempting the explanation of what he calls “the final and complete suppression of a part,” was bound to prove that the absence of such a part was a _real suppression_ of the pre-existing part. This he has not done; in fact, he had no means of doing it. Hence all his reasonings on this subject are paralogistic, and his theory of rudiments is a rope of sand.

The preceding remarks are fully applicable to the other examples of rudiments given by the author in the fourteen remaining pages of the chapter. Thus, “rudiments of various muscles have been observed in many parts of the human body.” We flatly deny the assertion. “Not a few muscles which are regularly present in some of the lower animals can occasionally be detected in man in a greatly-reduced condition.” We answer that such muscles are not at all in a _reduced_ condition, but in the condition originally required by the nature of the individual. “Remnants of the _panniculus carnosus_ in an efficient state are found in various parts of our bodies; for instance, the muscle on the forehead by which the eyebrows are raised.” On what ground can this muscle be called a _remnant_? “The muscles which serve to move the external ear are in a rudimentary condition in man.... The whole external shell (of the ear) may be considered a rudiment, together with the various folds and prominences which in the lower animals strengthen and support the ear when erect.” Where is the proof of such rudimentary condition? “The nictitating membrane is especially well developed in birds, ... but in man it exists as a mere rudiment, called the semilunar fold.” How is it proved that the semilunar fold is a mere rudiment, and not a special organism, purposely contrived by the hand of the Creator at the first production of man?

Mr. Darwin goes on making any number of assertions of the same kind, not one of which is or can be substantiated, and yet at the end of the chapter closes his argumentation in the following triumphant words:

“Consequently, we ought frankly to admit their community of descent [of man and other vertebrate animals]. To take any other view is to admit that our own structure, and that of all the animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment. This conclusion is greatly strengthened, if we look to the members of the whole animal series, and consider the evidence derived from their affinities or classification, their geographical distribution and geological succession. It is only our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demi-gods, which leads us to demur to this conclusion. But the time will before long come when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists who were well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man and other mammals should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.”

This conclusion, though well known, and already famous throughout the scientific world, is here given in the proper words of the great naturalist, that the reader may see what unbounded confidence a man of science can place in himself and in his speculations. All the scientific world, excepting a few sectarian unbelievers, is against him; he knows it, and he is not dismayed. If you listen to him, his opponents are “arrogant”; they demur to his conclusion only because they pretend to be “the descendants of demi-gods.” He alone is right, he alone understands science. Buffon, Cuvier, Quatrefages, Agassiz, Elam, Frédault, and a host of other naturalists are evidently wrong. In fact, all philosophers are wrong; Mr. Darwin alone knows how to interpret scientific results; and he is so sure of this that he ventures to prophesy his approaching triumph over those benighted naturalists who, though “well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man and other mammals,” are nevertheless so foolish as to believe that each species is the work of a separate act of creation. Such is his modesty!

Perhaps we, too, may be allowed to venture a little prophecy. Mr. Darwin is not young, and before many years, we are sorry to say, death will snatch him from us; his scientific friends in England and in Germany will shed a cold tear on his dead “mammalian structure,” while his spiritual and immortal soul will be summoned before the God he has insulted in the noblest of his creatures, to account for the abuse of his talents, and to receive the sentence due to those who know and disregard truth. Then the _Descent of Man_ will soon be a thing of the past; and those who now sing its praises in all tunes, and feign such an enthusiastic conviction of its coming triumph, will become the laughing stock of cultivated society, unless they put a timely end to their “scientific” jugglery. This is the fate which the common sense of mankind keeps in store for the Darwinian theory.

Mr. Darwin, in formulating his conclusion, sums up the whole discussion in a single sentence: “To take any other view is to admit that our own structure, and that of all the animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment.” No doubt a “snare” is laid; not, however, by the Author of nature, but by the author of the _Descent of Man_. The homologousness of animal structures does not prove a common genetic descent: it only proves, as we have shown, that all such structures are the work of the same Maker; hence the arbitrary substitution of a common progenitor for a common Creator is “a mere snare” laid by Mr. Darwin to entrap the judgment of the ignorant. We say _of the ignorant_; for he who knows anything about philosophy will simply wonder at the audacity of a writer who derives reason from unreason, and intellect from organism; and he who knows anything about divine revelation will rebuke him for his disregard of the Mosaic history, than which no document has greater antiquity or higher authority; whereas he who knows anything of zoölogy will be scandalized at the impudence of a man who dares to contradict in the name of science what he knows to be an unquestionable fact and a fundamental principle of science—viz., the unchangeableness of species.

To “strengthen” his worthless conclusion Mr. Darwin bids us look to “the members of the whole animal series” and consider “the evidence derived from their affinities or classification, their geographical distribution and geological succession.” But it must be evident to every intelligent reader that the considerations here suggested by Mr. Darwin are not calculated to “strengthen” his position. Between the members of the animal series there are not only affinities, but also specific differences and incompatibilities, which a man of science ought not to ignore, were they ever so embarrassing to his inventive genius. And as to the “geological succession” of animal forms, need we remind Mr. Darwin that the geological remains and their succession afford the most peremptory refutation of his theory? He himself acknowledges that no transitional forms from one species to another have been dug up from the bowels of the earth; whereas his theory requires a succession of animal remains of all transitional forms and in all stages of development. It would have been wiser for him to have kept back all mention of geology; but, alas! those who lay snares for others sometimes succeed also in entrapping themselves.

This may suffice to give an idea of the first chapter of the _Descent of Man_, and even of the whole work. Everywhere we find the same want of rigorous logic, the same absence of method, the same disregard of principles, and the same abundance of fanciful assumptions. Such is not the proceeding of science. “I believe,” says Prof. Agassiz, “that the Darwinian system is pernicious and fatal to the progress of the sciences.” “This system,” says Dr. Constantin James, “starts from the unknown, appeals to evidences which are nowhere to be found, and falls into consequences which are simply absurd and impossible. One would say that Darwin merely undertook to blot out creation and bring back chaos.”[111] We cannot, without trespassing on the limits prescribed to this article, give the scientific arguments by which these and other eminent writers set at naught the assumptions, the reasonings, and the conclusions of our eccentric “mammalian,” but we venture to say that if the reader procures a copy of Dr. James’ work, and examines the Darwinian theory in the light of the facts that the learned author has culled from physiology, palæontology, and other branches of science connected with the history of the animal world, he will be fully satisfied that the _Descent of Man_ is nothing but a congeries of blunders.

But we may be asked: How is it possible to admit that a theory so manifestly absurd should have been received with enthusiasm and lauded to the skies by men of recognized ability and scientific eminence? The answer is obvious. Scientific eminence, as now understood, means only acquaintance with the materials of science, and is no warrant against false reasoning. “There can be fools in science as well as in any other walk in life,” says a well-known English writer: “in fact, in proportion to the small aggregate number of scientific men, I should be disposed to think that there is a greater percentage in that class than in any other.” But the same writer gives us another remarkable explanation of the fact.

“I have read,” says he, “the writings of Mr. Darwin and Prof. Huxley and others, and had the advantage of personal talk with an eminent friend of theirs who shares their views, and I have read without prejudice, but failed to find that they advanced one solid argument in support of their views. I am quite certain that, if this controversy could be turned into a law suit, any judge on the bench would dismiss the case against the evolutionists with costs, without calling for a reply. The eminent friend I allude to, himself one of the first of living mathematicians, and an intimate associate of Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer, etc., and sharing their views, was candid enough to admit that the theory was beset with difficulties, that quite as many facts were against it as for it, that it hardly seemed susceptible of proof. And when I asked why he held the theory under such a condition of the evidence; why, on the assumption of this law, Dr. Tyndall chaffed and derided prayer, and Prof. Huxley gnashed his teeth at dogma and chuckled over the base descent of man, his reply was: ‘We are bound to hold it, because it is the only theory yet propounded which can account for life, all we see of life, without the intervention of a God. Nature must be held to be capable of producing everything by herself and within herself, with no interference _ab extra_, and this theory explains how she may have done it. Hence we feel bound to hold it, and to teach it.’ Shade of Bacon! here is science!”[112]

These words need no comment of ours. We knew already from other evidences that a conspiracy had been formed with the aim of turning science against religion, and we now see its work. We have here a candid avowal that the enthusiasm of certain scientists for the new theory has its root in malice, not in reason, and is kept up, though with ever-increased difficulty, in the interest not of science but of a brutal atheism. In fact, science has nothing to do with the origin of man; and the very attempt at transforming a historical event into a scientific speculation clearly reveals the wicked determination of obscuring, corrupting, and discrediting truth. To carry out their object the leaders of the conspiracy organized a body of infidel scientists, doctors, professors, lecturers, and journalists; they took hold of the scientific press, which was to illustrate the names and magnify the merits of such men as Moleschott, Louis Büchner, Wolff, Von Baer, or such men as Clausius, Tyndall, Spencer, and Comte, or as Huxley, Draper, and Häckel—a task not at all difficult, as these men, and others whom we might name, were all bound together in a mutual-admiration society, in which the celebrity of each member was an honor and an encouragement for all the other members, and the praises lavished upon each one were repaid with interest to all the others. Thus they have become great scientific oracles, each and all; and by ignoring as completely as possible the writings, the discoveries, and even the existence of those men of science who did not fall on their knees before the new ideas, they succeeded in creating a belief that they alone were in possession of scientific truth, and they alone were enlightened enough to point out with infallible certainty the hidden path of progress.

Their success, to judge from the number and tone of their scientific publications, must have been very flattering to their vanity. It is probable, however, that their noise is greater than their success. The profligate and the sceptic may, of course, relish a theory which assimilates them to the ape or the hog, makes the soul a modification of matter, and suppresses God; but the honest, the pure, the thoughtful are not easily duped by the low hypotheses of these modern thinkers. Society in general rejects with disgust a doctrine which aims at degrading humanity and destroying the bases of morality, religion, and civilization. If there is no God, rights and duties, the main ties of the social body, must be given up; justice will become an unmeaning word, and civil and criminal courts a tyrannical institution. If man is only a modified beast, if his soul is not immortal, if his end is like that of the dog, then why should the stronger refrain from hunting and devouring the weaker? Do we not hunt and kill and eat other animals? Alas! the progress of humanity towards barbarism and cannibalism is so intimately and inevitably connected with Darwinism that even the most uncivilized of human beings would protest against its admission.

That society is still unwilling to submit to the dictation of this advanced science, and that common sense is yet strong enough to silence the present scientific blustering, is a fact of which we find an implicit confession in the writings and addresses of anti-Christian thinkers. _Nature_, a weekly illustrated journal of science, the _Popular Science Monthly_, and other publications of the infidel party, do not cease to inculcate the introduction of science (materialism, evolution, pantheism, etc.) into the schools frequented by our children. They have found that our schools are not godless enough to secure the triumph of unbelief: they are godless in a negative sense only, inasmuch as they ignore God; but now they must be made positively godless by teaching theories which do away with creation, which deny providence, which leave no hope of reward, and ridicule all fear of punishment in an after-life; and they must be made positively immoral by teaching that man is always right in following his animal proclivities, as all other animals do, and that no human being can be justly called to account for his doings, it being demonstrated by science that what we call “free-will” is an organic function subject to invariable laws, like everything else in the material world, with no greater freedom to choose its course than a stone has under terrestrial attraction. These doctrines are widely circulated in printed works, but make few converts, owing to the fact that they come too late, and find the minds of men already imbued with principles of an opposite nature; and, therefore, it is now proposed to instil all this poison into the minds of the young, who have no antidote at hand to counteract its destructive action. We hope that this new attempt will be defeated; but when we see that the attempt is considered necessary for a successful diffusion of the false scientific theories of the day, we cannot be much mistaken if we infer that the success of such theories up to the present time has been less satisfactory to the infidel schemers than their publications pretend.

As for the _Descent of Man_, however, no amount of sophistry, in our opinion, will succeed in making it fashionable. The Darwinian theory is utterly unscientific and unphilosophical. Common sense, geology, and history condemn it; logic proclaims it a fraud; and human dignity throws upon it a look of pity and dismisses it with ineffable contempt. Mr. Darwin may yet live long enough to see his theory totally eclipsed and forgotten, when he will ask himself whether it would not have been better to devote his talents, his time, and his labor to striving to elevate rather than striving to debase his kind.

MICKEY CASEY’S CHRISTMAS DINNER-PARTY.

In a large, gloomy, bald-looking house in Merrion Street, Dublin, lived a red-faced, red-haired little attorney rejoicing in the name of Mickey Casey. There is no man better known in Green Street than Mickey, and no member of the profession whose services are more eagerly retained by the luckless ones whose “misfortunes” have brought them within range of the “blessing of the recorder.” Mickey knows the exact moment to bully, concede, or back out; and as for the law, it has been said of him that there is not a dirty lane or alley in the whole of the Acts of Parliament in which he has not mentally resided for the benefit of his _clientèle_, as well as to his own especial emolument. When Mr. Casey was put up for membership of the Law Club, there was much muttering and considerable frowning in the smoking-room of that legally exclusive establishment while his chances of success were being weighed in the balance and found wanting; but the election being judiciously set down for the long vacation, and Mickey having offered several of the leading members unlimited shooting over his trifle of property in the neighborhood of Derrymachulish—which, as all well-informed people are aware, lies in the very heart of the County Tipperary—somehow or other he pulled through by the “skin of his teeth,” and became socially, as he was by act of Parliament, a _gentleman_ in the profession.

Mickey was a cheery little man, who loved a drop of the “crayture” not wisely but too well, and whose whole soul was wrapped up in his only child, a daughter, a mincing young lady, who was now close upon her nineteenth birthday, and who bore a most unmistakable resemblance to her sire in the color of her hair, her “chaney blue” eyes, and a bulbous-shaped—vulgarly termed thumbottle—nose.

“I’ve spent oceans of money on me daughter’s education, sir,” Mickey would exclaim. “Oceans—Atlantic and Pacific. She’s had masters and mistresses, and tutors and governesses, and short lessons and long lessons, some at a guinea apiece, sir—yes, begar, a guinea for thirty minutes jingling on a piana. But she’s come out of it well; I’ve got her through, and the sentence of the court is that she’s as fine a performer as there is in Dublin in the way of an amatewer.”

Mrs. Casey was a very stout, very florid, very untidy lady, whose face never bore traces of any recent lavatory process, and whose garments appeared to have dropped upon her from the ceiling by chance, retaining their original _pose_. The parting of her hair bore a strong resemblance to forked lightning, and her nails reminded the visitor of family bereavement, so deep the mourning in which they were invariably enshrined. She, in common with her husband, was wrapped up in her daughter, and lost to every consideration other than the advancement of her child’s welfare and happiness.

Matilda Casey was spoiled in her cradle, spoiled at school, spoiled at home. Her word was law, her every whim gratified, her every wish anticipated. Her parents were her slaves. Dressed by Mrs. Manning, the Worth of Dublin, at fancy prices, the newest Parisian toilettes were flaunted upon Miss Casey’s neat little figure, whilst her mother went in greasy gowns of antiquated date and old-world pattern. The brougham was at her beck, and Mrs. Casey was flattered beyond measure when offered a seat in it. She asked whom she pleased to Merrion Street, and many people came and went whom her mother never even saw. In furtherance of her musical talents she had boxes at the Theatre Royal and Gaiety for any performance it pleased her Serene Highness to select, while she forced her father to run the gauntlet of musical societies in order to ensure the necessary vouchers of admission.

And yet Matilda Casey was by no means a bad sort of girl. Her heart was in the right place, but her brains were blown out—to use a homely metaphor—by the flattery and incense which were being perpetually offered up at her shrine, until she was seized with a mad craving to enter the portals of the best society.

Hitherto she had but stood at the gate, like the Peri, gazing through the golden bars, and was more or less inclined to accept her position; but there came a time when she resolved upon endeavoring to _force_ her way through.

The task that lay before her was a terrible one—a task full of weeping, and wailing, and mortification, and heart-burning, and gnashing of teeth. Society in Dublin is as exclusive as in the Faubourg St. Germain. The line is so distinctly drawn that no person can cross it by mere accident. “No trespassers admitted” is written up in letters of cold steel. The viceregal “set” won’t have the professional set, save those whose offices entitle them to the _entrèe_, and then they are but tolerated. The professional set won’t know the mercantile set, and here society stops short. A shopkeeper, be his store as large as Stewart’s and be he as wealthy as Rothschild, has no chance. He is a Pariah, and must pitch his tent out in that wilderness peopled by nobodies. The great struggle lies with the mercantile people to become blended with the professionals. This is done by money. Of course there are exceptional cases, but such a case is _rara avis in terris_.

Matilda Casey was in no set. The people with whom she was acquainted, though not amongst the outcasts, held no position whatsoever. Clerks in the Bank of Ireland residing at Rathmines; commercial travellers; custom-house employés; attorneys of cadaverous practice, or of a practice that meant no weight in the profession; needy barristers perpetually kotowing to her father for business, and obsequiously civil to her _as business_—these people with their wives formed her surroundings, and she was sick of them, tired, disgusted, bored to death. Why should she not be acquainted with the daughter of Mr. Bigwig, Q.C., who resided next door? Surely she played better than Miss Bigwig, and dressed better, and rode in her brougham, while Miss B. trudged in thick-soled boots in the mud. She had left cards on the Bigwigs upon their coming to Merrion Street, but her visit had never been returned, while that shabby little girl, Miss Oliver, was for ever in and out there; and what was Miss Oliver’s papa but an attorney?

Why was she not at some of the balls perpetually going on around her?—the rattling of the cabs to and from which, during the night and morning, kept her awake upon her tear-bedewed pillow.

Why did the Serges, of the firm of Serge & Twist, the linen-drapers in Sackville Street, leave her out of their invitations to their afternoon teas? Assuredly they were no great swells, and she had driven Miss Serge on more than one occasion in her brougham, and had sent Mrs. Serge a bouquet of hot-house flowers when that lady was laid up with the measles.

How came it that their social circle never increased save in the wrong direction? Had she not persuaded her papa to give a brief to young Mr. Bronsbill, who was possessed of as much brains as a nutmeg-grater, and whose advocacy cost Mr. Casey’s client his cause, in order to become acquainted with his family?—Mr. B. having informed her—the treacherous villain!—that his mother and sisters intended to call upon her.

Had she not thrown open the house to Mr. and Mrs. Minnion, whom she had met at the Victoria Hotel, Killarney, the preceding summer, in the hope of those delightful introductions which the artful Mrs. M. had held out like a glittering jewel before her entranced and eager gaze? Had not Mr. and Mrs. Minnion eaten, drunk, and slept in Merrion Street? And whom did they introduce? A little drunken captain of militia, who insisted upon coming there at unlawful hours of the night, and in calling for brandy and soda-water, as if the establishment was a public-house, and not even a respectable hotel!

But Fortune is not for ever cruel, and the wheel will turn up a prize at possibly the least expected moment.

Mickey Casey knew his daughter’s heart-burning, and strove might and main to ease it by even one throb. He gave dinner-parties to the best class of men with whom he was acquainted, feeding them like “fighting-cocks” upon _petit dîners_ served by Mitchell, of Grafton Street, and giving them wines of the rarest vintages from the cellars of Turbot & Redmond.

“Ye’ll come to see us again, won’t ye?” he would say to his guest. “And I say, just bring your wife the next time. Me daughter will send the brougham—cost a hundred and fifty at Hutton’s—say Monday next.”

The guest would declare how delighted his wife would be to make the acquaintance of so charming a young lady as Miss Casey; but when the Monday came round, and with it a dinner fit for the viceroy, the guest would arrive wifeless, the lady being laid up with a cold, or “that dreadful baby, you know,” or “visitors from the country,” and the banquet would be served in a lugubrious silence, save when the daughter of the house ventured upon some cutting sarcasm anent snobbery and stuck-up people.

Matilda Casey could make such a guest wish himself over a mutton-chop in his own establishment, instead of the salmi of partridge or plover’s eggs served in silver dishes at Number 190 Merrion Street: and she did it, too.

“I’ve news for ye, Matilda,” exclaimed Casey one evening as he took his seat at the dinner-table. “I’ve news for ye, pet. I defended old Colonel Bowdler in a case in which a servant sued him for wages, and got him off at half-price. He’s on half-pay, lives with his wife in Stephen’s Green, and is a tip-topper, mixing with the lord-lieutenant’s household as if they were his own.”

“Well, and what is that to me?” exclaimed Miss Casey with considerable asperity.

“This, me darling: he was so pleased at the way I got him out on half-pay—ha! ha! ha!—that he and his wife—wife, mind ye—are coming to call on you to-morrow.”

Mrs. Casey was never taken into account, Matilda being the central figure.

“Pshaw! I wonder you can be such a fool, papa. It’s the old story,” retorted his daughter. “This colonel will come here, eat our dinners, drink our wine, and perhaps drop his wife’s card without her knowledge, as Mr. Neligan did—as we found out to our mortification when we went to return a visit that was never paid, and were politely told by Mrs. Neligan that her husband had never even mentioned our names to her.”

“Never fear, Matilda. We’re in the right box this time. They’ll be here to-morrow, you may depend upon it.”

Casey had his own good reasons for believing that the colonel would bide tryste—of which more anon. The morrow came, and with it Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler.

The colonel was a chatty, elderly gentleman of imposing aspect and dyed hair; his wife a tall, gaunt female, with a vulture-like appearance, and a sort of sergeant-major-in-petticoats look—the outcome of many a hard-fought campaign. The colonel had sketched Casey and Casey’s social desires, and Mrs. Bowdler, like the shrewd veteran that she was, took in the situation at a glance.

The flutter of excitement at 190 Merrion Street was intense when the thundering knock came to the door, accompanied by a crashing pull at the bell.

“Be awfully civil to these people, Jemima,” whispered the colonel as he entered, “and we can forage here three times a week. Promise them the moon.”

Mrs. Casey fled to her bedroom for the purpose of arranging her person in a gorgeous mauve moire-antique all over grease-spots, and Matilda rushed frantically to the drawing-room, in order to be _en pose_ to receive the welcome visitors.

The coachman, who acted also in the capacity of butler, was feverishly hurried from his den at the back of the house, bearing with him a gentle aroma of the stable, and, even while opening the hall-door, was engaged in thrusting his arms into the sleeves of a coat—a perfect suit of mail in buttons.

“Mrs. Casey at home?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.

“I dunno whether the misthris is convaynient, ma’am, but Miss Casey is above in the dhrawin’-room. Won’t yez come in anyhow?” And the man motioned them to ascend with considerable cordiality and welcome.

“Take these cards, please.”

“Well, ma’am, me hands is a thrifle dirty; but av it obliges ye—” and hastily brushing the fingers of his right hand upon the legs of his trowsers, he took the extended pasteboard in as gingerly a manner as if he expected it to explode there and then.

The visitors stood in the hall, and so did Luke Fogarty.

“What am I for to do wud this ma’am?” he asked, eyeing it with a glance full of concern.

“Hand it to Miss Casey,” replied Mrs. Bowdler.

“Oh! that’s it, is it?” And he darted up-stairs with an alarming alacrity.

“This is a charming _ménage_,” said Mrs. Bowdler.

“A fine open country, my dear; no concealed enemy.”

“Yez are for to folly me,” shouted Fogarty from the top of the stairs.

Matilda was enchanted to see them, and ordered sherry and cake. Mrs. Bowdler professed herself charmed to make Miss Casey’s acquaintance, and declared she quite resembled the lord-lieutenant’s youngest daughter “And in manner, too, Miss Casey, you quite remind me of her. We are perpetually at the Viceregal Lodge, and _very_ intimate with the Abercorns. We are asked to everything, and—he! he! he!—it costs us a small fortune for cabs.”

“You can have my brougham, Mrs. Bowdler.”

“Oh! dear, no, my dear young lady, that would never do; but if you lend it to me occasionally to take out _dear_ Lady Maude Laseilles, who is _such_ an invalid. Do you know her?”

Matilda replied in the negative.

As a matter of fact, no such person existed, but it suited Mrs. Bowdler to create her, Mrs. B. being a lady who would make a shilling do duty for half a crown. She was a veteran of infinite resources, who had borne the burden and heat of the day, and who was now bent upon taking her change out of the world. She had heard of the craving to enter the portals of society that was devouring Matilda Casey—the attorney had openly confided the fact to the colonel—and was resolved upon making the most of the situation. The Bowdlers were hangers-on at the Castle, mere hacks, who attended the drawing-rooms, the solitary state ball to which they were annually invited, and St. Patrick’s ball with undeviating punctuality. They resided in a pinched-looking house in Stephen’s Green, where Mrs. Bowdler “operated” the colonel’s half-pay with the financial ability of a Dudelac, stretching every sixpence and racking the silver coin to its final gasp. They went everywhere, accepting every invitation, “foraging on the enemy” as the colonel expressed it, giving no return. Trading upon his military rank, they managed to go about a good deal amongst very third-rate people, who were glad to have a colonel to dinner, and a lady who could talk so familiarly of half the peerage as his wife. A more singularly worthless or selfish pair was not to be found, or a pair who better knew how “to work the oracle,” than Colonel Brownlow Bowdler, late of Her Majesty’s Fifty-ninth Regiment of Infantry, and Jemima, his consort.

Mrs. Casey came smilingly into the drawing-room and almost embraced Mrs. Bowdler.

“What will ye take, now? Sure ye must take something. Matilda, make Mrs. Colonel Bowdler take something. Colonel, you’ll take a bottle of champagne—do, now, that’s right; and I’ll get a little jelly for Mrs. Colonel Bowdler, and then Matilda will play for ye. She plays lovely.”

“O mamma!” exclaimed Matilda.

“Now, ye know ye do, darling.” And Mrs. Casey, who is the soul of hospitality, joyously descended to the lower regions, in order to send up the delicacies she so temptingly set forth.

“Are you going to the ball the Twelfth are giving at the Royal Barracks?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.

“I am not, Mrs. Bowdler, but I wish I was,” replied Matilda.

“Colonel, do you hear that? Miss Casey has not received a card for the Twelfth ball. _You_ must take care that she gets one.”

“I’ll go to Major McVickers at once—the old rascal and I served in India together—and see what can be done.”

He had been to Major McVickers five times already to secure invitations for himself and wife, but without success.

Luke Fogarty entered with an enormous silver salver bearing the champagne, jelly, fruit, and cake. He would have preferred to have been behind a runaway horse, ay, and down-hill to boot. He regarded the jelly with a savage eye, muttering “Woa! woa!” in an undertone as it shook from the movement of the tray, accompanying the exclamation by that purring sound so dear to grooms when closely applying the curry-comb.

“Open the champagne, Fogarty,” said Matilda in a tone of lofty command.

“To be shure I will, miss,” replied the willing retainer, diving into the pockets of his trowsers in search of an iron-moulded corkscrew, which he eventually brought to the surface after considerable effort. “I’ll open it in a jiffy.”

He tortured and twisted the wires until he was nearly black in the face from sheer exertion, but, although yielding to his pressure, they still clung perplexingly to the cork.

“Bad cess to thim for wires! but they have the fingers nearly cut aff o’ me. Curse o’ the crows on them!” making another despairing effort; “but I’m not bet yit.”

The wire, slipping suddenly aside, gave freedom to the cork, which bounded gaily against the colonel’s nose, and, ricochetting, lodged in the bosom of Mrs. Bowdler’s dress, while the froth spurted high in the air, descending in seething showers upon the gallant warrior’s head, disarranging the few brown hairs which were carefully laid across his bald, shining pate, resembling cracks upon an inverted china bowl, and causing him to utter maledictions strong and deep.

“See that, now!” exclaimed Fogarty, clapping his hand on the opening of the bottle. “It’s livelier nor spirits. Hould yer glass, colonel, or the lickher ‘ill be lost intirely.”

“Champagne is my favorite wine,” said Mrs. Bowdler, tossing off her glass without winking.

“And mine,” added the colonel, filling it for her again, and then replenishing his own.

“Oh! dear me, I’m so glad to know that. Fogarty, bring another bottle. We’ve heaps of it in the cellar at ninety-six shillings a dozen—a top price. You’ll always get good wine here,” said Mrs. Casey.

“The man who would give his guest bad wine ought to be blown from the muzzle of a gun,” observed the colonel, plunging at the jelly.

This came strangely from an individual who, whenever he gave a visitor a drink, gave it of a liquor warranted to kill at fifty yards. Young Bangs, of the Tenth, whose father instructed him to visit Bowdler, was laid up for an entire week after a teaspoonful of the colonel’s tap.

The second bottle of champagne appeared.

“Ye’d betther open this combusticle yerself, gineral,” suggested Fogarty; “an mind ye hould on to the cork, or it ‘ill give ye the slip as shure as there’s a bill on a crow.”

“I must introduce your dear daughter here to the Dayrolles,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowdler, “and to the Fitzmaurices. You will like Lady Fitzmaurice, Miss Casey, and I _know_ she will like _you_.”

“Do you hear that, Matilda? Now, won’t ye play for Mrs. Colonel Bowdler?”

“I’m a very poor player,” simpered Matilda.

Nevertheless, she proceeded to the piano and dashed off a _morceau_ of Chopin with considerable vigor, during which the colonel improved the occasion by pocketing a bunch of grapes and a good-sized cut of seed-cake.

“_Bravissima!_” he cried, as if in rapture. “Lord St. Lawrence must hear that, Jemima; we must try and get him to name a night.”

“We can reckon on Lady Howth.”

“Certainly. She’s always too glad to be asked.”

“And the Powerscourts?”

“By the way, that reminds me: we owe a visit at Powerscourt, do we not?”

“I can’t say, colonel, until I look at my list. We have such an enormous visiting list, Mrs. Casey,” turning to that lady, who was nearly caught in a feeble attempt at winking at her daughter, in order to beget that young person’s special attention to the delightful conversation going on between the visitors, and who was perfectly overwhelmed with dismay and apprehension lest she should have been perceived. “I put my engagements down alphabetically, and—he! he! he!—I’m so glad to think that _you_ are so high on our list.”

The Bowdlers took their departure, after having promised to dine in Merrion Street on the following day.

“To-morrow will be Thursday, and we dine with the Commander of the Forces. Friday we dine at Lord Newry’s.”

“Never mind, my dear,” interposed the colonel, “I’ll come _here_. I’m heartily sick of those fearfully ceremonious banquets; besides,” he added, “we are not asked here every day, and Newry or Strathnairn will be glad to get us when they can.”

When Mickey Casey returned that evening from his office he found his wife and daughter in ecstasies over their newly-made acquaintances. There were no words in the English language sufficiently strong to convey a tithe of the admiration they entertained for them. Such elegance, such urbanity, such distinguished manners, such amiability!

“I’m going to the Twelfth ball,” cried Matilda, “and to be introduced to Lady Fitzmaurice and the Dayrolles, and dear Mrs. Bowdler is going to give a party for me, and to ask Lady Howth and Lord St. Lawrence and Lord Powerscourt all to hear me play. What _shall_ I play? I must begin to practise at once. I’ll go to Pigott’s to-morrow for something new—_the_ newest thing—and I’ll get Mrs. Joseph Robinson to give me six lessons.”

“I’ve asked them to dinner here,” said Mrs. Casey; “and only to think, Mick, I—”

“I _do_ wish you’d say Mr. Casey, or at all events Michael, mamma,” burst in Matilda. “You see how _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler addressed her husband. You’ll find it much more genteel.”

“Whatever you say, me darling. Well, _Mister_ Casey—oh! I can’t do that after Micking him for twenty years,” she cried. “Well, Mick, what do you think, but the colonel gave up a dinner at the Commander of the Forces’ to come to us on Thursday.”

“Thursday, did ye say, Mary?”

“Yes.”

“That’s awkward; that’s to-morrow, and your brother Tim Rooney comes up in the morning to stop for a month.”

Mrs. Casey glanced timidly at her daughter, who gave a little shriek.

“It will never do, mamma. Uncle Timothy is too rough, too vulgar, and too careless of what he says and does, to meet Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler. It would destroy us at once. You must telegraph him, papa, not to come till Friday or Saturday.”

“I can’t, me honey, for he started this morning; and may be it’s in Tullamore he is while I’d be wiring to Inchanappa.”

Matilda clasped her hands in a sort of mute despair.

“He _cannot_ dine at this table to-morrow,” she cried. “I’d rather put off the Bowdlers, first.”

“Suppose ye give him an early dinner and plenty of liquor, and send him with Fogarty to the play.”

“We will want Fogarty, papa. His livery opening the door looks very genteel.”

“It won’t do to insult him. Tim has twenty thousand pounds, and you’re his god-daughter, me darling,” said Casey.

“I wonder, if we told him that these people were very ceremonious and very grand, if he’d consent to dine alone,” suggested Matilda.

“That would only rouse Tim, my pet,” observed Mrs. Casey. “He’d just come in on purpose then, and if he got a sup in there would be no holding him.”

“What _is_ to be done?” cried Matilda, starting from her chair and pacing the floor with long and hasty strides.

At this moment a short, sharp double knock was heard at the hall-door.

“That’s Tim,” groaned Mrs. Casey.

“A telegraph!” roared Fogarty, bursting into the room as if a human life depended upon his celerity.

“Yer in luck, Matilda, my pet; it’s from your uncle. Read it.”

It ran thus:

“_From Tim Rooney, ‘The Ram’s Tail,’ Inchanappa, County Tipperary, to Mickey Casey, 190 Merrion Street, Dublin_:

“I can’t stir for a couple of days. I have to bolus a horse, and Phil Dempsey is after drinking a cow on me, the blackguard!”

“What a relief!” cried Matilda Casey, throwing herself into an easy-chair.

The dinner at 190 was supplied by Murphy, of Clare Street, the Gunter, the Delmonico of Dublin.

“I don’t care a farden about the price,” said Mickey to the smiling caterer. “I want it done tip-top, and let the ongtrays be something quite out of the common; for Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler are to dine with us, and me wife is very anxious to have everything spiffy.”

Mrs. Casey was in a fever of preparation the livelong day, washing glasses, getting out wine, laying the table, while Matilda with her own fair hands fitted up the _épergne_ with rare hot-house plants and crystallized fruits.

“Papa will take Mrs. Colonel Bowdler in to dinner, and Colonel Bowdler will take you, mamma.”

“Oh! no, me pet; I’d rather he’d take you.”

“But it’s not etiquette.”

“Oh! bother etiquette,” exclaimed Mrs. Casey, wiping her face in a napkin.

“It’s all very fine to say bother etiquette; but if we do not show it now, what will Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler think of us?”

The appalling consequences attendant upon her refusal to be led to the banquet by the gallant colonel smote the mind of Mrs. Casey with such considerable force that she at once assented to the proposal, lauding her daughter’s foresight to the very skies.

“You’re a wonderful child, dear; ‘pon me word, you think of everything.”

“The colonel will sit here, and I’ll put this bouquet opposite his chair with the menoo card; and Mrs. Bowdler will sit here, Fogarty,” addressing Luke, who was standing by with a portion of harness about his neck. “Take care that Colonel Bowdler gets enough of champagne.”

“Be me faix, thin, Miss Matilda, ye’d betther lave out a dozen anyhow, for he lapped it up yistherda like wather,” replied that functionary with a broad grin.

“And see that Mrs. Colonel Bowdler’s glass is always full.”

“I’m thinkin’ she’ll see to that herself wudout thrubblin’ me,” muttered Fogarty.

“Ask Colonel Bowdler if he’ll take sherry or Madeira with his soup.”

“To be sure he will, miss.”

“I say ask him which he’ll take.”

“I’ll make bould to say he’ll take the both o’ thim,” grinned Fogarty, who, with that quick perception characteristic of his race, had already “measured his man.”

“Be very particular about the ongtray.”

“I will, miss, an’ the tay-thray too.”

“And above all things keep sober, Fogarty.”

“He’s a teetotaler,” chimed in Mrs. Casey. “Aren’t ye a teetotaler, Luke?”

There was a comical expression upon Luke’s face as he stoutly replied: “I am, ma’am; but _I’m not a bigoted wan_.”

At about four o’clock a note arrived from Mrs. Bowdler.

“Oh! my gracious, I hope there’s no disappointment,” cried Matilda, turning very pale, while dire apprehension was written in the pallid features of her mamma.

“I hope not; that would be awful, me pet.”

The note ran thus:

“292 STEPHEN’S GREEN, 3.30 o’clock.

“MY DEAREST MISS CASEY: Our dear friend Major Beamish and his _charming_ daughter, nearly related to the Beamishes of Cork, have just written to say that they will dine with us to-day. I must, therefore, with the MOST _painful reluctance_, ask of you to allow us to cancel our engagement to you. I cannot tell you how sincerely this grieves me, but the B.’s, though _very old_ friends, are people of that _haute distinction_ that one cannot treat as one possibly could wish.

“With kindest regards to your _dear_ mamma, and with united kind regards from the colonel to all _chez vous_, I am, my dearest Miss Casey, yours affectionately,

JEMIMA BOWDLER.”

“This is agonizing!” cried Matilda, ready to burst into tears.

“Our lovely dinner!” moaned Mrs. Casey.

“There is some fatality about us.”

“Wan pound five a head without wine, and seventeen and six extra for a pineapple.”

“Was ever anything so provoking? It’s enough to drive one mad!”

“I suppose Mick must ask in the apprentice to eat the dinner, as we’ve to pay for it. Such food for to cock up an apprentice with!” sighed Mrs. Casey.

Miss Casey perused the letter again, and finding P. T. O. in the corner, turned the page and read a postscript as follows:

“P. S.—The colonel has just come in, and what do you think he has the audacity to suggest?—that we ask your permission to bring the Beamishes to your dinner to-day. The colonel has taken such a fancy to you, _dearest young friend_, that he treats you as if he had been on intimate terms for years. He insists upon my writing this, but please to blame _him_ for this piece of audacity.

J. B.”

Miss Casey’s joy knew no bounds. The Beamishes of Cork, one of the oldest families in Ireland—such a charming addition to the party. She would order round the brougham, and drive over to dear Mrs. Colonel Bowdler’s at once to thank her for such a signal mark of kindness; as for the colonel, she could have hugged the gallant veteran from sheer gratitude.

_She_ did not know that the Bowdlers wished to shelve the hungry major and his daughter in a polite way, and provide them with a sumptuous repast at the expense of Mickey Casey. Not she, indeed; so she stepped into her carriage, and having driven, first, round to the caterer’s to order reinforcements, proceeded to Stephen’s Green, where she was received by Mrs. Bowdler in a small, dingy front room _minus_ a fire, although it was late in December and bitterly raw and cold.

Mrs. Bowdler kissed her, and gushed over her, and begged to be excused for hurrying her away for the tyrant post, as she was compelled to finish a letter to her _dearest_ friend, the wife of the governor-general of India. Miss Casey cut short her stay, as in duty bound, and Mrs. Bowdler ascended to the drawing-room, where three or four visitors were assembled around a fairly decent fire—one of the ladies, during the temporary absence of the hostess, having surreptitiously stirred it up—to whom she imparted the intelligence that she had just parted from the governess to Mrs. Geoffrey Ponsonby, whom that aristocratic personage had sent over in the Ponsonby brougham with a request that she and the colonel would dine in Fitzwilliam Place upon that day, whereat the visitors declared that Mrs. Geoffrey Ponsonby was evidently very desirous of Mrs. Bowdler’s company, and that it was a very remarkable instance of her esteem and regard.

At 6.30, military time, the company arrived, and were ushered into Mickey Casey’s study in order to uncloak. Major Beamish wore a short brown wig on the top of a very high, a very bald, and very shiny head. His eyes were small and watery, and his moustache, greased with a cheap ointment, lay like a solid cushion of hair beneath a nose with nostrils as expansive as those of a rocking-horse. He was attired in a faded suit of evening clothes, his shirt-bosom bearing the indelible imprint not only of the hand of Time, but of the hand of a reckless laundress, who hesitated not to use her nails upon the sierras of its coy and threadbare folds.

Miss Beamish was a gushing maiden of twenty anything, possessed of a profusion of frizzly fair hair, done in a simple and childlike fashion, and bound by a fillet of blue ribbon over a vast expanse of forehead. Her eyes were greenish gray, and not quite free from a suspicion of a squint. Her nose resembled that of her sire, and her mouth was almost concealed by her thin and bloodless lips. Her gaunt frame was enveloped in a gauzy substance over a pink silk, which betrayed the recent presence of the smoothing-iron. Bog-oak ornaments rattled around her neck, at her ears, and upon her lean and sinewy arms.

“Colonel an’ Missis Bowhowdler,” roared Fogarty, as the guests entered the drawing-room. “Major an’ Missis Baymish.”

“Miss, fellow, Miss,” impatiently cried the major.

“Miss Baymish, I mane,” adding in an undertone: “It’s not but she’s ould enough and tough enough for to be a missis tin times over.”

“This is _so_ good of you,” said Matilda, shaking hands all round, “and _so_ good of _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler to give us the pleasure of having you.”

“Monstrous fine gal. Right good quarters,” observed the major to the colonel, glancing round the room at the superb mirrors, buhl cabinets, inlaid tables, rich hangings, and furniture upholstered in yellow satin.

“You might do worse than take this girl. Casey’s good for twenty thousand,” suggested the colonel.

“If Tibie was once quartered on the enemy I’d enlist again—I would, sir, by George! I’d take the shilling from that seductive and dangerous recruiting sergeant, Hymen,” exclaimed the major, wagging one soiled white glove and posing himself after a gratified and prolonged glance in the mirror.

“Miss Matilda,” whispered Fogarty, who had just entered, and who was endeavoring to attract her attention. “Miss Matilda! Miss Tilly!”

“What is it, Fogarty?” asked Miss Casey at length; and upon perceiving him, “What _is_ it?” she repeated somewhat testily, as Mrs. Bowdler was engaged in narrating a delightful conversation with the lady-lieutenant.

“The masther’s clanin’ himself, an’ he wants a lind av yer soap, miss, as there’s not a screed in the house, be raisin’ av the misthris washin’ the glass an’ chany wild the rest av it.”

The guests filed down in the order prescribed by Matilda, save that she fell to the arm of Major Beamish, who overwhelmed her with compliments, which only lasted until the soup was served, as from that moment his attention became concentrated upon the delicacies placed before him, on which he opened so murderous and effective a fire as almost to paralyze the energies of the ubiquitous and perspiring Fogarty, and the solicitous attentions of a young lady from the kitchen, whose stertorous breathing made itself heard above the din and clatter of knives, forks, and conversation, in a distinct and somewhat alarming manner.

“Hi! some more soup. Another cut of fish. I’ll try that _entrée_ again. Let me have that last _entrée_ once more. Some turkey and ham. Why don’t you look alive with the champagne? A slice of roast beef—underdone. Some pheasant; ay, I’ll try the woodcock. Jelly, of course.” And the gallant major kept the servants pretty busily engaged during the entire repast.

Matilda was in a shimmer of delight. Her darling hopes were being realized at last, and society was budding for her. A colonel and his wife, a major and his daughter—why, what higher rank need any person desire? How friendly, how gracious, and how charmingly they ate and drank and praised everything! This was life—a life worth living; this was that delicious glow of which she had read in _Lothair_ and other novels portraying fashionable existence.

While these rosy thoughts were coursing through her brain a noise was heard in the direction of the hall, and a man’s voice in tones of angry expostulation.

“Your servants are quarrelling, Mrs. Casey,” observed Mrs. Bowdler, holding up her hand to enjoin silence.

“It’s that Luke Fogarty; he can’t keep his fingers off the dishes, and the girl is—”

At this moment the individual in question burst into the apartment with an expression as if some fearful catastrophe had just happened.

“What is the matter, Fogarty?” demanded Mrs. Casey, glancing at her retainer with an inquiring eye.

“We’re bet, ma’am,” responded Fogarty in a half-whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re bet up intirely. Misther Tim has came.”

Mrs. Casey felt as if she would have fainted, while Matilda bit her lips till the blood came; and as they were still gazing at each other in the direst consternation, Mr. Timothy Rooney entered the apartment, clad in a bulgy Ulster that had known fairs and markets and race-courses for several previous years, a felt hat of an essentially rakish and vulgar description, his pants shoved into his muddy boots after the fashion of a Texas ranger, while his hands were swollen and the color of beet-root.

“Company, be the hokey crikey!” he exclaimed, as he advanced to embrace the reluctant hostess. “Ah! Mary, ye didn’t expect me,” giving her a kiss that made the glass drops upon the chandelier jingle again.

“No, we didn’t expect you, Tim,” gasped his sister.

“No, of course not. Shure I sent ye a telegraph that that villyan of a Phil Dempsey drank me best cow on me—tellin’ ye that—”

“Won’t you take some dinner in your own room?” interposed his niece, now the color of a peony.

“Come over here and kiss your uncle, ye young rogue. Up-stairs, indeed! What would I do that for?”

“You are not exactly dressed for dinner.”

“Oh! I’ve a shirt on under this Ulster, and I’ll show a bit of the bussom, as the man said, never fear. Well, Mickey, me hearty, how goes it? Put it there,” extending his beet-root fist to his brother-in-law.

“My brother, a regular character, immensely wealthy; obliged to put up with his ways,” explained Mrs. Casey, while her daughter retired with Mr. Rooney, with a view to inducing that gentleman to refrain from again putting in an appearance.

“A very fine, joyous son of the Emerald Isle,” cried the colonel, helping himself to champagne.

“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major, following the good example of his senior officer, “we had just such a joyous, devil-may-care fellow in the Tenth. He resided in the bungalow with me, the compound being in common. One morning, while enjoying chotohassary—the major aired his Indian experiences and Hindoo acquirements upon all occasions— I happened to call my kitmagar as well as my consumar, who was—”

The narrative was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Rooney and his despairing niece. Tim had given his face what is commonly known as a “Scotch lick,” causing it to shine again. He was about forty years of age, rough-looking as a Shetland pony, and a “warm man”—_i.e._, the possessor of a few thousands in the bank and of a well-to-do, well-stocked farm.

“I’m tidy enough now, I think; at all events, yer friends will be aisy on a traveller. Why don’t ye introduce us, Mick? Where are yer manners?”

He was presented in due form by the abashed Casey, and, after having shaken hands with all round, commenced a vigorous attack upon a slice of turbot with his knife, plunging that useful instrument two or three inches into his mouth at every helping, until Miss Beamish, who was seated opposite, shuddered with apprehension.

“Is there anything the matter with ye, ma’am?” he demanded, upon observing a ghastly contraction of the muscles of her face.

“N-nothing,” she stammered.

“Ye haven’t got a pain?”

“Uncle, help yourself to champagne,” shrilly interposed Matilda.

“Pshaw! get me some whiskey, me pet,” adding, as he winked facetiously upon Mrs. Bowdler, “_champagne is taydious_.”

“By and by, uncle,” said the agonized girl.

“A little drop wouldn’t harm Miss Baymish there, Matty; she looks as if—”

“Take some more beef, Tim,” put in Mrs. Casey.

“Well, just wan skelp more, Mary. Room for wan inside, as the man said.”

When the ladies had retired Mr. Rooney stretched his legs beneath the table and his body on the chair until his chin was nearly on a level with the table.

“Now, Mickey, in with the hot water, and let the girl put a kettle under the pump. Are ye fond of sperrits, major?”

“Well, the fact is that spirits don’t agree with me.”

“Oh, then, Mickey Casey has some that will oil the curls of yer wig for ye.”

“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major hastily, “there happened to be a very rollicking, gay, charming fellow of our mess, who shared my bungalow with me—the compound being in common. One morning I was engaged at chotohassary and—”

“What the dickens is chotohassary?”

“Breakfast, Mr. Rooney.”

“I never heard it called by that name before. Go on, you old son of a gun.”

“Well, sir,” continued the major somewhat stiffly, “I had occasion to call my kitmagar.”

“Kit who?” asked Tim.

“Kitmagar, one of my servants.”

“An Irishman, of course.”

“No, sir, a Hindoo.”

“Well, this flogs; are ye listening to this, Mickey?” addressing Casey, who had drawn off the colonel.

“Am I listening to what?” asked the host rather gruffly.

“To this old fogy here.”

“Really, Mr. Rooney—” began the offended major.

“Don’t mind him, Major Beamish,” cried Casey, “but pitch into the claret; it’s Château Lafitte of a comet vintage. At least, Redmond told me so, and he ought to know.”

“It’s a very fine wine, Casey—a soft wine, sir, in superb condition, and heated to perfection,” observed the major, tossing off a glassful and quickly replacing the goblet.

“Goes down like mother’s milk,” added the colonel, following suit.

“Well, major, go on about Kit Megar,” urged Rooney.

“Coffee is in the dhrawin’-room, jintlemin,” yelled Fogarty, entering.

“Well, let it stay there, Luke.”

“Shall we join the ladies?” asked Casey, with a society air.

The colonel looked at the major, the major looked at the colonel, and both looked at the claret jugs.

“Oh! hang it all, no,” responded the major; “this wine is too good—much too good.”

“More power to yer elbow, Baymish! An old dog for a hard road,” laughed Tim Rooney. “Eh, Luke, this is a knowing old codger.”

Mr. Fogarty, being thus appealed to, gave a willing assent: “Up to every trick in the box.”

After the gallant warriors had sufficiently punished Casey’s cellar they repaired to the drawing-room. As they ascended the stairs they compared notes.

“Did you ever meet such a queer customer as this brother-in-law?”

“Never. He’s the most vulgar, insolent blackguard I ever encountered.”

“He has lots of money.”

“I wonder does he play loo?”

“We can ask him.”

“He’d play a lively game.”

“And could be plucked like a green gosling.”

To the intense relief of the Casey family, Mr. Rooney stoutly refused to adjourn to the upper regions, but remained in the dining-room smoking a short clay pipe and drinking whiskey-punch.

Miss Beamish, upon hearing that he was enormously wealthy and unmarried to boot, began to build a castle in Spain, in which she figured as châtelaine, while the uncultured proprietor was gradually toned down by those feminine influences which smooth the angles of the most rugged natures.

“I _do_ like this child of nature, Miss Casey,” she gushed; “it is sweet to hear the wild bird in the full, untutored sweetness of its note. Shall we see your uncle again to-night?”

“I hope not,” was Matilda’s reply.

“Oh! why? He reminds me so much of an _arrière pensée_, a bright oasis in the desert of my life, that I feel as if I could—but why recall recollections that are fraught with bitterness, why strike a chord which produces but—discord?” letting her pointed chin drop upon the bog-oak necklet, which responded by a dull rattle.

Matilda played for the major—who marked her as the successor of the late Mrs. B——, wagging his be-wigged pate to the music and applauding with maudlin vigor.

“Exquisite! Divine! When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” And he jogged over the same road, to arrive as far as the consumar, when Mrs. Bowdler intimated that it was time to leave.

“But ye won’t go without supper? Just a sandwich and a glass of wine,” entreated Mrs. Casey.

Of course they wouldn’t go, and they didn’t go until they had partaken largely of both.

“Never was more charmed in my life,” exclaimed the colonel, as he bade good-night. “Right glad I refused Lord Howth.”

“I thought it was the commander-in-chief,” said Mrs. Casey artlessly.

“Ahem! of course, and so it was; but I have so many invites, you see, that I forget.”

Gentlemen who draw upon their imagination for their facts must needs possess accurate memories.

“You’ll all dine with us on Christmas day,” said Mrs. Casey.

“Oh! yes, _do_, please,” added Matilda.

“Do, colonel; do, major, like good fellows,” urged Casey.

“Well, really, my dear, I don’t know what to say,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowdler, “but I fear we cannot get out of going to Lady Meath’s.”

“Oh! hang Lady Meath; _you_ may go to her, I’ll come here,” laughed the colonel.

“It’s fixed,” said Casey; “and you, major?”

“I couldn’t say no to such a good offer. When I was quartered in Dum Dum—”

“Is this old fogy at it still?” asked Tim Rooney, emerging from the dining-room into the hall where they were now all assembled.

“We are coming to dine here on Christmas day, Mr. Rooney,” said Miss Beamish, casting a languishing look at him.

“Are ye? Thin upon me conscience ye’ll git a tail end of beef that will feed you for a fortnight—wan of me own cows. And all Mary here has to do is see that the wisps of cabbage is plenty.”

With great hand-shaking, and a general buzz of pleased excitement, the guests took their departure.

“What a success!” exclaimed Matilda, throwing herself on a sofa that had been wheeled out of the dining-room into the hall in order to make room, “except for”—nodding towards Tim, who was endeavoring to light a bedroom candlestick with a singularly unsteady hand.

“They all took to him,” whispered Mrs. Casey.

“I never got such a turn as when he came in. O mamma! I thought I should have died.”

“Well, aren’t the Bowdlers nice, agreeable people, Matilda?” demanded Mr. Casey.

“Delightful, exquisite! Such elegant refinement. And the Beamishes are equally well bred.”

“That major is a downy old bird.”

“He is a most perfect gentleman. How he did praise my playing!”

The Caseys did not see much of the Bowdlers during the next few days, the colonel having over-eaten himself, and his wife being laid up with an attack of bronchitis; but Major Beamish and his daughter were most constant in their attentions, calling, staying to dinner, going to the theatre—Casey paying for all, cabs included—coming home to supper, and other attentions equally delicate and one-sided. The major was very _prononcé_ in his manner toward Matilda, who, while she accepted his homage, did not for a moment imagine it meant more than that excessive and chivalrous politeness which distinguishes the _vieux militaire_ of any nationality.

Miss Beamish lay in wait for Tim Rooney, and spun her web as deftly as the uncouth movements of this desirable fly permitted. She adroitly learned his hours for going out, and invariably intercepted him.

“I’m always meeting that wan,” he observed to his sister. “She’s for ever in the street.”

“She’s a very elegant lady, Tim.”

“Elegant enough, but, as tough as shoe-leather.”

By degrees, however, the fair Circe interested him, and when the others were engaged in listening with rapt attention to the major’s oft-repeated story commencing, “When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” Tibie Beamish, eyes plunged into those of the Tipperary farmer, would hang upon his accents as he detailed his own “cuteness” in the purchase of a drove of heifers at the great fair of Ballinasloe, or how he palmed off a spavined pony upon a neighboring but less wide-awake grazier.

If a woman wants to win a man, let her listen to him, if he be fond of narrating his personal experiences; and what man does not revel in _ego_?”

“She _is_ a nice little girl, Mary, and is not above learning a trifle. I’ll be bail she could go into Ballinasloe fair next October and finger a baste as well as that villyan Phil Dempsey, from the knowledge I give her.”

The spell was working.

* * * * *

Christmas day came, bright, crisp, and joyous. Snow had fallen for the previous few days, and was now hard and shining in the streets, rendering walking somewhat hazardous and sliding almost unavoidable.

Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler arrived very early at Merrion Street—in fact, just in time for luncheon—and by a strange coincidence Major Beamish and his daughter dropped in almost at the same moment. A walk was proposed, but abandoned, and the party, broken up into two camps, sat chatting around the fires in the back and front drawing-rooms.

Everybody is hungry on Christmas day. Everybody thinks of the boiled turkey, Limerick ham, roast beef, plum-pudding, and mince-pies. Why, then, should the guests of Mickey Casey prove an exception to the rule?

Fogarty announced the dinner in a voice that savored of a joyous anticipation. He had had a private and confidential snack with the cook, but merely enough to make him wish for more.

“That’s me tail end of beef,” exclaimed Tim Rooney, as the huge mound of golden fatted meat was uncovered, behind which the host sat in a state of total eclipse—“that’s me tail end, and a lovelier baste never nipped grass, nor the—”

“Will you carve this turkey, Tim?” interrupted his sister.

“To be sure I will, Mary; but ye must let me do it me own way,” divesting himself of his coat and proceeding to work with a will.

“O Tim!”

“O uncle!”

“Let him alone,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowdler, whose teeth were watering for a slice of the breast. “Such a gigantic bird requires to be carved _sans cérémonie_.”

“When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” began the major.

“See here, now, me ould codger, we’ve had enough of that singsong.”

The major smiled grimly and tossed off a glass of Amontillado.

“You _are_ a character, Rooney,” he said.

Tim acquitted himself admirably, cutting the bird and innumerable jokes at the same time, many of them of a personal nature, such as allusions to the gallant major’s wig, which he called a “jasey,” the scragginess of Mrs. Bowdler, and the rosy tip at the extremity of the colonel’s nasal appendage. However, as everybody was in good-humor, his _facetiæ_ passed off without exciting ill-feeling, and all went as merry as a marriage-bell.

The dinner had disappeared, and the company sat tranquilly over the dessert. Tim, having resigned his post of honor, returned to his chair beside Miss Beamish, to whom he whispered a good deal, to the intense amusement of his brother-in-law, who declared that Tim Rooney had been hit at last.

“There’s many a true word said in jest, Mick,” retorted Tim. Miss Beamish hung down her head and tried to blush, and, failing in this, essayed a cough, which proved more successful.

“Oh! Tim is an old bachelor,” cried Mrs. Casey, “and a most determined one.”

“It’s never too late to mend, Mary.”

“_You’ll_ never mend, Tim.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” ogling his fair neighbor, who again tried a cough, which, however, terminated in a hoarse gurgle.

Tim Rooney was possessor of twenty thousand pounds, all in the Bank of Ireland. His farm was valued at ten thousand, and his stock at five thousand more. He was Matilda’s godfather, and, as a matter of course, all these good things would revert to her in time. It was a standing joke at Merrion Street that Tim should get married without delay.

“Not a bit of it,” he would retort. “I’ll keep looking at them during the winter, and I’ll take another summer out of myself.”

His joking now on the subject of Miss Beamish was exquisite fun to the family of Casey, who enjoyed it only as family jokes _can_ be enjoyed.

“You’ll ask me to the wedding, uncle?” said Matilda.

“Sure you’ll be a bridesmaid, Matty.”

“And you’ll have to give me a new dress, a real Parisian one; won’t he, Miss Beamish?”

Miss Beamish bashfully tittered.

“When is it to be, Tim?” asked Mr. Casey.

“Next Thursday, then,” he grinned.

“That’s mighty quick.”

“Delays is dangerous.”

“Right, Tim,” cried Casey. “If I hadn’t asked your sister on the Friday, Joe Mulligan, the tailor would have—”

“Papa, _do_ see that Colonel Bowdler takes his wine,” almost shrieked Matilda.

O agony! he was about informing their patrician guests that his rival had been a—tailor!

“Well, see here, Mickey, and see here, Mary, and see here, Matty,” said Mr. Rooney, rising, “I’ll give ye all a toast.”

“Oh! toasts are vulgar; are they not, Colonel Bowdler?” interposed Matilda.

“Well, ahem! except upon special occasions they are not in vogue,” replied that gallant warrior.

“Well this _is_ a special occasion, and a _very_ special occasion”—Hear! hear! from the host—“and wan that calls for particular mention; an’ it’s health, long life, and happiness to Mrs. Tim Rooney that is for to be. Ye must all drink it on yer legs.”

Anything to humor Tim, now that the Bowdlers and Beamishes tolerated him. So with much laughing on the part of the gentlemen, and much giggling on the part of the ladies, the toast was drunk with all honor.

“And now, Mick, Mary and Matty,” cried Tim, “I may as well let the cat out of the bag. Me and Miss Tibie is to be married on Thursday.”

Had a bombshell fallen in their midst greater consternation could not have shown itself upon the countenances of the Casey family.

“Yer not in airnest, Tim,” said Casey, endeavoring to smile a sickly smile.

“Tim must have his joke,” observed Mrs. Casey, her face as white as a sheet.

“Uncle is _so_ full of fun,” tittered Matilda, dire apprehension in every lineament.

“It’s no jest; is it, Tibie?” asked Tim of his _fiancée_.

“No, Timothy, I am proud to say it is not,” responded Miss Beamish, placing her hand in the arm of her lover.

* * * * *

“And to think I gave that Bowdler a hundred pounds for to lose us forty thousand,” groaned Casey, as, seated with his weeping wife and daughter, he grimly surveyed the wedding-cards of Mr. and Mrs. T. Rooney. “This comes of yer infernal tomfoolery wantin’ to get into society that wouldn’t touch ye with a forty-foot pole. Serve ye right.”

“Serve us right indeed!” echoed the two ladies.

CATHOLIC “CIRCLES” FOR WORKING-MEN IN FRANCE.

Immediately after the German invasion and the Paris Commune there existed already at Paris a Catholic “Circle” of working-men, distinct, if not in appearance, yet in reality, from the associations of young apprentices called by this name, or under the more appropriate one of _Patronages_. It was, in fact, a working-men’s association—a little Christian republic; self-governing, by means of a council chosen from among its own number, the members of which council were considered as irremovable. On its festivals the whole association assembled in the chapel belonging to the circle; there its elected functionaries were received into office at the foot of the altar, there they made frequent communions, and thence, in accordance with the customs of the ancient confraternities of craftsmen, they bore in procession the banners of their patron saints. There were formed earnest men, accustomed to hear the language of duty, and ready to make the sacrifices it demands, as those of their number who died in the war had testified, as well as the many more who did not cease to incur, with patience and steadfastness, the persecutions of their scoffing companions in the ateliers.

This association was the work of a religious of the Institute of St. Vincent de Paul—M. Maignen, Director of the Circle of Montparnasse. The subscriptions of the circle, however, which had previously sufficed for its support, were unequal to the burden incurred by its installation, and the external subscriptions which had hitherto aided it had become few in number and small in amount.

M. Maignen then resolved to assemble in council, on the evening of Christmas day, a group of capitalists, among whom were three deputies, three well-known writers, and three military officers, scarcely known to each other except by name; but they were all good and earnest Catholics, and had, moreover, suffered and fought for their country. After uniting in prayer they resolved to seek, in the definitions of the church in regard to her relations to civil society, the germ of the sole social force capable of saving France from the consequences of her errors; and this force, they decided, should be constituted in the form of Catholic Circles for Working-men, similar to the one in which they were met together.

They began, in the first place, by addressing to the Holy Father the expression of their resolution, to which he granted his benediction. In the next they sent, by thousands of copies, an energetic appeal to all “men of good-will.” “The revolution,” they said, “has descended from the brains of (so-called) philosophers into the minds of the people. Are we to leave our misguided working-men to perdition—a perdition in which they will also involve their country—or, by drawing a supernatural strength from the heart of Jesus—himself a working-man—shall we not oppose the associations of men who love darkness rather than light by the Catholic Association, and meet the lessons of materialism by those of the Gospel, and a cold cosmopolitanism by the love of our country?”

Then the little group of men who signed the engagement further united themselves by a religious bond—the daily recital of a prayer, and an annual communion for the intentions of the work, the duties of which the members distributed among themselves according to their respective facilities.

Each section set to work under the direction of a chief: the first for the general promulgation of the work, the second for its foundations, the third for the creation of resources, and the fourth for the popular diffusion of its teaching. The sections worked independently of each other, but met in committee when there was any need for arranging or deciding as to any general plan of action. For the purpose of directing and controlling the action of the fourth section the committee also appointed a council under the name of _Jésus-Ouvrier_. Thus the work was constituted in its first _committee_—that is to say, the first association of the directing class—on the principle of its first “circle,” the Catholic declaration and the division of responsibilities, and, lastly, as a sign and pledge of the union of the active members of the work, the religious bond.

The association thus organized bore marvellous fruit, and in a few months the committee found itself able to relieve the Cercle Montparnasse by creating two similar ones in the quarters (of evil notoriety) of Belleville and Montmartre, which were chosen with the intention of a public expiation, and to furnish each of the circles with a council of its quarter.

This was the golden age of the work, which was, as it were, crowned by the high testimony it received at the Congress of Directors of the Catholic Working-men’s Associations assembled at Poitiers under the auspices of Mgr. Pie. It obtained also an exceptional _éclat_ from the remarkable eloquence of one of its initiators at the Cercle Montparnasse—the intrepid Count Albert de Mun—as well as from the fact of there being several other military officers among them. The work appeared to be marked with a providential character, having at its outset the stamp of trial, followed by that of rapid expansion, and possessing another in the saintly character of its first founder; for, although God may be pleased to employ unworthy instruments to promote his merciful designs, it will always be found that, in the first instance, they have been deposited, as in a chalice, in a holy and devoted soul.

The impetus was given. The large towns of France answered the appeal by requesting the initiators to form, within them, committees like the Directing Committee at Paris. The principles of the constitution never varied; _i.e._, Catholic affirmation by the acceptance of the religious bond, and the general bases of the work, division of labor among the members of the local association, and periodic communication with the secretariate general.

This in a short time was carried out at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Lille, and many other places of importance, numerous smaller towns, and even villages, asking for the same institution. And everywhere it bore fruit, the formation of a committee being in every instance followed by the opening of a circle.

At the same time the Council of _Jésus-Ouvrier_, and, following its example, the committees of the large towns, opened public conferences in popular quarters, where the people were addressed in frank and energetic language, inspired by the intimate union of religious and social faith, and the doctrines of liberalism boldly denounced, which substitute for the precepts “Love one another” and “Bear ye one another’s burdens” that of “To each according to his work”—a maxim good enough in itself, but which the employer translates into “Each one for himself,” and the employed into “My turn next for enjoyment.” These declarations, repeated simultaneously in all parts of France, gave the work a remarkable unity of spirit, which was amply manifested at the first general assembly of its members, held in the spring of 1873.

Difficulties, however, arose in proportion to the progress made. Few adherents were obtained from among the manufacturing chiefs, on whom depends the whole economy of the working-classes; while the committees, formed of men little accustomed to study the laws of labor, did not well observe its divisions, and thus dwindled away. That of Paris, to which had been allotted the most complete autonomy, and which was more especially devoted to the general propagation of the work, gave way beneath its accumulated burden.

“We then” (to quote the words of one of the members in his address to the Congress at Rheims)—“We then turned our eyes with confidence to her who is the help of Christians, our ever Blessed Lady, resolving to go all together and invoke her aid in one of the sanctuaries of France where she has most anciently manifested her power, and where formerly the kingdom was dedicated to her by a solemn vow—Notre Dame de Liesse. The funds of the Paris committee were already exhausted and the year only half over. We collected ten thousand francs, and unhesitatingly devoted them to defray the expenses of this distant pilgrimage.

“The committees of the north were invited to join it at the head of the circles they had formed, and on the 17th of August, 1873, twenty-five hundred pilgrims arrived from their respective towns to form one procession to Notre Dame de Liesse. Half of the number, in spite of the fatigues of the way, there received Holy Communion, and we returned with renewed strength and confidence to our posts.”

We will not here give a detailed account of the toils and progress of the year which succeeded the pilgrimage. A brief of the Holy Father confirmed the constitution of the work by the grant of duly specified indulgences attached to it; it also received the canonical protection of a cardinal of the church.

These favors brought a timely encouragement to the promoters of the work; for with its progress its trials also increased. Among the most painful were those of seeing it misunderstood by many persons who might have been expected to prove its warmest advocates. Some of these lost sight of its social character, and preferred to seek the good of a few individual souls instead of helping forward a Christian restoration of society; while others, again, mistook the part to be taken in the committees by the upper classes. “Of what use,” they asked, “is a committee, unless to provide resources for an ecclesiastical director?”

This is a question which has been frequently asked. But it must be borne in mind that if the circle establishes among its members social _fraternity_, the director could not himself alone represent its _paternity_. To do this would be to deter other Christians of the upper classes from the unmistakable command they have received to exercise this social paternity which they have from God in the very advantages of their social condition.

For why are riches and honors bestowed upon the few—why the benefits of education, of leisure, of cultivation of the mind—unless it be that they are to be consecrated to the moral guidance and material assistance of the classes who are deprived of such advantages? In regard to this social paternity, as in regard to that which creates the family, the priest must be the consecrator: but, in his turn, the father who would abandon to the priest the charges and responsibilities of the dignity which, by divine right, is his own, would only disappear from among his fellow-men to be confounded before the Eternal Father—he and the two complaisant accomplices of his culpable abdication.

After establishing social fraternity by the _circles_, and social paternity by the committees, it remained to restore the social _family_—that is, to associate Christian families in the benefits of the work, after having associated in it the _heads_ of families of various conditions.

The family is, in fact, the first association by natural right, and therefore every constitution which embraces it and does not take it for its foundation is vitiated and sterile. The founders of the work knew this, and were, moreover, not allowed to forget it by the daily reproaches they received—“You are destroying the family; you are destroying the parish!”—and what not. But how to reach the family so as to be of service to it instead of injurious was not for some time made clear. The Circle of Montparnasse, the prototype of the rest, had avoided rather than faced the difficulty by disposing of its active functions in favor only of its unmarried members. But this was plainly not the solution.

The solution had, however, been discovered, at no great distance from Rheims, in the great manufacturing region which has for the motive power of its machines the waters of the Suippe, for its boundary the extensive woods which form an oasis of verdure in the burning plains of Champagne, and for its population factory-men, who wander, at the bidding of the industrial fluctuations of the time, to and from the looms of the north, of Rheims, or of St. Quentin—a population exceptionally indigent, since the struggle between capital and wages, inaugurated by liberalism, has become the normal condition of the producer and the consumer.

In the hamlet of Val-des-Bois, in the centre of this district, an industrial family settled about half a century ago, and brought with it the example of every Christian virtue. Kind towards their workmen, generous even beyond their gains, Messieurs Harmel assembled around their vast establishment all the religious and philanthropic institutions by means of which it has hitherto been attempted to re-establish harmony in the world of labor.

As is but too frequently the case, they failed in this attempt completely. But they were not daunted, nor did they rest satisfied with their past endeavors; for, if they loved the working-men, they loved their Lord still more, and desired as earnestly as ever that he should reign in the hearts of those in their employ.

Not many years ago it occurred to one of them to introduce among the population of their factories—which did not count a single practising Christian—the principle of the Catholic Association. He determined to ask four men to join together to form the nucleus of a circle, and three young girls to be received as _Enfants de Marie_ and wear the badge. In proportion as the associations developed themselves he multiplied them according to the sex, age, and condition of each individual; and this with such success that at the present time the twelve hundred souls who people Val-des-Bois are united in a marvellous aggregation of pious confraternities, among whose members are made, in the course of a year, more than ten thousand communions, in the intention of making reparation to our Lord for the outrages he receives in the modern factory.

Then, also, as earthly goods are often increased abundantly to those who seek first the kingdom of God, the principle of Catholic Association applied to the families of the Factory of the Sacred Heart (l’Usine du Sacrè-Cœur)—for it bears this name—has realized there innumerable economical benefits, a fact which will not surprise those who know the power of this principle. Assistance of every kind, clothing, food, and fuel at very reasonable prices, schools free of expense to the parents, and occasional holidays for recreation, have brought with them, together with economy, the comfort also and prosperity of the families. All these institutions, economic, charitable, and religious, are governed by those personally interested. The _circle_, which brings together the fathers of families, is, as it were, the centre of this machinery; and the master, who is its motive power, associates with himself not only all the members of his own family and the chaplain of the factory, but also his principal employés, to fulfil the paternal function of a protecting and directing committee, and so to secure to the association the chances of continuance as well as the fruits of example. To this end delegates are annually appointed, who, under the presidency of the master, are the guardians of the corporation.

We will give the result of all these well-considered combinations in M. Harmel’s own words:[113]

“By the persevering endeavors of many years we have attained the end at which we aimed. Families are reconstituted, peace and love have taken the place of quarrels and disorder around the domestic hearth; the mother rejoices at the change wrought in her husband and children; the father finds in a new life the courage and happiness of labor; his home is delightful to him from the respect of his children, the ready cheerfulness of his wife, and the love of all. Economy has put an end to debts and created savings; the anniversary festivals of the family bring back that affectionate gayety and warmth which give repose amid the fatigues of life, and inspire fresh ardor to go bravely on the way. When we are in the midst of these good and honest faces transformed by Christian influences, we read there confidence and love, and thank the good God who has made the large family of Val-des-Bois.” Such are the experiences there obtained, as if to complete those of the Cercle Montparnasse.

Alone among the many excellent men who, after the war and Commune, arose to attempt some means of healing the internal wounds of France, the members of the _Œuvre Ouvrière_ took a solemn engagement, the terms of which were marked out with precision. Each member affixes his signature to an individual and public act of devoted adhesion to the doctrines defined by the _Syllabus of the Errors of Modern Society_. Preserved, therefore, from the liberalism which in reality puts oppression into the hands of the strongest, and the socialism which demands it for the masses, they will pursue more efficaciously than either of these the vindication of the popular interests, such as the due observance of the Sunday and the protection of the family and home, and, guided by grace and supported by prayer, will find Christian solutions for all the social questions of labor.

The work of the Catholic circles has set on foot a periodical for the study and discussion of these questions—namely, the review which borrows its title from one of the principles of the work: _L’Association Catholique_. It is open to all questions, but not to all doctrines, for a work which, at the head of its statutes, invokes the definitions of the Catholic Church cannot admit the errors which she has condemned. It numbers among its contributors some of the best social economists and solid Christian writers of the time, and thus provides weapons of proof to the polemics of the Catholic press, besides furthering the great social effort made by the association, which now reckons three hundred circles in all parts of France.

In conclusion, we would mention that it must be borne in mind that the important part in this good work is not the exclusive institution of circles, this being only the first and one of the different forms under which the principle is brought to act. That principle is the direction and protection of the working-classes by the higher and more educated, and the association of the interests of both, as opposed to the lamentable antagonism of the same different classes which is, in our times, the great difficulty of social government and the source of increasing disorder and conflict. These associations are intended to react, by every possible means, against the erroneous social theories so numerous and so impotent for good, and to bring into practice the only true and effectual social law—namely, conformity to the social duties of Catholics. Our religion has remedies for all evils; its practice is supreme political and social wisdom, and in the alarming state of society among the working-classes there cannot be, nor ever will be, found any other course to be adopted than to return to the rules of Christian life. It is evident, then, how wide a field is opened by such a desire breaking forth in the hearts and minds of fervent Christians such as M. de Mun and his friends, and it would be impossible to show in few words all that it has produced and is producing by the grace of God; and although this work of charity has originated in France, and at present exists only in France, it may, it is to be hoped, give rise to similar laudable efforts in all countries, where also, among their associations of Catholic circles for the working-classes, shall, as in this country, be raised the _labarum_ of Constantine and its sacred motto: “In hoc signo vinces.”

THE RIVER’S VOICE.

I.

Through the long hours the day’s strong life had flowed In sunshine, working good deeds silently, In clouds whose shadows set new harmony Among the hills—God’s justice’ old abode. Through mountain hollows had the wind swept down, Turning green leaves to silver in the sun, Winning the meadows in broad waves to run Where still unlevelled shone their grassy crown. The troubled river had no vision borne Of gleaming hill and tree-o’ershadowed shore; The birches, bending their lost mirror o’er, Met but the driven waves’ unwilling scorn; Yet heaven’s blue the broken waters bore, The breeze but strengthened as it hurried o’er.

II.

Lightening their labor with a careless song, Birds o’er the meadow swept with busy wing, Flashed in and out the forests’ sheltering, While clamorous council held the crickets’ throng. Swift fell the grass beneath the mower’s stroke To win its perfect ripeness ‘ere day’s end, When should, the harvest bearing, meekly bend The mild-eyed oxen ‘neath the unwieldy yoke. Broken with sound was even the noonday rest— Shrill-piping locust called imperiously, Impetuous bee proclaimed its industry, And blue-mailed flies pursued an endless quest; Only from throbbing river rose no song Blending its music with life’s murmuring throng.

III.

Day closed, and busy life lay down to rest. A shade that moved not held in cold embrace The yielding meadows and the hills’ calm face, About whose silence burned the cloudless west. No leafy murmur rose from darkening wood, Hushed the pure gladness of the robins’ trill; Called from low covert some lone whip-poor-will Only to heighten eve’s still solitude. The wind asleep, the quiet waters bore Vision of sky and mountains’ deepening shade, And touch of bending birches, softly laid, As the still stream gave back their glance once more. Clear, through the silence, drifted rippling tones— The patient river singing to the stones.

IV.

So, through the day, had flowed the river’s song, So borne the stream its burden of strong life Spite of its troubled waters’ windy strife— Heaven in its breast—and, as it sped along, Bearing its loyal service to the sea, Praising the stones that gave it voice to sing, With constant sweetness, whose soft murmuring, Unwearying ever in its melody, Was hidden in life’s song that filled the day With chords confused of labor manifold. Only with evening’s peaceful skies of gold Came the lost music of the river’s lay— Like some brave life whose sweetness but is known When holy silence doth world-sounds dethrone.

PAPAL ELECTIONS.

I.

The succession of the Roman pontiffs rests on the word of God; other lines of princes may fail, their line shall last until the end of the world. Still, although there will ever be a series of legitimate successors in the Papacy, the manner of succession has varied, being left to human prudence, which accommodates itself to times and places, yet ever under an overruling Providence that directs to its own ends no less the vices than the virtues of men.

The election of a pope is the most important event that takes place in the world. It affects immediately several hundred millions of Catholics in their dearest hopes of religion, and it touches indirectly the interests of all other people on the earth besides. In the pope the world receives a vicar of Christ, a successor of St. Peter, and an infallible judge in matters of faith and morals. The Papacy was always conferred regularly by way of election—from the chief of the apostles, chosen by our Lord himself, to Pius IX., now reigning, who was selected by the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church on the 17th of June, 1846. Between these there have been two hundred and sixty popes, if we follow the number given by the _Gerarchia Cattolica_, which is published annually at Rome.

On the 25th of July, 1876, our Holy Father, in a discourse to the students of the several colleges in Rome subject to the Propaganda, took occasion to speak quite earnestly of attempts that were being made in Italy to unsettle the minds of Catholics on papal elections by teaching that they were originally _popular_ ones, and that the natural right of the laity in them (which, it was asserted, had been exercised without question for twelve hundred years) was arbitrarily and unlawfully taken away by Pope Alexander III. The errors of this new schismatical party may be reduced to two points—viz., that the share which the people were once usually allowed to take in the election of sacred ministers was a right and not a privilege accorded by the visible head of the church to ages of faith and fervor; and that Alexander III. deprived the Romans of this right in the election of their chief pastor.

Let us state, in the first place, that it is heretical to maintain that the laity have a strict—_i.e._, inherent or divine—right to elect their pastors, and historically false to assert that such a right was ever allowed by the rulers of the church or was ever exercised by the Christian people. The authorities to confirm our statement are so numerous as to cause almost an _embarras de richesses_. Besides the great collections which are the common sources of ecclesiastical erudition—the Fathers, the councils, annals, papal bulls; the Bollandists, and particularly, as regards papal elections, the _Propylæum ad septem tomos Maji_; the works of Thomassin, Gretser, Bellarmine, and others—we may cite here Selvaggio’s _Antiquitatum Christianarum Institutiones_, lib. i. par. i. cap. xxi.; Mamacchi’s _Origines et Antiquitates Christianæ_, tom. iv. lib. iv.; and Colenzio’s _Dissertationi intorno varie Controversie di Storia ed Archeologia Ecclesiastica_, diss. vi. _Del preteso dritto del popolo cristiano nell’ clezione dei Sacri Ministri_.

The earliest manner of electing the popes was by the votes of the Roman clergy cast in the presence of the faithful, who assisted as witnesses to the godliness of the subject proposed, and to testify that besides his personal merits he was an acceptable person on account, perhaps, of his birth, his nationality, his appearance, or of some other adventitious circumstance which enhanced his popularity with the great body of the people, and would cause him, also, to be looked upon with less disfavor _by them who are without_.[114] Although these elections belonged to the clergy and laity of the Roman Church—or we should say, rather, to the higher clergy and the representatives of the laity—the relative rights or parts of each class of electors were not apparently determined by express enactment, but upon grounds of common sense and equity; such, for instance, as that _Episcopus deligatur, plebe præsente, quæ singulorum vitam plenissime norit, et uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione prospexit_,[115] or that _Nullus invitis detur episcopus_.[116] Bellarmine,[117] Sixtus Senensis,[118] Petrus de Marca,[119] and Thomassin[120] prove that the people’s part in such elections was more perfunctory than real, since testimony of a man’s good repute could be otherwise obtained, and that even an expression of preference was not always heeded; as we learn from the same Pope Celestine, who wrote to the bishops of Apulia and Calabria: _Docendus est populus, non sequendus; nosque si nesciunt, eosquid liceat quidve non liceat, commonere non his consensum præbere debemus._[121] The Roman people, then, did not and could not have, except by usurpation and abuse, a decisive voice in the election of the pope; for such an act is by God’s ordinance placed beyond the jurisdiction of the laity.

After the martyrdom of St. Fabian, in January, A.D. 250, the Holy See remained vacant for a year and a half, until in the month of June, 251, Cornelius was raised to that post of perilous dignity under a tyrant like Decius, who had declared that he would sooner see a new pretender to the empire than another bishop of Rome. This election, although made almost unanimously by all orders, gave rise to the first schism, because Novatian, who headed the rigorous party in the affair of the _Lapsi_, was consecrated bishop and set himself up as anti-pope. We have an invaluable testimony to the election of St. Cornelius from the pen of St. Cyprian: _Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et Christi ejus judicio, de clericorum pæne omnium testimonio, de plebis, quæ tunc adfuit, suffragio et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum virorum collegio, cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus id est cum locus Petri et gradus cathedræ sacerdotalis vacaret._[122] From this passage of the great Bishop of Carthage we can obtain, says Baronius,[123] a tolerably good idea of a papal election in the early ages. Prayers were first offered up to God to obtain his assistance in making a choice; the desire of the faithful, or rather of their representatives, and such testimony to the worth of the subjects proposed as they were prepared to give was heard; the wish of the Roman clergy, and their willing assent to the proceedings, were inquired into and sought; and after maturely weighing the for and against, the bishops of the vicinity, with any others in communion with the Holy See who happened to be in Rome at the time, went into executive session and gave the decisive votes—_in commitiis suffragia ferebant_. With regard to those among the laity who took part in these elections, we must observe that in the beginning, as long as the majority of Christians was composed of persons who had embraced the faith from pure and unworldly motives, whose aim was to behold the church prosperous and glorious, and whose charity, being yet warm, sought not their own end _but that which is another’s_,[124] the whole body of Christians who had reached mature years and belonged to that sex which alone had a voice in the church[125] gave their testimony and assent in favor of that one whom it was proposed to elect;[126] but the evils of anything like a popular election in a great city were so manifest[127] that attempts were soon made to leave the choice of such on the part both of clergy and laity—but earlier in the case of the latter order—to a select body or committee, a general suffrage being gradually superseded by the votes of approval given by the rich only and the high in station.

We find, perhaps, a germ of this even in the earliest times.[128] The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 365) clearly desired that the choice should be made by some definitely-organized body, and not by a mere mass-meeting; St. Leo and the Roman council of A.D. 442, and again the former in Epist. lxxxix.cvi., expressly mention the “_Honorati_,” the magnates at such elections.[129] The influence of the principal personages in a city was not to be ignored through the clamor of those who too often formed only a mob.[130] A letter of Pope Cornelius to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, has fortunately been preserved by Eusebius,[131] which gives us the exact number of the Roman clergy of every grade, and a clue[132] to what may have been the Christian population of Rome, in the middle of the third century. According to these precious statistics, there were then belonging to the Roman clergy 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists, readers, and _ostiarii_. Fifteen hundred widows and orphans were provided for by the church, whose children composed an immense population in the capital of the empire. Hence we may rest assured that deliberations for the election of the Roman pontiff could not have been open to all of either clergy or laity, but must necessarily, in the interests of good order, and by reason of the small size of places of public meetings then possessed by the Christians, have been confined to a select number.

The ancient records of the Roman Church reaching back to the beginning of the early middle ages, which have been published by Mabillon and Galletti, show us its clergy divided into three distinct classes—viz., priests, dignitaries, and inferior ministers. The priests were the seven cardinal suburbican bishops and the twenty-eight cardinal-priests; the dignitaries were the archdeacon and the seven palatine judges (prothonotaries-apostolic); the inferior ministers were the subdeacons, acolytes, and notaries without office at court. The laity was likewise divided into three classes—viz., citizens, soldiers, and commoners; _i.e._, the nobility, the army, and the Third Estate.[133]

After the death of Pope Zozimus, on the 26th of December, 418, a majority of the clergy and people elected the cardinal-priest Boniface to succeed him. A serious dispute immediately arose. Eulalius, the archdeacon, who, as such, had been practically the most important personage of the Holy See after the pontiff himself, and felt indignant at having been passed over in the election, held possession of the Lateran Palace, where he was chosen pope by a few of the clergy, to whose faction, however, _all_ the deacons and three bishops belonged.[134] The fear of future contests suggested to Pope Boniface I., who is described by Anastasius as unambitious, of mild character; and devoted to good works, to obtain from the Emperor Honorius, in the year 420, a rescript by which it was decreed that, in the contingency of a double election, neither rival should be pope, but that the clergy and people should proceed to another choice. The decree was almost textually inserted in the canon law.[135] This difference between St. Boniface and Eulalius, or rather the latter’s schism, gave occasion to the first interference of the secular arm in the election of the Roman pontiffs. St. Hilary, who was elected in the year 461, convened a council of forty-eight bishops at Rome, and, among other provisions for filling worthily the Holy See, declared that _no pope should ever appoint his own successor_. Despite this recent enactment, Boniface II.—in whose favor, however, it must be said that he sought to preclude, as even a greater evil than a passing violation of the canons, the threatened interference of the Gothic king, who wanted to put a partisan on the papal throne—called a council at St. Peter’s in the year 531, and there designated the celebrated deacon Vigilius as his coadjutor with future succession. Subsequently, repenting his action, he called another council, and with his own hand burned the paper appointing him.[136]

Although the actual naming of his successor by the pope has never been tolerated, there have been several, and some very opportune, cases in which a pope on the point of death has recommended a particular person, more or less efficaciously, to the body of electors as one well fitted to succeed to the vacant throne. This was done by St. Gregory VII., who proposed three candidates to the cardinals—namely, Desiderius, Cardinal-Abbot of Monte Casino; Otho, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia; and Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons—and particularly recommended the election of the first as the only one of the three who was in Italy at the time. Desiderius became Pope Victor III. Other similar, but not always equally successful, recommendations were made by popes of that era. In order finally to put the strongest official check upon the election of his own successor by a pope, Pius IV., after exposing in consistory his age and infirmities, reminded the cardinals that he was well aware how under his predecessor, Paul IV., the question was mooted whether this could be done, and that some theologians and cardinals held to the affirmative,[137] but that he would pronounce in the negative, and intended to issue a bull—as in fact he did, on the 22d of September, 1561[138]—declaring that no pope could do so, even with the consent of the Sacred College. His immediate predecessor had reaffirmed in 1558 an ordinance increasing the penalties of its violation, which had originally been passed over a thousand years before by Pope Symmachus in a council of seventy-two bishops convened at Rome in the year 499, forbidding, under pain of excommunication and loss of all dignities, to treat of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning pontiff.[139] From this we learn how some of the best and greatest popes have tried to frame such wise provisions as might assure an untainted election to the Papacy; yet they could not succeed in every case, because even the most stringent laws must be well executed to be effective, and must find docile subjects to obey them. The Romans do certainly appear to have been a stiff-necked people during many generations; and while we think it ungenerous continually to throw in their teeth the wretched opinion St. Bernard must have had of them, as we see by his treatise _De Consideratione_, addressed to Pope Eugene III., and hardly fair in the annalist Muratori to transfer so much of the blame for factious elections from the German emperors to the Roman populace, the least that even their best friend can honestly say is _that they might have done better_.[140]

The election of the pope, says Cardinal Borgia,[141] was perfectly free during the first four centuries, being made by the clergy in presence of the people; but in process of time, as the papal dignity increased in wealth and splendor of temporal authority, it often became an object of human ambition, of which secular rulers were not slow to avail themselves, that by iniquitous bargains and preconcerted plans they might bind, if possible, the priesthood to the empire, and derive the immense advantage of the spiritual power administered by a subject or a dependant. The first instance of direct interference by the state in a papal election—for the decision in the case of Boniface and the anti-pope was an arbitration invited by the church—appears towards the close of the fifth century. Odoacer, a Gothic chief of the tribe of the Heruli, having deposed Romulus Augustulus, in whom the Western Empire came to an end, was proclaimed King of Italy, rejecting the imperial style of Cæsar and Augustus for a title which he expressly created for himself. It would seem—although even this is not beyond dispute—that Pope Simplicius had requested Odoacer, in whom the powers of the state were now vested, to stand ready, in the common interests of order and good government, to repress the civil commotions which he foresaw were likely to arise after his death on the election of a successor. However this may be, the king went beyond a merely repressive measure, and, pretending that Simplicius had commissioned him to do so, published an edict on the pope’s death in 483, forbidding the clergy and people of Rome to elect a successor without his intervention or that of his lieutenant, the prefect of the prætorium. When, therefore, the elective assembly met in St. Peter’s to fill the vacant see, Basil the patrician came forward and claimed in his master’s name, and by virtue of the dying wish and even command of Simplicius, the right of regulating its acts and of confirming the election it might make. This pretension was firmly repelled, and, disregarding the tyrant, Felix III. was elected on March 8, 483. Baronius is of opinion that Simplicius never addressed such a requisition to the king, but that the story of his having done so was fabricated a few years later by the party of Lawrence, the anti-pope. The document purporting to emanate from Simplicius was rejected by a Roman council in 502 without further investigating its genuineness, than by exposing that it lacked the pope’s signature, and was in any case opposed to the sacred canons and _ipso facto_ null and void.[142] On November 22, 498, St. Symmachus was elected pope, but a minority set up a certain Lawrence, and both were consecrated on the same day. Civil strife was imminent, and, although the most regular mode of action would have been to call a council of the provincial bishops, delay was too dangerous, and the prompt interference of Theodoric was asked and submitted to.

Although this monarch was an Arian, he had protected the Catholics on many occasions, and had for prime minister the celebrated Cassiodorus, whose virtues, justice, and wisdom were renowned throughout Italy. Such considerations as these must have led the Roman clergy to submit a purely ecclesiastical matter to the court of Ravenna. On the advice of his minister the king decided that the one who had been first elected and had received the greatest number of votes should be recognized as the legitimate pope. Both conditions were verified in Symmachus. His first pontifical act was to summon a council in the basilica of St. Peter on March 1, 499, to regulate more effectively the mode of future elections. Seventy-two bishops, sixty-seven priests, and five deacons composed the council. Three canons were drawn up relative to this matter. By the first it was ordained that if any clergyman be convicted of having given or promised his suffrage for the pontificate to any aspirant during the pope’s lifetime he shall be deposed from his office; by the second it was provided that if the pope die suddenly, and a unanimous election cannot be reached, the candidate receiving a majority of the votes shall be declared elected; by the third immunity from prosecution was promised to accomplices who should reveal the intrigues of their principals to obtain an unfair election.[143]

Theodoric the Goth, having once been appealed to, now thought to take the initiative in the election of a successor to John I., whom he had left to die of starvation and neglect on his return from Constantinople, where he had spoken rather according to his conscience than in favor of the Arians, as the king expected. On his recommendation St. Felix IV. was elected pope on the 12th of July, 526. The Roman clergy and senate protested against this stretch of royal authority, although they had no objection to the nominee, who was simple, mild, and charitable. The affair was not adjusted until a compromise was effected under Athalaric, whereby the Roman clergy by their votes, and the Roman people by their assent, were to elect the Roman pontiff, who would then be confirmed by the king as a matter of course. The popes were elected in this way until the extinction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy in the person of Teias, who was defeated and killed by Narses, general of Justinian, in the year 553. The Greek emperor, having recovered his sway in Italy, continued the abuse, to which the Romans had submitted only through fear of the barbarians, and arrogated to himself and successors the right of confirming the election of the pope. Hence, as Baronius remarks, arose the prudent custom at Rome of electing to the Papacy those members of the clergy who had been _Apocrisiarii_—_i.e._, agents or _nuncios_ of the Holy See at Constantinople, where it was presumed they had won the favor of the court and become versed in matters of state. Thus the right of confirmation was reduced in practice to a mere formality, although in principle ever so wrong. In this way were elected Vigilius in 550, St. Gregory I. in 590, Sabinian in 604, Boniface III. in 607, and others who were personally known to the Byzantine rulers.

Avarice, or a love of money under some pretext or another, was a besetting sin of the Greeks, and from it arose a new and more degrading condition imposed on papal elections. The imperial sanction was given only on payment by the Holy See of a tax of 3,000 golden _solidi_, a sum equal to thirteen thousand dollars of our money.[144] The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, at the request of the papal legates to the Fourth General Council of Constantinople in 681, exempted the Holy See from the further payment of the tax. He was moved to do so by the sanctity of St. Agatho; but he still retained the assumed right of forbidding the pope’s consecration until his election had been confirmed. A few years later, however, he granted a constitution to Benedict II., his personal friend, and to whose guardianship he left his two sons, Justinian (II.) and Heraclius, in which he for ever abrogated this arbitrary law. The concession was ungratefully revoked by Justinian; and Conon, who was elected on October 21, 686, was obliged to ask the consent of the exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the emperor, to his consecration. This necessity generally occasioned a delay of from six weeks to two months. The exarchs of Ravenna, having command of the troops and the key to the imperial treasury in the west, felt themselves in a position to abuse authority and try to set up creatures of their own in Rome. Often did the Roman clergy and many popes protest against their irregular acts. The choice of Pelagius II., in 578, was not submitted to the customary ratification, because the Lombards around Rome had cut off all communication with the outer world.

The historian Novaes says that although the Holy See resisted the interference of secular princes, yet the turbulent spirit of the Romans, often stirred up by unscrupulous ministers or by the sovereigns themselves, obliged the popes to have recourse to these same princes to maintain order at their consecration. Nothing, we think, better confirms the necessity of a temporal dominion whereby the popes can exclude the exercise of foreign influence in Rome, and themselves vindicate the character of good government for which they are responsible. Papal elections were of an absolutely peaceful nature only after Goths, Lombards, Greeks, and Germans ceased to support an armed force in Rome or its vicinity. Guarantees are deceitful; and a mere personal sovereignty of the pope without a territory attached would be insufficient to assure the independence of the Holy See.

A very remarkable law found its way into Gratian’s decree, under the name of Pope Stephen, by which it is ordained that the newly-elected pontiff shall be consecrated in presence of the imperial ambassadors.[145] The learned are divided in their opinion about which pope passed this law. Baronius, Papebroch, Natalis Alexander, and others attribute it to Stephen IV., elected in 816; Pagi inclines to Stephen VI., _alias_ VII.; Mansi to Deusdedit, elected in 615; while some think that it belongs to John IX., because it is found among the acts of a council held by him in 898. Novaes suggests that this council may only have given a more solemn sanction to an older law. When Eugene II. was elected on the 5th of June, 824, he concerted with Lothair, son of the Emperor Louis, who had named him King of Italy and his colleague in the empire, to put a stop to cabals and disorders among the Roman people. He issued a decree enjoining upon the Roman clergy to swear fealty to the Frankish emperors, but with this significant reservation: “saving the faith that I have pledged to the successor of St. Peter”—_Salva fide quam repromisi Domino Apostolico_[146]—and not to consent to an uncanonical or factious election of a pope. The same pope also voluntarily offered to bind the Roman pontiffs to be consecrated in the presence of the so-called _Rex Romanorum_, if he were in the city, otherwise of his envoy.[147] Pagi thinks that this was done to propitiate in advance these growing monarchs of the north, and distract them from the idea of continuing the policy of the Eastern emperors, who, as we have seen, would not allow the popes to proceed to consecration until their election had been confirmed. Eugene’s act seems to us to have been a subtle stroke of diplomacy. While it flattered, by conveying the impression that the presence of Cæsar (as he was pompously called) or of his legates gave splendor and magnificence to the ceremony of consecration, it disarmed the emperor by implying the right of the popes to be consecrated at their own convenience; for if his meaning had been that the presence of the king or of his ambassadors were a necessary condition to the legality of the act, he would have deliberately placed himself and successors in the same relation to these new rulers that his predecessors had been obliged, though under protest, to assume toward the emperors of the East—which is manifestly absurd.

Nevertheless, both the Frank and Saxon emperors frequently claimed the right to something more than a mere honorary part in papal elections, which led to long years of party strife and discord between church and state. Leo IV., in 847, confirmed the decree of Eugene, although, on account of the Saracens around Rome, he was consecrated without waiting for the imperial ambassadors; and the same was the case, but without any ostensible reason, with Stephen V., _alias_ VI. This shows that the presence of the envoys was an honorary privilege, which conferred no authority to go back of or revise the election itself, as Hadrian III., Stephen’s immediate predecessor, expressly affirmed in a decree given by Martinus Polonus,[148] Mabillon,[149] and Pagi.[150]

It is but fair to confess that this decree is not considered authentic by all; but what historical document has not been called in question by some hypercritic or other, especially in Germany? That it is not apocryphal is shown by the fact that one of Hadrian’s successors—John IX., elected in 898—annulled it in view of the peace ensured by the presence of the ambassadors, and restored the earlier ordinance of Eugene.

The text of the canon law, and especially the passage _Canonico ritu et consuetudine_, has been often appealed to by Cæsarists and Protestant historians, as though it demonstrated that a papal election not made according to its requirements was uncanonical and invalid. In the first place, Cardinal Garampi[151] remarks that Eugene’s decree was a personal privilege _Advocatiæ_ given to the princes of the Carlovingian line; and in the second place Thomassin observes upon John’s decree[152] that the imperial ambassadors were not admitted to the election, but only to the subsequent consecration; that they were there to overawe the turbulent; and that in time their presence became a custom and was looked on as a part, so to speak, of the external rite of consecration. It had, besides, become so useful as a repressive measure against the enemies of the Holy See that it received the high sanction of being countenanced by the canon law itself. Pope Nicholas II., in the eleventh century, explained the text _Quia Sancta_ in the same sense. It must be said, to the discredit of the Othos and the Henrys, that they too often slipped from the _inch_ of privilege to the _ell_ of (pretended) right, and went so far as to interfere in a direct and absolute sense at papal elections, intruding some less worthy subjects into the Papacy; but when once these occupied the seat of Peter they were to be recognized and respected on the same principle that the high-priests were in the irregular age of the Seleucidæ and the Romans when they sat upon the chair of Moses. Yet even the imperial influence, says Kenrick,[153] was beneficially exercised in several instances, particularly those of Clement II. and St. Leo IX. Dr. Constantine Höfler has written a work[154] replete with information about the German popes and the physical aspect, the morals, manners, and customs of the Romans in their time. Charles Hemans’ books (we cannot seriously call them works) on _Ancient and Mediæval Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy_, while they show considerable acquaintance with the best authorities on the subject, manifest a detestable animus against the Holy See, which shows their writer to be as great an adept in the “art of putting things” as the far more learned author of the eight-volume _History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages_, Ferdinand Gregorovius. While the corruption of some popes and the depravity of the tenth century have been exaggerated by many historians, the condition of the Papacy at that time is certainly a warning against the interference of secular princes in the elections; for, as the great Baronius remarks (ad an. 900), _Nihil penitus Ecclesiæ Romanæ contingere potest funestius, tetrius nihil atque lugubrius, quam si principes seculares in Romanorum Pontificum electiones manus immittant._[155]

In the middle of the eleventh century a movement was begun to reform the method of conducting papal elections, which eventually limited them within the legitimate circle of ecclesiastical prerogatives, totally excluding the direct influence of the inferior clergy and the aristocratic and popular element of the laity. Pope Nicholas II., having assembled a synod of one hundred and thirteen bishops in the Lateran Palace in the month of April, 1059, passed a law to the following effect: On the death of the pope the cardinal-bishops shall first meet in council and with the utmost diligence treat of a successor; they shall next take joint action with the cardinal-priests, and finally consider the wishes of the rest of the clergy and of the Roman people. If a worthy subject can be found among the members of the Roman (higher) clergy itself, he is to be preferred, otherwise a foreigner shall be elected; so that, however, the honor and regard due to our beloved son Henry, now king, and soon, God grant, to be emperor, which we have seen proper to show to him and to his successors who may personally apply for it, be not diminished. If a proper election cannot take place in Rome, it may be held anywhere else.[156] In the year 1061 another synod was held, in which it was distinctly stated that the mere fact of election in the foregoing manner placed the elect in possession of plenary apostolic authority; consequently, the emperor’s confirmation was excluded, in the sense that without it the election was invalid. From this period, although the struggle was not yet over, the Papacy was completely emancipated from any kind of subjection to the empire. Alexander II., successor to Nicholas, did not communicate his election to the court; and although St. Gregory VII., glorious Hildebrand, did do so, it was partly from prudence in view of the excitement in Germany occasioned by the setting up of the anti-pope Cadolaus in resentment for his predecessor’s neglect, and partly from his sense of honor, lest it should be thought (since he had taken a principal part in enacting the statute of Pope Nicholas) that he availed himself of an advantage which he had himself created—artfully, as suspicious-minded persons might think—in anticipation of one day ascending the papal chair. He was the last pope who ever informed the emperor of his election before proceeding to be consecrated and enthroned. The great Catholic powers still continue to exercise a measure of influence in these elections, but of a purely advisory character, except in the case of those few which enjoy the privilege of veto, or the _esclusiva_, as the Romans say. At the Third General Council of the Lateran, held in the year 1179 by Alexander III., a most important advance was made in the manner of holding the elections. The right of the cardinals to elect, without reference to the rest of the Roman clergy or of the people, was affirmed, and a majority of two-thirds of their votes required for a valid election. This law was readily approved by the bishops and members of the council, and incorporated in the canon law, where it is found among the decretals of Gregory IX.[157]

HOW STEENWYKERWOLD WAS SAVED.

I.

A few straggling lights gleamed pale and fitfully through the stormy mist as the travellers came to the foot of the principal street in Steenwykerwold on the night of December 23, 1831. The wind howled fiercely and the place was apparently deserted; no one was found to brave the force of the sleety tempest save Floog and his companion, and the weather-beaten, broken-nosed “Admiral” that once did duty as figure-head for a Baltic trader of that name, and now stood sentinel at the door of Mathias Pilzer, the innkeeper, scowling defiance at the elements. The hail had drifted and accumulated in heaps against outlying angles of walls, and filled the narrow gutters. The progress of the travellers, which the storm had impeded, was now interrupted altogether and they came to a dead halt. The prospect was indeed discouraging, and the cheerless gloom of the situation seemed to enter into the soul of the boy; for he made a sudden movement towards a street doorway which afforded a little shelter, and, pulling his woollen cap tightly down over his eyes, began to cry.

“Ferret,” said his companion, “if you don’t stop that blubbering I’ll take you back again to-morrow to paint dolls at Mme. Gemmel’s; and see,” he added somewhat more soothingly, as he caught the flicker of a candle through Pilzer’s window, “here we are at the inn.”

The Ferret, thus threatened and consoled, brushed away his tears with his sleeve, emitting a muffled grunt. He had commenced with a howl, but, as if finding the pitch too high, he lowered it suddenly and ended with a sort of guttural, fractured sob; then seizing the other by the skirt, in this order of procession they reached Pilzer’s.

Boreas, Euroclydon, Eolus! whew, you gusty deities, your rude familiarities are the reverse of endearing, and we, alas! have not discovered the secret of propitiating you. Yet you deepen the enchanted halo encircling the ruddy fireside by the very force of contrast, as you wail dismally at the door, rattle the window-pane, or shriek down the chimney in your baffled efforts to effect an entrance.

The fatigue of their journey was soon forgotten by the wayfarers, their misery giving way to the placid emotions caused by an anticipated enjoyment of the warmth and well-earned repose so near at hand.

There was much to study in these two, _because_ there was so little to discover. The elder was a man whose appearance guarded with sphinx-like obstinacy the secret of his age. He might be thirty or he might be sixty—no one could tell, and it was abundantly evident that few cared. He was tall and spare, with features which, if remarkable at all, were rendered negatively so by the absence of all salient characteristics, except a certain peculiarity about the eyes, one of which was brown, and the other, the left, a weak, watery gray. Such was Floog, the only name by which he was known; if he ever had any other it is buried with him.

The other member of the _duo_, of whom you have had a glimpse already, was nicknamed “The Ferret,” by what authority I cannot say—probably according to the accommodating law of contrariety, for there was nothing pertaining to him at all suggestive of that sprightly little quadruped. The ideal curve of beauty was straightened and flattened into obtuse angles in his contour in a way to make old Apelles or Phidias lament, however prized he might be as a subject for the pencil of Teniers. His features, too, were wanting in the seraphic beam of Fra Bartolomeo’s cherubs. Nevertheless, in form and feature he was sufficiently quaint to make one laugh at and love him. At a little distance he resembled a well-stuffed pillow on short legs. On closer view a head was discernible, something like those sometimes seen on old-fashioned door-knockers. Large, puffy cheeks, half-hiding a pretty little turn-up nose, a pair of small but bright blue eyes, no eyebrows, but an enormous mouth, and still more enormous chin—these belonged to a face in hue and texture very like putty, and formed altogether a combination which, if not very beautiful, had this counterbalancing attraction: that it was somewhat out of the commonplace.

But no delineation of pen or pencil could do justice to his expression. The wells of laughter and of tears, assuredly close beneath the surface, were for ever commingling in his organization; and so evenly were the external symptoms balanced that my grandaunt, a close observer, who had seen him often (and from whom, by the way, we had most of these details), could not for the life of her tell whether he was going to laugh or to cry at times when, in fact, he had no desire or intention to do either, so indeterminate was his habitual and passive expression.

The wooden hands of Pilzer’s Dutch clock pointed twenty-five minutes past eleven as these itinerants entered. Mine host was half-sitting, half-reclining in a large, square, straw-bottomed chair just inside of and facing the glass door that separated the travellers’ parlor from the front part of his premises. On hearing them enter he slowly roused from his semi-lethargy, and, taking his long pipe from between his lips, eyed the new-comers with a dubious glance, as if not quite satisfied whether they were customers or cut-throats, when Floog, drawing nearer to the glass door, brought him within range of that gentleman’s mild eye and reassured him. Floog on his part hesitated with an embarrassed air, and looked cautiously around, as if he had got into a coffin-maker’s shop by mistake. Presently he plucked up courage, and beckoning The Ferret, who stood sniffling at the front door, to follow him, advanced and knocked timidly at the dividing door.

The presiding genius of the “Admiral” was a very Machiavel of innkeepers. An experience of twenty-seven years had taught him a system of deportment toward, and treatment of, his customers measured and regulated—a sort of mental gradient, of which the gauge was the prospective length of his guest’s purse; and, to do him justice, he seldom erred in his calculations. On opening the door and confronting the strangers it was plainly visible that he was about to commence at zero in his welcome; for there was little prospect of pecuniary reward in the appearance of the man, his speculative gains being rendered still more doubtful by the additional allowance of a liberal discount for the appearance of the boy. His first word of chilly greeting removed all misgiving at one fell swoop; for, true to his system, at zero he began.

“What do you want at this time o’ night?” Just then he caught sight of a large portmanteau or travelling-wallet which Floog on entering had deposited on the floor. It was a favorable diversion, for no sooner had Pilzer espied it than his scale ascended two or three degrees, and, without waiting for an answer to his first inquiry, he added in a slightly altered tone: “What can I do for you?”

“I want lodging for me and my nephew,” said Floog bravely, and with a cheerful disregard of syntax. “We can pay for it; we’re not tramps.”

“This is a lovely night, and a pretty hour of this lovely night to come looking for lodging,” said the innkeeper, with facile irony, at which he was an adept; “but if ye are respectable, and can prove it, and let me know what brings ye here when all honest folk is abed, I’ll see what I can do.”

If Floog considered the last part of this speech with reference to its applicability to the maker of it, he kept his thoughts discreetly to himself.

“We are strangers in the town. We arrived from Arnhem an hour ago, and this is the only public-house we can find open. This boy’s father, Mynheer Underdonk, the merchant, died in Amsterdam last Thursday, and they sent me a letter to bring the boy, and make no delay, as they want to make a settlement for him. You see,” he went on, growing confidential, “my brother left home eight years ago and no one knew what became of him. His poor forsaken wife died, and I took care of the orphan.”

All this he uttered rapidly, with few pauses, as if he had learnt it by heart. So he had. Alas! poor Floog, thou wert no hero, not even morally; but shall we, entrenched in a castle of virtue, thrown stones at thee? No, albeit there was no more truth in thy story than suited thy own purposes.

II.

The Ferret was of ancient and noble lineage. There, that secret is out. Frank like himself, his historian scorns the subterfuge of keeping it till the end for the purpose of giving _éclat_ to his exit, as they do in romances and on the stage. He was descended from Adam and Eve. This I am prepared to maintain in the face of the world, learned or unlearned. If any one wishes to be considered as descended from an oyster or an atom, we who are not so ambitious shall not cavil at their genealogy, but hope they find their protoplasms subjects of pleasant reflection. As for my hero, he was of a different breed. Whether the bars in his escutcheon were dexter or sinister did not concern him and need not concern us. Heraldry, in fact, disowned him; therein, however, heraldry was no worse than his own father. In his tenth year he was taken from the Asylum for Foundlings and indentured to Mme. Gemmel, who kept a manufactory of toys at Arnhem. On the day of his departure he went out into the large paved yard surrounded by an unbroken line of low stone buildings—his well-known and familiar playground, the only _Arcadia_ he had ever known. Now that he was to bid it and his childish companions a long good-by, he felt irresolute and the farewell stuck in his throat. He tried hard to be brave, while little Hans, his inseparable playmate and bedfellow, stood regarding him with a sullen scowl, as if he considered it a personal insult to be thus suddenly left alone. The poor Ferret was entirely at his wits’ end and quite dumbfounded. Another look at Hans broke the unutterable spell; for he saw stealing down the chubby cheek of that smirched cherub a big tear, marking its course by a light streak on his smutty little face. Gulping down his sobs and forcing back the tears that now suffused his own eyes, he laid his hand lovingly on the shoulder of little Hans, and, bending down until their faces were on a level, he looked at him, and said in a voice broken by varying emotions and the poignant sorrow of childhood:

“Don’t—don’t cry, Hans; and when—and when I earn a hundred guilders I will come back for you, and we will have lots of puddin’ and new clothes, and I will buy you a pair of new skates.”

Then taking from his trousers’ pocket all his treasures—a large piece of gingerbread and a small old knife with a broken blade—he pressed his little friend to take them, forcing them into his unresisting hand, looked around once by way of final adieu, and ran through the passage that led to the front hall, where Mme. Gemmel’s man was waiting for him, and left poor little Hans bellowing as if his heart would break.

The moral supervision exercised by Mme. Gemmel over her new charge was radical. Its cardinal principles were, first, the duty of obedience and gratitude, and, secondly, the healthfulness of abstinence. These principles she inculcated by precept and enforced in practice by prescribing due penalties for their infraction. The good lady taught her apprentice, by every means within her power, that his life-long devotion to her service would ill repay her for the inestimable blessing she conferred in removing him from the Foundling Asylum and taking him under her own fostering roof. She was mindful of his health, too, for among her sanitary tenets was one to the effect that butter is injurious to immature years; and this she was in the habit of persistently enforcing for the special benefit of her charge. Inasmuch as temptation is dangerous, especially to the weak, she prudently adopted preventive measures by removing at once the temptation and the butter whenever he appeared at meals. So well did he profit by her discipline that after six months’ involuntary practice of it he determined to run away.

In spite of these drawbacks, in spite of the discipline and the dry bread, he made famous progress at his trade, and felt an artist’s glow of enthusiasm whenever he finished to his satisfaction the staring blue eyes and carmine cheeks of his waxen beauties. He felt, Pygmalion like, able to fall in love with them, could he but find the Promethean secret—not, indeed, that his thoughts ever took the classic shape, for he had never heard of the old Grecian fable; these were only the vague and undefined feelings of his heart. True it is he had little else to love, so that his affections, being narrowed down to the dolls, increased for them in the ratio that it diminished for their owner.

Yet there was one golden hour in his leaden existence—the hour of nine _post meridian_, when he was dismissed to bed. Although behind her back he sometimes made faces at madame, and even went so far as to set up an image of her for the perverse pleasure of sticking pins in it, he forgave all at bedtime. After saying his prayers he would, with all the ecstasy of which his phlegmatic nature was capable, jump into his straw pallet, bound to solve an abstruse but agreeable problem which had engaged his thoughts nightly since his advent in his new home—viz., What to do with his first hundred guilders when he had earned them? But he never got much beyond the disposal of a twentieth part of the sum. That much he generously devoted to little Hans; but before he could decide whether the latter should have the skates, a miniature ship, a new jacket, or unlimited gingerbread, or all of these good things together, his fancies and finances became entangled. Hans’ face shone with guilders; gingerbread sailors, in blue jackets, floated serenely away in a big ship till quite out of sight; anon they trooped rapidly past his entranced eyes, now scurrying all together, now slowly one by one; then there was a blank; again starting into view, the last fleeting image swept softly down the dim vista, fading—fading—gone! and he was a king in happy oblivion.

Thus time passed tardily enough with The Ferret, the all-absorbing thought of his waking hours now being how to escape.

Among the customers of Mme. Gemmel was one who had had several business transactions with her. This was a peripatetic showman, the delight of gaping children at country fairs. His entertainment consisted of music (mangled fragments of opera airs on a weazened key-bugle) and his wonderful and versatile puppets. These latter, when they had become too well known as hunters and huzzars, he would transform into knights and ladies, or Chinese mandarins, as circumstances might require or fancy suggest. The transforming process was very simple; it consisted merely of supplying them with new costumes and coats—of paint—at Mme. Gemmel’s.

This worthy was none other than our friend Floog. Even such as he have their place in art. They are pioneers who lead to the base of an æsthetic temple whose dome is elevated in circling azure, surrounded by golden stars.

In the practice of his art, The Ferret it was on whom now devolved the duty of transforming Floog’s automatons and kindred jobs. Whether owing to the satisfaction he gave, or to the occult, and often unaccountable, influences governing our sympathies and antipathies, certain it is that Floog had taken a violent fancy to him, and determined to entice him away at the first opportunity. The showman’s moral sensibilities were, as has already been intimated, somewhat flexible, and yielded too readily, I am afraid, to the exigencies of the situation.

Alas! how rigid are the inexorable verities of history. I cannot picture him as I would—not even as a half-formed Bayard, who, if not quite _sans peur_, might be at least _sans reproche_; but as I had no hand in the formation of his character, I am not the apologist of his delinquencies. Did he recognize the violation of a right in his contemplated procedure? Oh! no; he placed his motive on a high moral pedestal, triumphant, unassailable—the interests of humanity, the welfare of the boy. He never told us how far _his own welfare_ entered into his calculations. He felt, therefore, no scrupulous qualms as to the rectitude of his determination. What puzzled him was the _how_. Of that, however, he had no notion. Indeed, his thoughts upon the subject, so far from assuming a practical shape, were rather the pleasant emotions experienced in the contemplation of a cherished project, leaving out of sight the means of its attainment, even the possibility of its realization. A few days previous to his appearance in Steenwijkerwold he left his puppets to undergo the customary metamorphosis at Mme. Gemmel’s, his head full of the pleasing fancy of securing The Ferret as a travelling companion and assistant. More than all this, he came to regard him with a rapture akin to that of an enamored lover for the mistress of his heart.

The short winter day was closing in misty and chill around Arnhem. Away in the northwest the sun was setting through yellowish fog into the gray cold sea; the restless wail of the wind was heard now and again, presaging a storm. It was about half-past four o’clock in the afternoon of this same day that Floog, undaunted by the threatening aspect of the weather, and pensively whistling his musical programme by way of rehearsal, arrived at Mme. Gemmel’s. He found, upon inquiry, that his puppets were not quite finished. Wouldn’t he wait? She expected them ready in a few minutes, and escorted him to the workshop in the third story, where they found The Ferret as busily engaged as his chill nose, his numb fingers, and the light of two tallow candles would allow. His mistress, after an authoritative command to her subordinate to make haste and finish his work, went down-stairs, leaving Floog to direct the work as he might see fit. The Ferret was shy by nature and by reason of his forced seclusion, and though the interruption disconcerted him a good deal, he made pretence of continuing labor without appearing to notice his visitor, whom he had several times seen, but never spoken to. Floog, after eyeing him a moment, asked if he was cold. The answer, though not quite courtly, was sufficiently explicit: “Yes, I am.” “Why don’t you work down-stairs in the back room, where ’tis warmer?” A frown passed over the boy’s face, but he made no reply. “Here,” said Floog in a kindlier tone, and, taking from his pocket a handful of lozenges, offered them to The Ferret, who hesitated a moment, looking at the donor, and then took them with a “Thank you, sir.” In that moment the child’s heart was gained and a deep sympathy established between the two, reciprocal, self-satisfying.

Floog was no more a diplomat than a hero; for his next proposal was illogical, and would have been startling but for the peculiar circumstances that rendered it acceptable. “Run away from Mme. Gemmel and come with me,” he said. The Ferret did not hesitate this time, but answered eagerly: “I will; I hate Mme. Gemmel. Let us go away now.” This ready acquiescence staggered Floog, who, not being prepared for it, was at a loss how to proceed. Gathering all his faculties to meet the requirements of the crisis, he tried to devise some means of escape for The Ferret; but the more he pondered the more undecided he became, till at length, in sheer desperation, he said: “When Mme. Gemmel sends you home with the puppets to-night we will go away together.” With that he hurried down-stairs, paid for the puppets, asked Mme. Gemmel if she would send them to his lodging, stating that he would want them for an exhibition early the next day. This the obliging lady promised to do, whereupon Floog took his departure, his agitated manner escaping the notice of the doll-maker, who, although she had the vision of a lynx for money, to everything into which money did not enter as a factor was as blind as Cupid. Less than two hours after The Ferret, Floog, and the precious puppets were all in the mail-coach, rattling along for freedom and Steenwykerwold.

As not unfrequently happens, mere chance afforded a better opportunity than elaborately-concocted plans would have done; for when, by appointment, The Ferret came, Floog precipitately, and without taking time to think of their destination, hurried with him to the coach-yard, where he learned that the night coach going north was ready to start, and secured passage for Steenwykerwold, whither Mme. Gemmel would be little likely to follow. So they arrived in the manner already related, amid hail and storm.

III.

After a storm comes a calm. Who was it that enshrined that remark in the sanctity of a proverb? This is like saying that day comes after night—a truism that most of us will believe without the aid of any proverbial philosophy. If the calm comes not _after_ the storm, a person disposed to be critical might ask, _When_ does it come? We will leave the solution of this problem to interpreters as profound as the proverb-maker, and follow the fortunes of Floog and The Ferret.

Calm _had_ succeeded storm as they turned their backs to the hostelry of Mijnheer Pilzer and bade adieu to its professional hospitalities. Not the listless calm of summer skies, of dreamy fields and waters. Clear and cutting, the icy air of morning quickened the nerves and caused the blood in livelier currents to tingle in the veins, so that even the sluggish Ferret, wincing, heightened his pace to a sturdy trot to keep abreast of Floog. The sun was up, burnishing the chimney-pots and sharp gables of the tall, bistre-colored houses, and converting into rare jewelry the fantastic frost-wreaths that adorned their eaves. Early as it was, the _Nieu Strasse_ was astir with pedestrians. The shop-windows, already unshuttered, were decorated gaily with ivy and palm. Unusual bustle and activity were everywhere discernible; and why not? Was it not Christmas Eve and fête-day at Van der Meer Castle?

It was a beautiful and time-honored custom at Van der Meer Castle on every Christmas Eve to give a party to all the children of the neighborhood. Rich and poor, lofty and lowly, all were welcome. But although all were welcome, all did not come. The children of the rich, and those who had the means of indulging in the season’s festivities at home, mostly kept aloof, or were made to keep aloof, lest they should incur by implication a suspicion of that fearful malady, poverty; for the light of nineteenth-century civilization had penetrated the by-ways of the world, and even Steenwykerwold had caught some of its oblique rays—those that distort instead of illuminating, by which poverty is made to appear as the sum of all social crime. Well, then, the poor children for many years had had the party and banquet all to themselves, and such, in fact, was the desire of their present entertainer.

The proprietor of the place and inheritor of its wealth and traditions was Leopoldine Van der Meer, who had been left an orphan in early childhood. I saw her once, and can never forget that sweet, serene face; for it is ineffaceably stamped on my memory. Although time had then added another score of years to her term of life, and sprinkled with silver the bands of dark-brown hair smoothed on either side of her placid forehead, still it dealt gently with that gentle lady, as if the old reaper had thrown down his reluctant sickle, unwilling to mark his passage by any tell-tale furrow, but softly breathed on her in passing, lulling her into a more perfect repose. At the time when the incidents I am relating took place, however, she was young and fresh and fair beyond expression. Her features, clear and well defined, possessed the delicate tracery and perfection of outline that sculptors dream of. Her air and carriage, her every gesture, from the movement of her shapely head to the light footfall, all queenly yet unaffected, might have inspired the genius of Buonarotti when he painted his wonderful Sibyls, while the gentle, half-shy, liquid gray eyes, tenderly glancing from behind their silken-fringed lids, would have graced the canvas of Murillo.

These external graces were but tokens of a kindly heart and true soul—a nature that imparted a breath of its own sweet essence to all who came within the charmed sphere of its influence. The festival looked forward to with such ardent longings by the young ones was now near at hand. It was Christmas Eve.

The festival was held in the spacious banqueting-hall of the castle—an oblong apartment, across the upper end of which extended a gallery for musicians, reached by a balustraded stairway on either side. The walls were gracefully festooned with wreaths of bright evergreens gemmed with haws and scarlet berries. In the centre stood a large table, upon which was placed a gigantic Christmas tree, sparkling with a thousand colored crystals and loaded with every variety of toy.

Floog, who was acquainted with the annual custom, desirous of recompensing his youthful friend, made haste to conduct him thither. The Ferret needed neither introduction nor credential, his age and appearance being sufficient passports. He was kindly welcomed and ushered in. The grand hall, beaming with lustrous lamps and adorned with varied decorations, dazzled his eyes. The splendor, the music, and the toys nearly overpowered him, and he stood as if fixed in a trance, so like a brilliant dream did it all seem, which a stir, a breath might dispel. Gradually recovering his dazed faculties, he began to revel in the thrilling sense of its reality—yes, real for himself as well as for the rest.

When the children were all assembled they were marshalled into ranks two deep, the girls first, and marched twice round the room, singing. It was a simple Christmas carol, the refrain familiar to most of them; for it had been sung on similar occasions by similar choirs from time immemorial, and is, I hope, sung there yet:

“Christmas time at Van der Meer, Love, and mirth, and pleasant cheer; Happy hearts from year to year Hail each coming Christmas.”

If any misgivings had crept into their minds that they were to undergo the trying ordeal of a regular school drill for the delectation of patronizing visitors, their apprehensions were soon quieted. With the song ended all the formality. They appreciated their freedom, made the most of it, and abandoned themselves to unrestrained fun in uproarious hilarity. The Ferret caught the infection. Though not quite recovered from the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours, he forgot it, forgot his little cares, forgot his solitude, forgot all in the blessed dissipation of the hour. Unfortunately, he outdid himself.

Floog had meanwhile betaken himself to the nearest tavern, intending to come for his little friend when the festivities were over. He did not retire to bed, but paid for a lodging on a settee in the tap-room. In a few minutes he was sound asleep. How long he slept he did not know, but some time during the night he awoke with a sudden start. A bell was pealing wildly in the still night air. A man partially dressed, his heavy shoes in his hand, dashed past and out into the street. Immediately there was commotion, and the sound of voices was heard in loud and eager discussion. In another moment the tap-room was full of men. Floog hurriedly arose, and, joining the excited group, they all went out. When they came to the triangular opening formed by the confluence of three streets—The Square, as it was rather inappropriately called—they were met by a crowd of men and women as anxious and excited as themselves, and all evidently at a loss what to do or whither to proceed.

Louder and more clamorous the bell rang out its portentous notes; fitfully and frantically it rang in the ears of the now aroused populace. All at once it would stop suddenly, but for a moment only, as if pausing to take breath and gather fresh strength; then it would recommence wilder than before, producing an effect weird and terrifying. It was the old alarm-bell at Van der Meer Castle.

This bell was very ancient, and it hung in a tower behind the castle, connected with it by an arched causeway. It was placed there in feudal times to call together the vassals and adherents of the place in cases of raid or invasion, if for no worthier purpose; and in later times a superstition attached to it that its reawakening portended some calamity, the nature of which, not being specifically stated, was left to conjecture, and gave scope to the prognostications of the wise-acres. Yes, these would say, with the self-complacent air of oracles, when the bell rings it will ring the death-knell of our liberties, and Holland will pass to an alien race. This was the interpretation generally received and accredited by those who had faith in the tradition—a goodly number, which included almost all the old inhabitants. On the other hand, many among the junior members of the community ridiculed the whole thing, scoffed at the prophetic legend as an old woman’s tale, and, spurred perhaps by what they termed the foolish credulity of the elders, who professed an abiding belief in it, they rushed to the opposite extreme, even to the extent of doubting, at least of denying, the very existence of the bell. At any rate it had long ago fallen into disuse, and those who heard it now heard it for the first time.

In the market square this old civic story was anxiously revived and earnestly discussed, while the ominous import of the ringing was speculated upon with troublous forebodings, even by the sceptical, and its inharmonious clangor added tenfold significance to its history. In the midst of the tumult the crowd swayed with a sudden movement, and presently began to waver and divide, as a stalwart form appeared, forcing a passage, and shouting with a persuasive vigor heard above the din: “To the dike! to the dike!” It was Peter Artveldt, the ship-carpenter. His words and example had the effect of an electric shock on the panic-stricken multitude. Shaking off their stupor, they followed him through the town, echoing his cry, “To the dike! to the dike!” and, gathering strength as they proceeded, soon reached the dike, half a mile beyond the northern limit of the town.

Imagination had diverted their fears, not allayed them; and, singular as it seems, no one thought of the dike until the voice of the ship-carpenter like a thunder-clap sounded a warning of the real danger. Up to that moment the dike was to them, as it had been for generations, the firm and effective bulwark of the land.

Their worst fears were realized. The water was flowing through several fissures in the dike, noiselessly stealing in upon the land, until it had flooded the ground up to the cemetery palings. This was not all nor the worst. A hasty survey disclosed the appalling fact that at one point the force of the storm had sapped the foundation; some of its stones, having been displaced, were lying loose in the soft sand and ooze. An instant revealed their peril and the imminence of the danger; had they been but half an hour later nothing could have averted their fate—Steenwykerwold would have been as effectually and irretrievably swallowed up by water as old Herculaneum was by fire, and sadder the story of its chroniclers.

However, it was not a time for reflection, but for action. With such implements as in their haste they had been able to provide themselves after the real nature of the danger became known, they set to work with a will, aided by the invigorating example of Artveldt, who with heroic energy put forth his strenuous powers and directed all their movements. In less than ten minutes they had felled four or five of the cemetery trees; breaking through the gate, they dragged these to the dike, making an effective temporary barrier to the advance of the cruel waters. Yet to guard against a possible recurrence of danger from a renewal of the storm or any untoward accident, until the damage should be permanently repaired, an organized force was appointed, divided into squads of eight, whose duty it was to watch constantly, relieving each other every six hours. These precautions completed, the multitude, in the delirious joy of their deliverance, grew wild with delight and manifested symptoms of frantic disorder. Here again the ascendent spirit of Artveldt made itself felt. “Brothers,” said he, “we have finished a brave night’s work; let us not undo it by making fools of ourselves. No; we will go peaceably to our homes, and a grateful country will say: ‘They were as orderly in the hour of triumph as they were brave in the hour of peril.’ Posterity will keep sacred your memory and look back with grateful eyes to this day, and every future Christmas will be happier for your deed.”

After this speech they were ready and willing to obey him. He now ranged the men in line of march, requesting them not to break rank until they reached Van der Meer Castle, where it was agreed they should disperse; then, with a long, full cheer, they returned triumphantly through the town, and _Steenwykerwold was saved_.

After having been hospitably entertained at the castle, and thanking Lady Leopoldine for the timely warning whereby the threatened disaster was averted, they gave a parting salute—three hearty cheers—and then, as agreed upon, quietly dispersed.

At that very time there was commotion within the castle. The eventful night was yet to be made memorable by another incident, as yet known only to its inmates, having been wisely withheld from the knowledge of the men who stemmed the fateful waters.

The ringing had some time ceased. Now, every one supposed that Lady Leopoldine had caused the bell to be rung, knowing or divining their danger; but such, in fact, was not the case. She no more than the rest mistrusted the safety of the dike. You may imagine, then, her terror when first she heard the appalling sound. Like a summons from the grave it smote her ear. Was it a summons from the grave? At first she could scarce refrain from thinking that it was, so strange and startling on the pulseless air of night fell the unfamiliar peal. Again she believed herself the victim of some wild hallucination. She rose at once and summoned the servants.

It was no illusion—they had all heard it; they could not choose but hear, and it was while listening in agonizing suspense that the summons of their mistress reached them. It was obeyed with more than customary alacrity. They all rushed pell-mell into the hall. Lady Leopoldine instantly dismissed her own fears and allayed theirs, and caused a vigorous search to be made.

The astonishment and alarm of the household will perhaps be more readily understood when it is remembered that the bell was entirely inaccessible. The tower was about sixty-five feet high, of somewhat rude construction. Walls of large, rough stones to an altitude of sixteen feet formed the base. Inside of these walls heavy oaken buttresses were placed, which had the appearance of strengthening them, but which in reality formed the support of the bell suspended above and hidden in a curious network of trellised beams. No appliances for reaching it were visible; and how it got there was a mystery. Indeed, the ringing of the bell on that night, as well as the bell itself and all its appurtenances, were regarded as very mysterious; and we may well excuse the simple-minded people, not yet imbued with modern materialism, if they conceived the whole affair to be the work of superhuman agency.

No one had entered the causeway from the house, it was evident; no trace of disturbance could anywhere be discovered. Two of the men, the coachman and his assistant, braver than the rest, volunteered to go into the passage and thoroughly examine the premises. Providing themselves with lanterns, they went round to the old door in the rear of the tower. One glance convinced them that no one had recently gone in that way. The bolts were firm in the sockets, wedged tight by the rust of a century. With much exertion they were forced back, the door was unfastened, and the men entered. The damp, chill air caused them to shudder, and their first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat. Pausing in doubtful perplexity of their next movement, afraid to advance, and ashamed to go back, they stood near the door, which they had considerately left ajar, fearing, yet hoping for some perceptible excuse to run. None came. The silence was broken only by the flutter of some startled bats aloft; the dingy walls alone met their scrutinizing gaze as they peered cautiously around, the glare of the lanterns shooting sharply-defined rays of yellowish gray light through the humid gloom. The first feeling of nervous trepidation past, reason asserted itself; they grew accustomed to the gloom and began to explore the passage deliberately and carefully. After having traversed it the entire length without making any discovery, they were about to retrace their steps when their attention was arrested by some fragments of mortar or plaster lying loosely on the flagged pavement about four feet from the further end next the house. These had the appearance of having recently fallen from the wall. Here was a probable clue. With renewed interest they now proceeded to examine the wall, and were rewarded by finding a small door, level with its surface and nearly concealed by a thin coating of plaster. On forcing it open they were surprised to find another passage, parallel with the main one, but so narrow as to admit of entrance only by single file. Another door, as secret as the first, opened from this narrow passage into a sort of recess behind the stairway, which, it will be remembered, led to the gallery in the banqueting-hall. The recess was known to the occupants of the castle, but never used by them. Its original purpose may have been a subject of momentary conjecture, but they did not trouble themselves much about it, being content, if they thought of it at all, to consider it an eccentricity of some former proprietor. Least of all did they dream of its communication with a hidden passage to the bell-tower. Following the passage back to the other end, their surprise was greatly augmented by the further discovery that, instead of opening into the main enclosure, like the large passage, as they naturally expected, it terminated in a sort of square sentry-box, enclosed at all sides except the top—in reality a large wooden shaft. It was no other than what appeared from without to be a combination of four solid beams. In it hung the bell-rope. _At the bottom lay the bell-ringer_, The Ferret, exhausted and insensible.

They carried him out into the hall. The mistress of the mansion sent at once for a physician, and, gently lifting his head, with delicate hand she chafed the poor pale brow and applied restoratives. Soon the doctor came, but his services were not needed.

Another morning dawned. Again the slanting daybeams pierced the misty levels. The vapor of earth, as it felt the ray, was dissolved into purest ether, and, restoring to earth its grosser particles, ascended calmly to its native sky. Thus, too, The Ferret’s Christmas carol, begun on earth, was finished in heaven, and another voice on that happy Christmas morning was added to the celestial choir singing, “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.”

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1877.

There is little beyond the Russo-Turkish war that will mark this year apart from others in the annals of universal history. Questions, national and international, that we have touched upon time and again come up now unsettled as ever. It is tedious and profitless to go over well-trodden ground; to repeat reflections that have already been repeated; and to attempt a solution of problems, social, political, and religious, that are still working themselves out. We purpose, therefore, in the present review to follow up a few of the broad lines that have marked the year and given to it something of an individual and special character. If these are very few, perhaps it is the better for mankind. The more nations are occupied with their own affairs the better it is for the world at large.

To begin with ourselves. We had a very vexed and very delicate problem to solve—no less than to determine, on the turn of a single disputed electoral vote, who was to be our President. The circumstances that created this difficulty were dealt within our last year’s review; they are in the recollection of our readers. On the casting of a single disputed vote lay the election to the Presidency of the United States. Such a contingency, accompanied as it was by peculiarly aggravating circumstances, had never before arisen in the history of this country. The wisest were in doubt what to do; the country was in a fever of expectation. The republic was on trial in itself and before the world. The written lines of the Constitution were found inadequate to meet so unlooked-for and peculiar a matter. It was not the mere fact of one disputed vote that was to turn the scale. There were many disputed votes, which rested with States whose administration was not above suspicion. Only in the event of all of these turning in favor of one of the candidates could the Presidency be awarded to him. Any one of them going to his opponent—who, as far as the votes of the people went, had a decided and unmistakable majority—would have settled the question at once. There was room and occasion for grave doubt on both sides. By mutual agreement of the representatives of the two parties that divide the country, a national court of arbitration, supposed to be, and doubtless with reason, above suspicion, was appointed to inquire into and decide upon the electoral returns. The court was chosen from both parties. It so turned out that a preponderating vote lay with one party. It might have rested with the other. It was a matter of accident; and it is to be hoped that, if not exactly a matter of accident, it was a matter of honesty that divided the court on each moot point into strict party lines, with, as final result, an award of the Presidency to Mr. Hayes, the Republican candidate. There the matter rested. The court had discharged itself of the very delicate task imposed upon it, and there was nothing left the country and the rival parties to do but accept a decision of its own creation, which might have gone the other way, but did not. It was the shortest way, perhaps, out of an immediate and pressing difficulty. It was none the less a strain on the Constitution and on the conscience of the people—a strain that could not well be stood again. The republic cannot afford to hand this settlement down to posterity as a lawful and satisfactory precedent. The right way in which to regard it is as one of those unforeseen accidents that occur in the history of all peoples, that adjust themselves somehow for the time being, and that stand as a warning rather than a guide to future conduct.

The country honestly and wisely accepted the decision. Of course there were sore feelings; there would have been sore feelings in any case; yet men breathed freely when what was a real, a painful, and a dangerous crisis was over. There are men—sensible and patriotic men, too, as well as a vast multitude neither patriotic nor sensible—who are ever ready to despair of the republic when events do not turn out exactly as they had predicted or desired. Let them take comfort. The republic is not yet dead; and it seems to us very far from dying. In other days, and perhaps in other peoples to-day who enjoy the privilege of a monarchical government, such a question would have resulted in a war of dynasties. The dynasty of Mr. Hayes or of Mr. Tilden troubles us but little. The disaffected may bide their time. They still hold their votes, and it is for them to see that they are not robbed of them. Mr. Hayes has taken to heart the lesson of the last elections, which pronounced not so much against a party as against the administration of his predecessor. The present administration has thus far, in the main, contrasted well with that which went before it. The President seems to be a man of right impulses and feeling and possessed of a good judgment. He has discarded many embarrassing associates and evil allies—political parasites who battened on the life-blood of the state. If his moral vision is only broad enough to see that he is the President not of a party, but of a great people, with varied wants and some sore troubles and internal difficulties that need very cautious and delicate adjusting; if he honestly and persistently aims at doing right, the people, regardless of party, will be with him and support him. Thus far he has manifestly striven to do well. His beginning has been good. Trials will doubtless come. He has already shown himself too good for many influential men in the party that voted for him. If he only continues to disregard and brave all pettiness, he can safely turn from partisans to the people, and the people know how to judge and value honesty—a quality that it was coming to be thought had almost died out of politics.

There have been some indications of a revival of business; but such a revival, to be sure and general, must be slow. Our people have not yet recovered from the demoralizing effect of the rush of good-fortune which they so foolishly squandered. They look for miracles in finance and business, for a revival in a day. This cannot well come. The way for general prosperity, and that even of very moderate dimensions, must be paved by a return to general honesty in commercial dealings and in private life. Public honesty can alone restore public confidence, and public honesty is a matter of growth, education, and the apprehension and following of right principles. It can only come from faith in God and a sense of personal responsibility to God, as true faith in man can only come from true faith in God. The religion that constantly impresses this upon men’s minds is the religion that will preserve and save from all dangers not this republic only but every government. These feelings, penetrating the hearts of the people, will best solve the vexed questions between labor and capital, between black and white and red and yellow. For a right sense of personal responsibility to God necessarily involves a right sense of personal responsibility to one another, of the duties we owe to society, of the duties we owe to the state. This country of all others is open to the free workings of religion. Indeed, it is as open to the devil as to God; and if the devil, according to some, seems to get the best of the battle, it can only be because “the children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light”; because Christians are not really and wholly true to Christ, and by their lives do not show forth the faith that is in them.

THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.

In Europe the event of the year that calls for most attention is the war between Russia and Turkey. On this subject we can say little or nothing probably that will not have already suggested itself to others. All have watched the progress of the painful struggle from day to day; have formed their own conclusions as to the manner in which it has been carried on on both sides; as to the necessity of such a war having taken place at all; as to its probable results to both parties and to Europe at large.

At the time of our last review war between Russia and Turkey was thought imminent. We then wrote—and we may be pardoned for quoting our own words, as some of them, at least, seem to us to apply equally well to the present situation—as follows:

“If we may hazard an opinion, we believe that there will be no war, at least this winter. As for the alarm at the anticipated occupation of Constantinople by Russia, while—if the Russian Empire be not dissolved before the close of the present century by one of the most terrific social and political convulsions that has ever yet come to pass—that occupation seems to lie very much within the order of possibilities, we doubt much whether it will occur so soon as people think.... It would seem to us difficult for Russia to occupy Constantinople without first mastering and garrisoning Turkey, and Turkey is an empire of many millions, whom fanaticism can still rouse to something like heroic, as well as to the most cruel and repulsive deeds.”

Those words seem to us to have forecast fairly enough the general aspects of the war. The war was declared because Russia burned to go to war—Russia, or the Russian administration. The invasion of Turkey by Russia was not a thing of the past year. It was foreordained. It was dreaded from the close of the war in the Crimea. The only question with the other powers was how long or by what means could it be staved off. That Russia would invade Turkey as soon as she thought she could do so without much danger of outward interference and with good prospects of success was probably a fixed thought in the minds of all men who chose to give a thought to the matter. For almost a quarter of a century has Russia been girding herself for a fight that had become an essential part of her national policy. Within that period, under the wise guidance of Prince Gortschakoff, she has more than repaired the terrible losses sustained in the Crimean war. She grew stealthily up to a power and a status unexampled in her history. She guarded her finances, lived within her means, prospered, refused steadily to enter into any embarrassing European complications. She saw the European alliance that had crushed her in 1854 hopelessly dissolve, and a new and friendly power rise up and take the lead in European affairs. As a military power she was looked upon as having only one superior, or rival perhaps, in the world, and that her friendly neighbor. So strong was she, and so singularly had every change in European politics told in her favor, that when her opportunity came, with a word, a beck, a stroke of her chancellor’s pen, she snapped asunder the iron gyves forged for her and laid on her by a united Europe, and no power dared whisper a protest. All the world saw whither she was drifting. She was drifting to the sea, stretching out her giant arms to clasp for ever those golden shores that she claimed as hers by destiny. The hour of destiny struck at last. The strifes of exhausted nations and the jealousies of others left her alone to deal with the power that held those shores and that to Russia was an hereditary foe. She proceeded cautiously to the last. She did all things with becoming decorum. She invited the nations to a conference, held in the Turkish capital, to determine once for all what was to be done with the Turk, while she mobilized her armies in order to give effect to her peaceful protest.

What the conference of European diplomatists did, or rather did not do, is now matter of picturesque history. “Death before dishonor!” was the ultimatum of the Turk. “Death, then, be it,” said Russia, and the new “crusade” began.

It has been a sad “crusade” for both parties, a disastrous one for Russia and the Romanoffs, even though there can be little doubt as to the final victory of Russia. What we may call the great Russian illusion has been dispelled by this war. It was speedily discovered that the feet of the giant who was running so swiftly and surely to the goal of his ambition were of clay. Why, victory invited him, danced before him, strewed flowers in his path. It was a very race with fortune. To a great military power half the battle was won before a single engagement worthy of the name had been fought. But it has stopped at that half. Russia is still knocking at the gates of Plevna, and even when Plevna is opened, as it will be probably soon, the inglorious victory will have been so dearly won that Russia herself may, with too much reason, be anxious for the peace which she wantonly broke.

Fortune was too good to Russia at the opening of the war. Her smiles begat an overweening confidence. The destruction of a stubborn and warlike race was looked upon as a thing of a few months, as a game of war. Reverses came fast and thick—reverses that were invited. Comparative handfuls of splendid soldiers were sent to destroy armies entrenched in natural fortresses. Then leaked out a fatal secret. Russia had everything but generals and competent military officers, or, if she had them, they were not with her armies, or were not allowed to take the lead. The dress parade to Constantinople was speedily and effectually checked, and Russia is to all intents and purposes as far from that city to-day as she was in the summer.

The details of the campaigns must be looked for elsewhere. We can here only look at results. There are two or three reflections regarding the war itself which seem to us worthy of attention as affecting other interests than those immediately engaged in the contest.

In the first place, the fact of the war having been declared at all showed the powerlessness of Europe to shape or deal with grave questions of international interest when any one strong power chooses not to be advised, coerced, or led. This practically places the peace of Europe in the hands of any power. For instance, there is no means of preventing Germany from declaring war against France to-morrow, should the German government so will. Early in the year, and at the invitation of Russia, the leading European powers sent their representatives to Constantinople to prevent, if possible, the outbreak of this war. These were doubtless experienced diplomatists. There is no reason to doubt that all of them—save, perhaps, the Russian representative, General Ignatieff—wished honestly and strove by every means in their power to prevent, or at least stave off, the war. They failed, because it was meant by the strongest there that they should fail. The only argument to sway Europe to-day is the sword.

Thus the representatives of united Europe, backed by all the vast resources of their empires, could do nothing to prevent a war which at the outset looked as though it incurred the gravest consequences to Europe; and it may incur them still. Why was this? Simply because there is no such thing as a united Europe. The family and comity of European nations was, as we pointed out last year in dealing with this very subject, broken up by the Protestant Reformation. The catholicity of nations, which in the order of events would have become an accomplished and saving fact, from that date yielded to selfish and narrow nationalities which made a separate world of each people, bounded by their own domain. But humanity is greater than nationality, and the world wider than a kingdom—a truth that will never be felt until one religion plants again in the leading nations of the world the great unity of heart and soul that God alone can give.

As for Russia, however, the tide of events may turn; she has lost more than she will probably gain even by victory. Not in men and money and material alone has she lost, but in _morale_ and _prestige_. The czar may return in triumph to St. Petersburg, but his victorious ranks will show a grim and ominous gap of something like a hundred thousand of his bravest men, lost in less than a year against a foe whom Russia despised, and thousands of whom were sacrificed to incapacity. A careful estimate made in September last set the daily cost of the Russian army at about $750,000. That figure must have since increased; but take it as an average, and spread it over eight months, and we have the enormous sum of $184,500,000 as the cost of the campaign from May to December. Loans must be raised to meet such expenditure, and loans are only obtained at high interest.

Victories bought at such prices are dear indeed. Taking the Russian victory for granted, it is likely after all to prove a barren one. The Turk is an impracticable foe, and, though the signs of his exhaustion are multiplying, he has made such a fight as, by force of arms at least, to vindicate his title to national existence. Indeed, his terms are apt to go up instead of down. Loss of money is nothing to him, for he has none to lose. His empire was bankrupt before the war. For trade or commerce he cares little. His life is easy and simple. He cares for little more than enough to eat, and a little of that seems to satisfy him. His fatalism robs life of the charm it has for other men. He would as lief die fighting as not, and he would sooner fight the Russian than any other foe. You cannot reason with men of this kind. They see one thing: that single-handed they made a very good fight against a most powerful antagonist; that they have hurt him badly, even if they have been worsted. The whole struggle can only be likened to an attack by a giant on a poor little wretch who was thought to be half-dead. If it takes the giant six months to thrash such an antagonist; and if during the fight the giant gets something very like a sound thrashing himself from his puny foe; and if, when both are pretty well exhausted, he succeeds in throttling the pugnacious little chap at last, the verdict of the world will be that there is something the matter with the giant, and the self esteem of the little fellow will rise proportionately.

Of course it is idle to speculate on the end. Russia has lost so heavily that she may insist upon very tangible fruits of victory. On the other hand, the war has been such a butchery that humanity cries out against it, and the European powers will undoubtedly strive at the first opportunity to make a more effectual appeal than before to both the combatants. Peace rests on this: How much will Russia ask? How much will Turkey concede? How much will the jealousies of other powers allow Russia to take?—questions all of them that are sure to be asked, but which we confess our inability to answer.

FRANCE.

The armed struggle in the East has scarcely attracted more universal attention than the civil struggle in France. France is trying to solve problems that touch her very life, and they are problems in which all men have a personal interest. The French questions are eminently questions of the day and of the age. The struggle going on there is one between the elements of society. MacMahon, Gambetta, “Henri Cinq,” “Napoléon Quatre”—these are but names. The fight is not on them and their personal merits or demerits. It is at bottom between the men who find the “be-all and the end-all here” in this world, and the men who believe that there is a God who made this world for his own purposes, who is to be obeyed, loved, and served, and according to whose law human society must conform itself, if it would fulfil the end for which it was created, have happiness in this world, and eternal happiness in the next.

The first class is not restricted to the men and women who figured in the _Commune_. These only compose its rank and file, and their sin is less, for multitudes of them sin through ignorance. It embraces also the men of the new science, the professors in the atheistic universities; statesmen of the Falk and Lasker type; preachers of the Gospel as expounded by Dean Stanley; philosophers and scientists, like Darwin or Herbert Spencer, like Huxley and Tyndall, like, descending a grade, Professor Fisk or Youmans; women like some we know here at home, who tread the platform with so masculine a stride; the men of “progress” such as Brigham Young was, such as, in a more intellectual sense, John Stuart Mill was, such as “tribunes of the people” like Charles Bradlaugh, or his friend M. Gambetta, or Garibaldi, are; poets like Victor Hugo or Algernon Swinburne. The men who have the teaching power in the secularized and secular universities of the day, who shape a purely secular education, who edit too many of our leading newspapers, who preach atheism or blasphemy from pulpits supposed to be consecrated to the service of Christ, are equally members of this party with the outcasts of society and the avowed conspirators against order. This it was that gave its significance to the late French elections; that induced men to study so carefully the name, character, antecedents, and political color of each man elected; that caused to be telegraphed on the very day of the elections the long files of the deputies to England, to Germany, to Austria, to Italy, even to these distant shores. Why, such a fact as that last mentioned is unexampled. For the time being the world centred in France.

This is a dangerous pre-eminence for France. The country is for ever in a fever. It is in a constant state of crisis. Ministry after ministry is tried, found wanting, and thrown aside. The truth is the parties cannot coalesce. There is a barrier between them that it seems cannot be overthrown. The elections decided nothing. They left the country and parties in much the same condition as before. As a matter of fact the conservatives, if any, gained, but the gain was too small to indicate the will of the country. We doubt if the country has a will beyond the desire to be at peace, which the contentions of its own parties alone threaten. M. Gambetta, the leader of the radicals, is for ever clamoring for a republic. Well, he has a republic; why not make the most of it? He has certainly as good a republic as he could make. The difficulty with him is that the republic which he wishes to lead must be founded on the negation of Christianity. In France the dividing lines between creeds are very clearly drawn. Protestantism counts for nothing there, and the little that there was of it has gone to pieces. Gambetta’s _bête-noir_ is “clericalism”—_i.e._, Catholicity. He would abolish the Catholic Church, not merely as an adjunct of the state but altogether. No Catholicity must be taught in the schools; that is a vital principle with him. The pope must have nothing to say to Catholics in France. The clergy must receive no pay, scanty as it is, from the state. No such thing as a free Catholic university is to be tolerated. The children of France are to be brought up and educated free-thinkers, and be made to turn out true Gambettists. In a word, the foundation of M. Gambetta’s scheme for the regeneration of France is to abolish the Christian religion there. Irreligion is to be the corner-stone of his republic.

This is a pleasing prospect for French Catholics, and it may be necessary to remind our able editors who denounce “clericalism” so lustily, and see no hope for France but in the republic of M. Gambetta, that there are still Catholics in France; that the bulk of the nation is Catholic. It is a pleasing prospect, we say, for them to contemplate the suppression of their religion at the word of M. Gambetta. Is it very surprising that the oracle of the new republic should only bring hatred on the very name of republic to men who can see in it, as expounded by its oracle, nothing but the most odious tyranny? It was John Lemoinne, if we remember rightly, who in the anti-Christian _Journal des Debats_ said, on the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from office, that religion lay at the bottom of all the great questions that move the world. If that be so, and it is so, why not recognize the fact? Must the French republic which M. Gambetta advocates and our republican editors on this side advocate be first and above all an irreligious despotism? Must it begin with religious persecution? M. Gambetta says that it must.

We are not accusing him wrongfully. His own words express his meaning plainly enough. It must be borne in mind that the epithet “clericalism,” in the mouths of French radicals, means Catholicity. Every French Catholic who believes in and practises his religion is a “clerical”; so every Catholic who believes and does the same all the world over is, in the mouths of anti-Catholics, an “ultramontane.” If there is one lurid page in all history that sears the eyes of humane and sensible men, it is that of the French Revolution—the most awful revolt, save its offspring, the _Commune_, against all order, human and divine, that the world has witnessed. Yet “the French Revolution,” and none other, is M. Gambetta’s _oriflamme_.

Just on the eve of the elections he addressed an immense meeting at the _Cirque Américain_ in Paris. “Amongst those present,” says the correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_, “I observed the most prominent members of the various groups of the Left. When the great orator of the evening (M. Gambetta) appeared, he was received with a shout of welcome, renewed and continued for several minutes. There were only two cries issued from every lip: ‘_Vive la République!_’ and ‘_Vive Gambetta!_’ ... On the latter rising to speak he was received with another storm of cheers.”

Well, and what had he to say to this enthusiastic assembly and to the leading deputies of the Left? We can only find space for a few sentences, though the whole speech is instructive, as giving the character and aims of the man:

“What is at stake?” he asked. “The question is the existence of universal suffrage _and of the French Revolution_ (Loud cheers). That is the question.” This declaration, which was so uproariously cheered, needs no comment. He made a little prophecy, that was unfortunate for him, regarding the returns of the elections. The prophecy turned out to be false, even though M. Gambetta assured his friends by saying: “I should not risk my credit with you five days before the event on a rash statement.” “The country will say,” he thundered on, “at the forthcoming elections that she wants the republic administered by republicans, and not by those who obey the voice of the Vatican.” He appealed to the example of this country, where he said, with brilliant vagueness, “law has taken the place of personal vanity, and conscience that of intrigue.” We accept the example. There are millions of good enough republicans in this country who certainly “obey the voice of the Vatican” as faithfully as any “clerical” in all France, and who find that voice agreeing admirably with their republicanism. Indeed, that same voice has recently, with justice and openly, proclaimed that in the republic the Pope is more Pope than in any other country; and we have yet to learn that the republic has suffered any hurt from that declaration.

“There is no principle,” said M. Gambetta, “that binds together the three parties which are now opposed to us, and the nation will do justice to their monstrous alliance. There is but one binding force, and that is called clericalism. Those parties wanted a word of order to rally a formidable army against us; they found it in Jesuitism.” And he closed his speech by saying:

“I feel that what Europe fears most is that France should again fall into the hands of the Ultramontane agents. I fear that the universal suffrage may not take sufficient account of surprise and intimidation. We must look this question in the face, and be able to say to Europe, pointing to clericalism, Behold the vanquished!”

As we said, M. Gambetta made a little mistake in his prophecy. Catholicity is not dead in France; Catholics are not a small fraction of the people, and in the government of the country of which they form so important a part they must be taken into account. They will not and cannot submit to have convictions which are sacred to them disregarded, to have necessary and national rights trampled under foot at the will either of M. Gambetta or of anybody else. He assumes altogether too much. What did the figures of the election show? As M. de Fourtou pointed out in his speech in the Chamber of Deputies, November 14, 1877: The Opposition had flattered itself that it would return with four hundred, and yet it lost fifty votes. “It required an astonishing amount of assurance for the Opposition, after such a check, to pretend to claim power in defiance of the rights of the Senate.”

“The Opposition,” he continued, “had obtained 4,300,000 and the Government 3,600,000 votes, France thus dividing herself into two almost equal parties. Instead of striving to oppress the one by the other, it would be better to seek a common link to bind themselves together. Candidates presented themselves to be elected in the name of a menaced Constitution, the public peace in jeopardy, and in the name of modern liberties and civil societies. But if the Opposition only asked for that, it had no adversaries; if it asked for something else it had no mandate. (Applause from the Right.)”

There is no denying the force of this reasoning. The parties in France show themselves almost equal, and the only hope of governing the country is by mutual concession and good-will. M. Gambetta must let the church alone, if he is so very anxious for peace.

Frenchmen not blinded by passion might have taken warning from the attitude of Germany and Italy previous to and during the elections. These two powers—for Italy has now become a sort of tender to Germany—were earnest for the success of the party led by Gambetta. Why so? What sympathy can Prince Bismarck possibly have with Gambetta? What sympathy could he be supposed to have with a republic of the Gambetta stripe, of the red revolutionary stripe, as his next-door neighbor, while he so dreads his own socialists? The cause of his new-born sympathy for a red republic, or a republic of any color, is not far to find. It was the same sympathy that he had with the _Commune_ during the siege of Paris. He knows Gambetta, and has had a taste of “the tribune’s” effective generalship and governing qualities. He was in France when M. Gambetta made that famous “pact with death” of which we heard so much and so little came. He knows thoroughly the elements that make up the strength, the very explosive strength, of M. Gambetta’s party, and there is probably nothing he would better enjoy than to see the _fou furieux_ at the helm of state once more. A few months of the Gambetta _régime_, and Prince Bismarck might say of France, as he said of Paris, “Let it fry in its own fat.” France is now a most dangerous foe to Germany—negatively so, at least. She is growing more dangerous every year. Every year of quiet is an enormous gain to her. She is vastly richer than Germany. She can stand the strain of her immense army far more easily than Germany. She is winning back something of the old love and admiration of the outer world, which she had lost on entering into the war with Germany. She is patient, laborious, industrious, desirous of peace with all the world, and day by day becoming more able to maintain that peace even against Germany. But a revolution in France would destroy all this and throw the nation years behind. And so sure as Gambetta attained to power a revolution would follow; _i.e._, if he adhered—and there is no doubt that he would—to the programme of a republic which he has sketched in such bold colors. Once in power, once the strong but quiet hand of Marshal MacMahon was removed from the helm, the ship of the French state, with or without Gambetta’s will, would go to speedy wreck.

That is why Prince Bismarck so carefully encouraged the Gambetta faction. That is why his press thundered against a “clerical” government in France. That is why the Italian press took up the cry, as it explains in great measure the mysterious comings and goings between the courts of Berlin and the Quirinal. That is why, if France would abide in safety, she must retain her soldier at the head of affairs, and hasten during the next few years of his term to heal her internal discords and become one heart and one soul. Marshal MacMahon has attempted nothing against the republic that was confided to his safe-keeping. There is yet time, before his term of office expires, for all Frenchmen to come together and shape their government so as to ensure peace, freedom, and order in the future. If they cannot do this, the republic is hopeless in France. It will go out as its predecessors have gone out within a century, only to make room for a new usurper.

GERMANY.

There is every year less likelihood of a renewal of the dreaded war between Germany and France. France does not want to fight. Even if Germany did want to fight she must reckon on a far stronger and more dangerous foe than she encountered in 1870. Competent military critics, like the writer in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, whose articles on the French army attracted such wide and deserved attention, assert that France, though probably unequal to an attack on Germany, is rather more than able to hold her own against attack. A stronger critic yet establishes this fact. In his famous speech in the German Parliament last April, in favor of the increase of one hundred and five captaincies in the army—an increase that was bitterly opposed—Count Von Moltke said:

“What the French press does not speak out, but what really exists, is the fear lest, since France has so often attacked weaker Germany, strong Germany should now for once fall upon France without provocation. This accounts for the gigantic efforts France has made in carrying through within a few years the reorganization of her army with so much practical intelligence and energy. This explains why, from the recent conclusion of peace till to-day, an unproportionately large part of the French army, chiefly artillery and cavalry, is posted, in excellent condition, between Paris and the German frontier—a circumstance which must sooner or later lead to an equalizing measure on our part. It must also be taken into consideration that in France, where the contrast of political parties is even stronger than with us, all parties are agreed on one point—viz., in voting all that is asked for the army. In France the army is the favorite of the nation, its pride, its hope; the recent defeats of the army have been condoned long since.”

“The total strength of all these [the French] battalions,” he said in the same speech, “in times of peace amounts to 487,000 men; whilst Germany, with a much larger population, has but little over 400,000 under arms. The French budget exceeds the German by more than 150,000,000 marks (shillings), not including considerable supplementary sums that are there required. Even so wealthy a nation as the French are will not be able to bear such a burden permanently. Whether this is done at present for a distinct purpose, in order to reach a certain goal placed at not too great a distance, I must leave undecided.”

That speech alarmed Europe at the time. Yet it was only a plain statement of facts which it is as well for Europe to look in the face. It may seem strange that under the circumstances we should feel so sanguine about the preservation of peace between these two armed and hostile nations. But both want peace, and both are too strong to fight. Of course the unexpected may always occur. France does not disguise her purpose of revenge, and she means to “mak siccer” next time. But the gentle hand of Time softens the deepest hatreds; and if even this enforced peace can only be prolonged the war-fever may die away. Politics and administrations will change in both countries. Prince Bismarck will not live for ever. The French had just as bitter a resentment against England after Waterloo. The resentment died with the generation that bore it; and only for the evil legacy left by Prince Bismarck to the empire—the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine—we could fairly hope for better feeling between the two peoples at least within a generation.

The smoke of battle cleared away, Germans are beginning to look around them and investigate civil affairs in a spirit not at all pleasing to a military administration. The word of command is no longer obeyed so blindly as before. Even the cabinet does not move to the tap of Prince Bismarck’s drum as promptly as it was wont. Perhaps, after all, the chancellor did not gain so very much by his bitter prosecution of Count Arnim. There have been some notable resignations within the year, and rumors even, partially confirmed, and again renewed, of the chancellor’s own resignation. The opposition increases at every election; and the response of Catholics to the men who make vacant the sees of their bishops is to return a stronger number of representatives to the Parliament at each new election. The social democrats do the same, and altogether the policy of blood and iron appears to be in strong disfavor.

Even the “orthodox Protestants” have at last openly revolted against the Falk laws, which were good enough for Catholics, and right in themselves so long as the orthodox Protestants did not feel them pinch. They see at last that such laws strike at all religion; that a generation brought up under them would have no religion at all; and that if they would retain the congregations who are so rapidly slipping from their grasp and melting away, they must strike out those laws from the calendar.

The persecution of the Catholics goes on unrelentingly, but we have no doubt that better times are in store. The Catholics, as we pointed out, are gaining in the Parliament. The administration is weakening in unity and in the confidence of the country. Poverty is pressing upon the people. The emperor, in his speech from the throne early in the year, was compelled to allude to the continued depression of trade and industry. He might very easily have given one great reason for a large share of that depression in the vast armaments which he finds it necessary to maintain at a ruinous cost of men, money, and labor to the country. As recently as last November the London _Times_, which is certainly a friendly critic, in treating of “Prussian Finance,” took occasion to say: “The exaction of the five milliards was thought to crush for ever the growing wealth of France, and to be almost a superfluous addition to the abundant exchequer of Germany.... At least the state was rich for a generation to come. Five years have not yet passed since this huge mass of wealth was transferred, and already we find bankruptcy almost the rule among German traders, and hear cries rising on all sides of the hardness of the times and the impossibility of bearing much longer the crushing weight of taxation. In the hands of the government the French milliards seem for the most part to have melted away and left budgets which vary only in the shifts by which expenses are coaxed into an equality with receipts.”

The conclusion at which the writer arrives is a very suggestive one, and one that it would be well for Germany to take to heart:

“It would be better that Germany should be content to remain for a year or two not quite prepared to meet the world in arms rather than that her citizens should find that the country so impregnably fortified offers them no life worth living. A man does not buy Chubb’s locks for his stable-door when his steed is starving.”

Granting that the general peace of Europe is preserved during the next year, it would not surprise us at all to see a complete change of administration in Germany, and a consequent relaxation in the laws against Catholics. We do hope for this. Even Prince Bismarck must now see that the persecution of the Catholics was, in its lowest aspect, a political blunder. He miscalculated the faith of these German Catholics. The beating of his iron hammer has only welded and proved and tempered that faith, while the world resounded with his blows and all men saw that they were ineffectual. Thus has the very cradle of the Protestant Reformation borne noblest witness in our unbelieving age to the greatness, the strength, the invincibility of the faith and the church that Luther dreamed he had destroyed, out of Germany at least. Here is the result, as pictured by an adversary of the Catholic faith, within the past year: “It pleased Prince Bismarck—whether, as he himself alleged, in consequence of the council or not—to undertake a crusade against the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy which, to the vast body of their co-religionists all the world over, and to many others also, had all the look of downright persecution. They were challenged, not for submitting to the Vatican dogma, but for maintaining what they had always been accustomed to regard, before just as well as after the council, as the inalienable rights and liberties of their church. Only one course was open to them as ecclesiastics or as men of honor—to resist and take the consequences. Some half-dozen bishops have accordingly been fined, imprisoned, or deprived; and several hundred—we believe over a thousand—priests have incurred similar penalties. Whether the policy embodied in the Falk laws was or was not a wise and a just policy in itself is not the point. If we assume for argument’s sake that it has all the justification which its promoters claim for it, the fact remains equally certain that no greater service could well have been rendered to the cause of Vaticanism than this opportune rehabilitation of the German bishops. The bitterness of the antagonism provoked by the Falk legislation may be measured by the startling news recently given in the German papers, that an alliance, offensive and defensive, is being formed between the Catholics and democratic socialists, who can have hardly a single idea in common beyond hostility to the existing state.”—_Saturday Review_, February 24, 1877.

THE CATHOLIC OUTLOOK.

Of other states there is little that calls for special attention here. Italy is linked with Germany, but Italy can scarcely be regarded as a very strong ally. Its alliance, however, is useful and necessary to the leader of the conspiracy against the Catholic Church—the conspiracy of the kings, into which some have entered in a half-hearted way like the Emperor of Austria, others with the most determined resolve like Prince Bismarck and the German emperor. These powerful men are doing all they can to destroy the Catholic Church; and undoubtedly they impede her growth, and harry and harass her in a thousand ways. It is easy to say that this is the best thing that could possibly happen to the church; that persecution is her very soul; that suffering begets repentance, and chastisement purity of life. That is all very well and true, but there is another aspect to the matter. Catholics have worldly rights as well as heavenly. They are here to live in this world, and to live happily and freely, and to do their work in it. No prince or government introduced them into life; no prince or government escorts them out of life. No prince, or government, or state can absolutely claim human life as theirs. Life is a free gift of God, to be used freely. Government is not divine, save in so far as it conforms to the divinity. Men are not chattels and tools to be used as things of no volition. The government of a people is only a human institution erected for the people, by the people, and of the people. It cannot lay claim to superhuman power, and where it does it is an infamous assumption. The _numen imperatorum_ is more than a myth; it is a devil. The “divine Cæsar” is but a man, and generally a very disreputable man. The assumptions of many modern states to absolute rule over man—states that for the wickedness of those ruling them have been turned topsy-turvy time and again by the subjects whom they absolutely ruled—is a return to paganism, and a very artful return. Obey us, it says, and we will set you free—free from the Christian God and the laws that go against your nature. Obey us, and you need bow the knee to no God; you need have no religious belief or practice; we will abolish sin for you; you shall marry and unmarry as you please, and as often as you please; you shall do what you like and have no one to gainsay you. Fall down and worship us, and all the kingdoms of the world are yours.

This is only a true reading of the pet measures of modern governments: of the divorce court, of civil marriage, of civil baptism, of schools into which everything but God may enter. And this is the drifting of the age: the Gambetta party in France, the revolutionary party in Italy, of which Victor Emanuel is the regal tool and ornament; the Bismarckian and Falk party in Germany; the Josephism of Austria; the “free” thought of all lands. It is this that is in conflict, eternal conflict, with the Catholic Church. It calls itself liberalism; it is the tyranny of paganism. It does not threaten the Catholic Church alone. It only threatens that openly, because it feels it its necessary foe; it threatens the world and carries in its right hand the social and moral ruin of nations. There is no possible _modus vivendi_ between it and men who believe in Christ; and men who believe in Christ form the bulk of all civilized peoples. There will be no peace in the world, no peace among nations, until religion is free to assert itself. While the creeds of Christendom are still divided there must be freedom for all—freedom to adjust their differences and come back once again to the lost unity for which all honest men sigh. Politics are the affairs of a day; religion an affair of Eternity to be settled in Time. It must have freedom to work; and the attempt to restrict and restrain that freedom is the secret of more than half the troubles that afflict mankind.

This freedom is all that the head of the Catholic Church demands. He has no other quarrels with princes than this. He blesses and loves Protestant England, for it recognizes this freedom; he blesses and loves this country, for it also recognizes this freedom. The wonderful reign of Pius IX. will, in after-time, be most memorable for this: that in a deafening and confused time, in a time when all things were called in question and all rights invaded, his voice and vision were for ever clear in upholding the most sacred rights of man, in detecting and exposing what threatened them, and in maintaining the truth by which the world lives, at all hazard and in the face of all sacrifice. The truth of which he is the oracle is the faith in God that makes men free—faith in the undying church founded by the Son of God, in its work and its mission among men, in the present and the future of a human society spreading over the world and built upon that faith. And the world has recognized this. It recognizes in the Pope, not because he is Pius the Ninth, but because he is Pope and head of the Church Catholic, the centre of this society, the head of Christendom; for Christendom is wider than nations; it embraces them in its arms; they are children of it, and the Pope is their spiritual father. Is not this truth plain? Whither have the eyes of the world been turned during the year? Less to the bloody battle-fields of the East, less to the hearts of European nations and the courts and cabinets of kings, than to the sick bed in the Vatican. The gaze of many has been that of brutal intensity; the gaze of many more, and those not all Catholics, has been one of affectionate and tender regard. Speculations as to the future are not in place here. The Pope, of course, will die some day. He has stood the brunt of the battle. He has lived a great life, given a great example, and done great things for the church of God. Not a stain, not a breath or whisper of reproach, mars that long career of mingled triumph and suffering. He has witnessed strange events. He has seen the church discarded by all the powers that were once her faithful children. He has seen the sacred territory of the church invaded and torn from his grasp. He sees himself in his old age and at the close of a stormy life imprisoned in his own palace. He has seen the world and the princes of the world do their worst against the church of which he is the earthly guardian. And yet he sees the church spreading abroad, growing in numbers and in virtue, borne on the wings of commerce and carrying its message of peace and good-will to all lands. There is no faltering in the faith. His eyes have been gladdened, even if saddened, by as noble confessors, of all grades, rising up to testify to it as the church in her history of nineteen centuries has ever known. When he obeys the last call of the Master he has served so well, there will pass from this world the greatest figure of the age, and as holy a man as the ages ever knew. But his work will not pass with him. That will remain, and the lesson of his life will remain to the successor, on whom we believe that brighter times will dawn—a brightness won out of the darkness, and the sacrifice, and the storm braved by the good and gentle man who so resolutely bore Christ’s cross to the very hill of Calvary and lay down on it and died there.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MONOTHEISM. The Primitive Religion of Rome. By Rev. Henry Formby. 1 vol. 8vo. London: Williams & Norgate; New York: Scribner, Welford & Co. 1877.

This is a very interesting and, in some respects, a learned work; but we are fain to confess that we have been disappointed in it. If the author, instead of attempting to show that the worship of the one true God was the early religion of Rome, had contented himself with proving it to have been professed by the primitive Gentile nations in general, we should agree with him, and thank him for unfolding in our English language the incontrovertible truth that polytheism and idolatry are but corruptions of great primeval traditions collected, preserved, and handed down by Noe, and that heathen mythology can be made to bear witness to the original idea of the unity and spirituality of God. This view of the religious errors of the ancients has been held up by several eminent writers, and particularly by two who deserve to be rescued from an unjust oblivion—by Monsignor Bianchini (1697) in _La Storia Universale provata con Monumenti e figurata con Simboli Antichi_; and by Abbé Bergier (1773) in his _Origine des Dieux du Paganisme_. While we do not accuse our reverend author of a want of modesty precisely in stating his prime opinion about the monotheism of the second king of Rome, we do think that he writes a little too dogmatically and as though he had discovered some historical treasure-trove wherewith to enrich his arguments; whereas no new documents or monuments whatever have been brought to light to throw a different or brighter ray upon the character of Numa Pompilius, in connection with whom, moreover, he seems to us to confound idolatry and polytheism. We confidently believe that the _Cœleste Numen_ of Numa, on which so great stress is laid, like the _Deus Optimus Maximus_ of Tully, or the _Divûm pater atque hominum rex_ of Virgil, was nothing more than another form of man’s continual, almost involuntary, protest against the falling away of the human race from the worship of the Creator, but practically did not betoken more than a recognition of one among many greater than his fellow-gods. While Numa forbade the worship of _idols_ in Rome, and consequently professed a less corrupt error than did many contemporary rulers, he never asserted the unity or, we prefer to say, the _oneness_ of God. He was a prolific polytheist, multiplying divinities and introducing new superstitions among his people. Father Formby has brought up nothing in his favor unknown to Arnobius, Orosius, St. Augustine, and Tertullian. This last writer, although he absolves Numa from the crime of idolatry, distinctly charges upon him a many-parted god: “Nam a Numa concepta est curiositas superstitiosa” (_Apol._ xxv.)

Our author’s present work is an amplification of a smaller one published in pamphlet form two years ago, in which he shows the “city of ancient Rome” to have been “the divinely-sent pioneer of the way for the Catholic Church.” On this subject we cannot too closely agree with him, or sufficiently thank him for turning towards our students and illustrating for them a side of Roman history which is so important. Our own studies have always pointed in the same direction, and we cannot better conclude this notice of Father Formby’s work and show our sympathy with him than by a brief extract from our commonplace book, made up many years ago in Rome itself:

“The celebrated Gallo-Roman poet and statesman, Rutilius Numatianus, was much attached to the false ancient divinities of Rome and no small help to the political party of Symmachus, which so stubbornly fought St. Ambrose and the Christians. The following lines from his _Itinerarium_ (i. 62 _et seq._) are truly beautiful and express a grand idea, but one that is still grander in another sense than his; for if a heathen understood it to be a blessing in disguise upon the conquered peoples of the earth to be brought under the domination of Rome on account of the prosperity and civilization that accompanied her rule, how shall not a Christian admire the action of divine Providence, preparing the world for the New Law, and applaud those triumphs that brought so many countries through the Roman Empire into the Church of Christ. Of Christian less than of pagan Rome we shall interpret the poet’s sentiment:

“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam; Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi; Dumque offers victis patrii consortia juris Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC for 1878. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.

This annual, neat, compact, and perfect in all its mechanical arrangements—the labor of many busy and well-stored minds condensed into a portable form—has just been issued. To say that it equals its predecessors, which have found so much favor with the public, would be doing it great injustice. In every respect it is far superior, and shows palpable evidence that its conductors, appreciating the growth in public taste as well as the increasing desire for reliable information on important Catholic subjects, have left no effort untried to satisfy the wishes of their readers. This is particularly noticeable in the illustrations, which we consider to be not only good pictures but genuine works of art. The portraits of Archbishop Bayley, Bishops Von Ketteler and De St. Palais, and the venerable Jesuit Father McElroy are not only excellent likenesses of those deceased prelates, but the best specimens of wood-cut portraiture we have yet seen on this side of the Atlantic. The other engravings, of which there are about a dozen, are alike creditable to the artist and suitable for the pages of such a publication. The reading matter, however, will probably most attract the attention of the majority of purchasers, many of whom will doubtless wonder where a great portion of it could possibly have been discovered. Thus, in addition to the lives of the ecclesiastics above mentioned, and biographical sketches of the venerable Sister Mary Margaret Bourgeois, Frederic Ozanam, Columbus, and others, we have an elaborate History of Printing, a description (with fac-similes) of “The Earliest Irish Madonna,” accounts of the Libraries of the Bollandists and of the Eremites of York; an archæological sketch of the oldest churches of the world, an explanation of the antique Cross of St. Zachary, a _résumé_ of the labors of the Franciscans in California, and a well-digested mass of astronomical, chronological, and statistical information which cannot help proving of incalculable value as matters of reference.

EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. By Louis Jouin, S.J. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.

There is nothing more gratifying to Catholics who watch the progress of their religion in this country than to find that the church in the United States is beginning to supply her own literature, and more especially her polemical literature, which she needs most of all. Within the last few years several controversial works and books of instruction have been written in this country which are far better adapted to our people than the standard works of foreign authors; and the time, we trust, is not far distant when we shall be fully supplied with a well-adapted course of polemics of our own, and be no longer dependent on the writings of men in lands which are often more or less out of harmony with the American mind. _The Evidences of Religion_ is one of the books of which we stood most in need, and the wonder is that it was not written long before. Perhaps, however, it is as well that no one attempted it before Father Jouin; for we doubt if any other attempt could have been so entirely successful.

The book is a marvel of condensed matter and thought and argument. In its 380 octavo pages are summed up the philosophical treatise _De Certitudine_ and theological tract _De Locis Theologicis_; and it contains in addition a refutation, short, sharp, and decisive, of the latest errors in philosophy, politics, and religion.

Christianity rests on facts, not on mere theories. The science of the day pretends to deal with facts, and in every case to accept them, so that in our controversies with the pseudo-science of the times there is nothing more important than to bring out clearly and strongly the facts on which the certainty of the Christian faith rests. This Father Jouin has done, and in his book we have the whole groundwork on which Christianity is based spread out before us in perspective; the outline is complete, though of course, in the limited space which he allowed himself, he has not been able to bring out each detail in full. Yet he assures us in his preface that nothing essential has been left out, and we have verified his assertion. Altogether this is just the sort of book, in our opinion, that is needed to combat the errors of the age, and to serve as an antidote to the poison of rank infidelity and materialism with which the very atmosphere around us is charged.

The author tells us that he designs the work more especially as a text-book for students in the higher classes of our Catholic colleges, and we sincerely hope that it may be adopted in every Catholic college throughout the country. Our Catholic instructors fully realize the importance of giving their students a thorough grounding in the evidences of their religion, and Father Jouin’s book in the hands of a good professor can be made the basis of a thorough course of such instruction.

Not alone to students in colleges do we recommend the study of this work, but to every intelligent educated Catholic, who should investigate the reasons on which his religion is founded, and be able to answer for the faith that is in him. Let our Catholic lawyers and doctors and business men take it up, and they will find in it sufficient to convince them of the reasonableness of their creed. It will furnish them, moreover, with conclusive arguments against the absurd theories and false views of religion which are being advanced every day in their hearing.

The greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has to contend with, both without and within, at the present day, is ignorance of her true position and teaching, and we eagerly invite and encourage every study and investigation that may in any way help to dispel it.

It is to be regretted that so valuable a work has not been brought out in a worthy manner. It is neither well printed nor well put together.

THE NEW VESPER HYMN-BOOK: A companion to _The New Vesper Psalter_; containing a collection of all the hymns sung at Vespers throughout the year (classified according to metre), set to music, either for unison or four voices, with accompaniment, and including the best of the plain chant melodies, together with the words in full, and the versicles and responses proper to each hymn. The whole compiled and edited by Charles Lewis, Director of the Cathedral Choir, Boston, Mass. Boston: Thos. B. Noonan & Co.

At the present stage of the revival of Gregorian Chant, the true song of the church, we can commend this little work as one which will doubtless be found useful in many churches whose organists are unable to harmonize the chant or the singers to read its proper notation. We wish, however, that the editor had given all the hymns as found in the _Vesperale_, as the musical airs which are substituted are not worthy to supplant the original melodies. The style of notation is that usually adopted in translations from the old form of four lines and square notes. Could not the editor have done better, so as to give to those unaccustomed to plain chant some idea of its movement and expression? There is no mark given to designate accented from unaccented notes, and, lacking this, we defy any one who is not familiar with the traditional movement of a phrase to give its true expression.

We think the spacing of notes and phrases as given in the old style should be preserved—that is, the notes upon each syllable should be printed close together, and a wider and distinct space left between syllables and words. An intelligent system of writing plain chant upon the modern musical staff is yet to be invented. We have been told that in some places the Tonic Sol-Fa system is being attempted, with what success we have not learned.

LOTOS FLOWERS, GATHERED IN SUN AND SHADOW. By Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.

Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum is already known to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD through her poems, “Advent” and “A Birthday Wish” (appearing under the name of “Twenty-one” in the present collection), published in its pages during the present year. Her verse is pure in thought and written out of a woman’s heart full of love and enthusiasm. With true Southern fervor she revels in the luxuriant flora of her home, and in the landscape of all her pictures she takes a dear delight. Even so unsightly an object as a Mississippi steamboat-landing grows picturesque under her hand, and do we not feel soft Italian air as we read?—

“Peaceful stand The sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumes Beside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofs Of flying squadrons scared th’affrighted land The soft cloud-shadows chase each other now O’er violet gardens.”

As with many another poet, the ease with which Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum writes is at times a snare, leading her to accept too readily a hackneyed term or word, surrendering after too slight a struggle to the tyranny of rhyme. In her verse, also, there is sometimes a lack of smoothness that would set despair in the heart of the faithful scanner.

Was it because our ears were sick with a certain slang of “culture” that, when we stumbled over Krishna in the “Christian Legend,” we felt a strong desire to banish these Indian immortals to that Hades where languished the gods of Greece until Schiller called them forth to run riot in the field of religion as well as of art? And is not the term “legend” a strange misnomer, for the New Testament narrative of the raising of Lazarus? For Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum’s verse is essentially Christian and womanly, and even so short a notice of it would scarcely be complete without a mention of “Benny,” who, with his kitten and his “baby’s sense of right,” is already dear and familiar to the mothers and children of our whole country, whose kindly hearts will surely give to Benny’s mother their sympathy in his loss.

SURLY TIM, AND OTHER STORIES. By Francis Hodgson Burnett. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

Unfortunately for our first impression of the merit of the little volume of which “Surly Tim” is the initial story, we began our reading with “Lodusky,” attracted to it by the locality of the tale, its hill people and dialect being a loadstone to us, but lately returned from similar surroundings. But as even in our mountain Edens we find the trail of the serpent, so in “Lodusky” we seemed to be treading the familiar path of moral irresponsibility and the tyranny of personal magnetism, and we craved the flaming sword of the archangel to put the evil to flight.

Nor did our impression grow fairer on turning to “Le Monsieur de la Petite Dame.” But in “One Day at Arle” and in “Seth” we welcomed truly the author’s strong and exquisite pathos. In these pictures of the sorrow of the laboring classes the author draws with a pencil full of feeling, working under a sky whose hue is the leaden monotone of modern French landscape painting; a break of sunshine here and there, but the light seems to fall, after all, on earthly stubble and the dumb, almost soulless faces of patient cattle that know nothing beyond their daily furrow and the mute, faithful service they bear a kindly hand at the plough.

We are reminded of the pathos of Robert Buchanan’s North-Coast verse, and we close the little volume sadly, almost as if all human sorrow wherein is no Christian joy stood at our threshold, asking from us an alms we had no power to give.

REPERTORIUM ORATORIS SACRI: Containing Outlines of Six Hundred Sermons for all the Sundays and Holidays of the Ecclesiastical Year; also for other solemn occasions. Compiled from the works of eminent preachers of various ages and nations by a secular priest. With an introduction by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwenger, D.D., Bishop of Fort Wayne. New York and Cincinnati: Fr. Pustet, Typographus Sedis Apostolicæ. 1877.

This publication is to be continued in monthly parts, each part containing the outlines of two sermons for each Sunday and holiday for one quarter of the year. There will be four volumes of four parts each, so that when the work is completed there will be eight sermons for each occasion.

It will, if it fulfils the promise of this first number, be the best and most complete collection of the kind ever published so far as we are aware. It hardly needs to be said that plans of sermons such as are here given are very much more valuable to a preacher than the actual sermons themselves; for there are few who can give with much effect the words of another, to say nothing of the trouble involved in committing them to memory. The sermons of great pulpit orators are indeed extremely useful and deserving of study as models of style; but a few will answer that purpose as well as a thousand.

The work is in English, being designed principally for use in this country. It is most earnestly to be hoped that it will receive the liberal support which it certainly deserves.

NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story. By J. G. Holland. 1 vol. 12mo. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

We prefer Dr. Holland’s stories to his essays. He possesses fine descriptive powers; his genial humor captivates the reader; his power of analysis is searching. No one can read _Nicholas Minturn_ without recognizing the author’s ability to lay bare the vices and follies of the various classes with whom his hero is brought in contact. In doing this, however, Dr. Holland is apt to forget their redeeming virtues. This is his great fault as a novelist. He lacks the power to vitalize the subtle traits that appeal to our humanity. There is no bond of union between his people and us. He is unable to centralize our interest. When disaster overtakes the ocean steamer there is not a single figure to start out from the group and wring a groan of compassion from us. We listen to the wailing of despair and the shriek of terror with as much apathy as if it arose from a distant battle-field. In all other respects the story is far superior to the great mass of light literature.

THE ETERNAL YEARS. By the Hon. Mrs. A. Montgomery, author of _The Divine Sequence_, also _The Bucklyn Shaig_, _Mine Own Familiar Friend_, _The Wrong Man_, _On the Wing_, etc. With an introduction by the Rev. S. Porter, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.

_The Eternal Years_ is a republication of a series of articles from THE CATHOLIC WORLD. A number of thoughtful readers of our magazine have expressed the great interest with which they have read those articles and their desire to know the name of the author. They will be pleased to see that they are now published in a volume under their author’s name. _On the Wing_ will be remembered as having been one of the most popular of the series of sketches taken from scenes in European life and incidents of travel which we have from time to time published. Mrs. Montgomery possesses a very versatile talent as a writer, and passes with facility “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” Whatever she writes is always both instructive and pleasing.

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER’S MANUAL; or, The Art of Teaching Catechism. For the use of teachers and parents. By the Rev. A. A. Lambing, author of _The Orphan’s Friend_. New York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.

Father Lambing has done for Sunday-school teachers what M. Amond, the curé of St. Sulpice, and Father Porter have done for those engaged in the sacred ministry of the pulpit.

This manual, written in a clear and popular style, supplies a need that should have been more felt than it was. It gives those in charge of Sunday-schools a true idea of their very important mission, a deep sense of the responsibility that rests upon them, points out the various qualifications necessary for the faithful discharge of their duties, and contains many useful instructions which will aid them in becoming effective catechisers.

IZA: A STORY OF LIFE IN RUSSIAN POLAND. By Kathleen O’Meara. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This book, by a lady who since its first appearance has become distinguished in the higher walks of literature, has been republished at a very seasonable time, when the Eastern war, and the novel pretensions of Russia to be considered the friend and protector of oppressed nationalities, have once more called public attention to her barbarous treatment of the gallant Poles. The scenes are laid in Poland; the characters, which are few and clearly drawn, are Polish or Muscovite, and the plot, though simple and natural, is well and artistically wrought out. The theme of the whole story is the oppression of the Polish nobility by the shrewd, keen, and unscrupulous agents of the czar, wherein the generous, high-spirited and confiding patriotism of the one class is strongly contrasted with the accomplished villainy of the other. Though the superstructure is, of course, a work of pure fiction, it is based on well known historical facts. The entire work is written with great care and accuracy as to names, places, costumes, and local customs, the situations are highly dramatic, and the moral effect produced on the reader is healthful and salutary.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

The attention of readers will be directed to the advertisement of complete sets of THE CATHOLIC WORLD and THE YOUNG CATHOLIC as suitable and valuable Christmas presents. Bound volumes of THE YOUNG CATHOLIC make the very best present that could be offered to children. The reading matter is interesting, the illustrations are really excellent, and the puzzles and charades afford unfailing amusement for the long winter evenings.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD is now in its twenty-sixth volume. It constitutes a library, and a most valuable and varied library, in itself. In it is everything that could be desired. Theology and philosophy have their departments, filled by men of known and recognized competence, master minds indeed in those higher sciences. The literary articles and reviews are acknowledged by the secular press to be unsurpassed in power, grace, and strength. The polemics of the day find their true solution in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, which has told upon the non-Catholic mind in this country as no other magazine or publication has been able to tell. There is an abundance of fiction and light literature in its pages, a fiction that has known how to be interesting without being dangerous, and good without being dull. Many stories that have already made their mark in the literary world and won deserved fame for their authors began by passing through the columns of this magazine. All the leading and absorbing questions of the day are taken up and discussed in it by men thoroughly equipped and fitted for so important a task. Indeed THE CATHOLIC WORLD may fairly claim to be a channel through which the very best Catholic literature of the day, in all its forms, passes, a guide to and in all the questions of the day, and a compendium from year to year of all that is best and most worthy of attention in the higher sciences, in physical science, in politics, in literature, and in art. His Eminence the Cardinal has recently kindly taken occasion to “congratulate the Catholics in America on possessing a magazine of which they may be justly proud,” and trusts “that they will contribute their share to make THE CATHOLIC WORLD still more useful to themselves and to the Church at large.” No words could add strength to this commendation and appeal; and it is to be hoped that Catholics will take both to heart. No intelligent Catholic in this country should be without a magazine that is peculiarly and designedly his own. Yet are there thousands of intelligent persons who are without it, who probably do not know of its existence. It is for those who do know it and appreciate it to make it known among their friends. Taken in the very lowest sense, no man has yet complained that in THE CATHOLIC WORLD he did not receive the full, and more than the full, value of his money.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXVI., No. 155.—FEBRUARY, 1878.

CEADMON THE COW-HERD, ENGLAND’S FIRST POET.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

The Venerable Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_ contains nothing more touching than its record of Ceadmon, the earliest English poet, whose gift came to him in a manner so extraordinary. It occurs in the 24th chapter: “By his verses the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven. Others after him attempted in the English nation to compose religious poems, but none could ever compare with him; for he did not learn the art of poetry from man, but from God, for which reason he never would compose any vain or trivial poem.” ... “Being sometimes at entertainments, when it was agreed, for the sake of mirth, that all present should sing in their turns, when he saw the instrument come towards him he rose from the table and retired home. Having done so on a certain occasion, ... a Person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting him by his name, said, ‘Ceadmon, sing some song for me.’ He answered, ‘I cannot sing.’” Ceadmon’s song is next described: “How he, being the Eternal God, became the author of all miracles, Who first, as Almighty Preserver of the human race, created heaven for the sons of men, _as the roof of the house_, and _next_ the earth.” ... “He sang the Creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis, ... the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection of our Lord, and His Ascension.”[158] Ceadmon’s poetry is referred to also in Sharon Turner’s _History of the Anglo-Saxons_; and Sir Francis Palgrave points out the singular resemblance of passages in _Paradise Lost_ to corresponding passages in its surviving fragments. To the history of Ceadmon Montalembert has devoted some of the most eloquent paragraphs in his admirable work, _Les Moines d’Occident_—see chapter ii., vol. iv., page 68.

Sole stood upon the pleasant bank of Esk Ceadmon the Cow-herd, while the sinking sun Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank With pomp beside of golden Iris lit, And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh:— For that cause spake the Cow-herd, “Praise to God! He made the worlds; and now, by Hilda’s hand He plants a fair crown upon Whitby’s height: Daily her convent towers more high aspire; Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain!” He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched herds Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied, And Ceadmon thus resumed: “The music note Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by few! Poor kine, ye do your best! Ye know not God, Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God, And him ye worship with obedience sage, A grateful, sober, much-enduring race That o’er the vernal clover sigh for joy, With winter snows contend not. Patient kine, What thought is yours, deep-musing? Haply this— ‘God’s help! how narrow are our thoughts, and few! Not so the thoughts of that slight human child Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged!’ Take comfort, kine! God also made your race! If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died, Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay: God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice!”

Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine: They were not his; the man and they alike A neighbor’s wealth. He was contented thus: Humble he was in station, meek of soul, Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale; Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age: Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath, A massive hand, but soft, that many a time Had succored man and woman, child and beast; Ay, yet could fiercely grasp the sword! At times As mightily it clutched his ashen goad When like an eagle on him swooped some thought: Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon Unrisen is near its rising.

Round the bay Meantime with deepening eve full many a fire Up-sprung, and horns were heard. Around the steep With bannered pomp and many a dancing plume Ere long a cavalcade made way. Whence came it? Oswy, Northumbria’s king, the foremost rode, Oswy triumphant o’er the Mercian host, To sue for blessing on his sceptre new; With him an Anglian prince, student long time In Bangor of the Irish, and a monk Of Gallic race far wandering from the Marne: They came to look on Hilda, hear her words Of far-famed wisdom on the Interior Life: For Hilda thus discoursed: “True life of man Is life within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth; But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness: like a boy is he That clambers round some castle’s wall extern In search of nests—the outward wall of seven— Yet nothing knows of those great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where royal maidens touch the lyre and lute, Much less its central church, and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.”[159] Thus Hilda spake; And they that gazed upon her widening eyes Low whispered, each to each, “She speaks of things Which she hath seen and known.”

On Whitby’s crest The royal feast was holden: far below, A noisier revel dinned the shore; therein The humbler guests partook. Full many a tent Glimmered upon the white sands, ripple-kissed; Full many a savory dish sent up its steam; The farmer from the field had driven his calf; The fisher brought the harvest of the sea; And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades The tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire Now green, now crimson, matron sat and maid: Each had her due: the elder, reverence most, The lovelier that and love. Beside the board The beggar lacked not place.

When hunger’s rage, Sharpened by fresh sea-air, was quelled, the jest Succeeded, and the tale of foreign lands; But, boast who might of distant chief renowned, His battle-axe, or fist that felled an ox, The Anglian’s answer was “our Hilda” still: “Is not her prayer puissant as sworded hosts? Her insight more than wisdom of the seers? What birth like hers illustrious? Edwin’s self, Dëira’s exile, next Northumbria’s king, Her kinsman was. Together bowed they not When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome, Paulinus, poured o’er both the absolving wave And knit to Christ? Kingliest was she, that maid Who spurned earth-crowns!” The night advanced, he rose That ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe, And cried, “A song!” So song succeeded song, For each man knew that time to chant his stave, But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp Made way to Ceadmon, lowest at the board: He pushed it back, answering, “I cannot sing:” Around him many gathered clamoring, “Sing!” And one among them, voluble and small, Shot out a splenetic speech: “This lord of kine, Our herdsman, grows to ox! Behold, his eyes Move slow, like eyes of oxen!”

Sudden rose Ceadmon, and spake: “I note full oft young men Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird, That light on all things and can rest on none: As ready are they with their tongues as eyes; But all their songs are chirpings backward blown On winds that sing God’s song, by them unheard: My oxen wait my service: I depart.” Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead, Displeased though meek, and muttered, “Slow of eye! My kine are slow: if I were swift my hand Might tend them worse.” Hearing his steps the kine Turned round their hornèd foreheads: angry thoughts Went from him as a vapor. Straw he brought, And strewed their beds; and they, contented well, Down laid ere long their great bulks, breathing deep Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head Propped on the white flank of a heifer mild, Rested, his deer-skin o’er him drawn. Hard days Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this: “Though witless things we are, my kine and I, Yet God it was who made us.”

As he slept, Beside him stood a Man Divine and spake; “Ceadmon, arise, and sing.” Ceadmon replied, “My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth, I willed to sing the bright face of a maid, And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field, And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war, And failed once more.” To him the Man Divine, “Those themes were earthly. Sing!” And Ceadmon said, “What shall I sing, my Lord?” Then answer came, “Ceadmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God.”

At once obedient, Ceadmon rose, and sang, And help was with him from great thoughts of old Within his silent nature yearly stored, That swelled, collecting like a flood that bursts In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all He sang; that God beneath whose hand eterne, Then when he willed forth-stretched athwart the abyss, Creation like a fiery chariot ran, Inwoven wheels of ever-living stars. Him first he sang. The builder, here below, From fair foundations rears at last the roof, But Song, a child of heaven, begins with heaven, The archetype divine, and end of all, More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn, “Let there be light, and there was light”; and lo! On the void deep came down the seal of God And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the skies, While from crystalline seas the strong earth brake, Both continent and isle; and downward rolled The sea-surge summoned to his home remote. Then came a second vision to the man There standing ‘mid his oxen. Darkness sweet, He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales, Ambrosial bowers rich-fruited which the sun, A glory new-created in his place, All day made golden, and the moon by night Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird Her first of love-songs on the branch first-flower’d— Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang O’er-awed, the Father of all humankind Standing in garden planted by God’s hand, And girt by murmurs of the rivers four, Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life, With eastward face. In worship mute of God, Eden’s Contemplative he stood that hour, Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none, No need for spirit severe.

And Ceadmon sang God’s Daughter, Adam’s Sister, Child, and Bride, Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star, That nearer drew to earth, and brighter flashed To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence Stood up with queenly port. She turned: she saw Earth’s King, mankind’s great Father. Taught by God, Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed, In love and reverence to her Lord she drew, And, kneeling, kissed his hand: and Adam laid That hand, made holier, on that kneeler’s head, And spake; “For this shall man his parents leave, And to his wife cleave fast.”

When Ceadmon ceased Thus spake the Man Divine: “At break of day Seek thou some prudent man, and say that God Hath loosed thy tongue; nor hide henceforth thy gift.” Then Ceadmon turned, and slept among his kine Dreamless. Ere dawn he stood upon the shore In doubt: but when at last o’er eastern seas The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang, Once more he found God’s song upon his mouth Murmuring high joy; and sought a prudent man, And told him all the vision. At the word He to the Abbess with the tidings fled, And she made answer, “Bring me Ceadmon here.”

Then clomb the pair that sea-beat mount of God Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used, The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent, And halted not, so worked in both her will, Till now between the unfinished towers they stood Panting and spent. The portals open stood: Ceadmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked, Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep Strong ’gainst invading storm or demon hosts, And naked as the rock whereon it stood, Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched roofs Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God On every stony face. Like caverned grot Far off the western window frowned: beyond, Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree: No need for gems beside of storied glass.

He entered last that hall where Hilda sat Begirt with a great company, the chiefs Down either side far ranged. Three stalls, cross-crowned, Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years Had laid upon her brows a hand serene, And left alone their blessing. Levelled eyes Sable, and keen, with meditative strength Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule; Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right Sat Finan, Aidan’s successor, with head Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast Never by mortal passion heaved in storm, A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked, Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow Less youthful than his years. Exile long past, Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed, Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength Of passion held in check looked lordly forth From head and hand: tawny his beard; his hair Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat Half turned, like one on horseback set that hears, And he alone, the advancing trump of war. Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mass, Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks Wild as their waves and crags; Southerns keen-browed; Pure Saxon youths, fair-fronted, with mild eyes (These less than others strove for nobler place), And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest, And higher-ranged in marble-arched arcade, Sat Hilda’s sisterhood. Clustering they shone, White-veiled, and pale of face, and still and meek, An inly-bending curve, like some young moon Whose crescent glitters o’er a dusky strait. In front were monks dark-stoled: for Hilda ruled, Though feminine, two houses, one of men: Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood, To various service vowed, though single. Faith; Nor ever, save at rarest festival, Their holy inmates met.

“Is this the man Favored, though late, with gift of song?” Thus spake Hilda with placid smile. Severer then She added: “Son, the commonest gifts of God He counts his best, and oft temptation blends With powers more rare. Yet sing! That God who lifts The violet from the grass as well could draw Music from stones hard by. That song thou sang’st, Sing it once more.”

Then Ceadmon from his knees Arose and stood. With princely instinct first The strong man to the abbess bowed, and next To that great twain, the bishop and the king, Last to that stately concourse ranged each side Down the long hall; and, dubious, answered thus: “Great Mother, if that God who sent the song Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing; But I misdoubt it lost.” Slowly his face Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent As brooding memory, step by step, retracked Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought The starting-point. Then Ceadmon’s large, soft hands Opening and closing worked; for wont were they, In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad, And plant its point far from him, thereupon Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support Now finding not, unwittingly those hands Reached forth, and on Saint Finan’s crosier-staff Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop’s grasp; And Ceadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile Down the long hall to see earth’s meekest man The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne. They smiled; he triumphed: soon the Cow-herd found That first fair corner-stone of all his song; Then rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands, Once more his lordly music he rehearsed, The void abyss at God’s command forth-flinging Creation like a Thought:—where night had reigned, The universe of God.

The singing stars Which with the Angels sang when earth was made Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark To ocean’s deepest under cliffs low-browed, And pine-woods’ vastest on the topmost hills, No tone was wanting; while to them that heard Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born, Fair, phantom mountains, and, with forests plumed, The marvelling headlands, for the first time glassed In waters ever calm. O’er sapphire seas Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth’s flower, Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs From bosom still inviolate forth poured Immortal sweets. With sense to spirit turned Who heard the song inhaled those sweets. Their eyes Flashing, their passionate hands and heaving breasts, Tumult self-stilled, and mute, expectant trance, ’Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might, That might denied to poets later born Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard, Applauded or contemned, alike roll round A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell, Missing their inspiration’s human half.

Thus Ceadmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile The concourse stood (for all had risen), as though Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere long Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped But Hilda laid her finger on her lip, Or provident lest praise might stain the pure, Or deeming song a gift too high for praise. She spake: “Through help of God thy song is sound: Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom A second hymn, and worthier than the first.”

Then Finan stood, and bent his hoary head Above the Scripture tome in reverence stayed Upon his kneeling deacon’s hands and brow, And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning, “_Cum esset desponsata_,” and was still; And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue: Then Ceadmon took God’s Word into his heart, And ruminating stood, as when the kine, Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate; And was a man in thought. At last the light Shone from his dubious countenance, and he spake: “Great Mother, lo! I saw a second Song! T’wards me it came; but with averted face, And borne on shifting winds. A man am I Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and brood; Therefore that Scripture till the sun goes down Will I revolve. If song from God be mine Expect me here at morn.”

The morrow morn In that high presence Ceadmon stood and sang A second song, and manlier than his first; And Hilda said, “From God it came, not man; Thou therefore live a monk among my monks, And sing to God.” Doubtful he stood—“From youth My place hath been with kine; their ways I know, And how to cure their griefs.” Smiling she answered, “Our convent hath its meads, and kine; with these Consort each morning: night and day be ours.” Then Ceadmon knelt, and bowed, and said, “So be it”: And aged Finan, and Northumbria’s king Oswy, approved; and all that host had joy.

Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk, Humblest of all the monks, save him that slept In the next cell, who once had been a prince. Seven times a day he sang God’s praises, first When earliest dawn drew back night’s sable veil With trembling hand, revisiting the earth Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers Round her sick mother’s bed, misdoubting half If sleep lie there, or death; latest when eve Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch, And laid upon the snowy altar-step At last a brow of gold. From time to time, By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale He tracked Dëirean or Bernician glades To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York, Not yet great Wilfred’s seat, or Beverley:— The children gathered round him, crying, “Sing!” They gave him inspiration with their eyes, And with his conquering music he returned it. Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast To Yarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites, The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more, To Bamborough, Oswald’s keep. At Coldingham His feet had rest—there where St. Ebba’s Cape That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor, Sustained for centuries o’er the wild sea-surge In region of dim mist and flying bird, Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned, The worn-out sailor’s hope.

Fair English shores, Despite the buffeting storms of north and east, Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife, Or froz’n by doubt, or sad with sensual care, A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten saint Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine! Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked; On sobbing sands the fisher left his net, His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March, Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles, Like that blind Scian upon Grecian shores, If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang; If God denied it, after musings deep He answered, “I am of the kine and dumb”;— The man revered his art, and fraudful song Esteemed as fraudful coin.

Music denied, He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it, Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played, Or like two sisters o’er one sampler bent, One pattern worked. Ever the sorrowful chance Ending in joy, the human craving still, Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life, Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He, Man’s Maker, is the Healer too of man, And life his school, expectant. Parables— Thus Ceadmon named his legends. They who heard Made answer, “Nay, not parables, but truths;” Endured no change of phrase; to years remote Transmitted them as facts.

Better than tale They loved their minstrel’s harp. The songs he sang Were songs to brighten gentle hearts, to fire Strong hearts with holier courage, hope to breathe Through spirits despondent, o’er the childless floor Or widowed bed, flashing from highest heaven A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear, His own, and tears of those that listened, fell Oft as he sang that hand, lovely as light, Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden boughs That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood, Sin’s doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to height Else inaccessible, the just. He sang That patriarch facing at Divine command The illimitable desert—harder proof, Lifting his knife o’er him, the seed foretold: He sang of Israel loosed, the twelve black seals Down pressed on Egypt’s testament of woe, Covenant of pride with penance; sang the face Of Moses glittering from red Sinai’s rocks, The Tables twain, and Mandements of God. On Christian nights he sang that jubilant star Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib By Joseph watched, and Mary. Pale, in Lent, Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary, Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists, Which, terrible and swift—not like a tale— With speed of things which must be done, not said, A river of bale, from guilty age to age, Along the lamentable shore of things Annual makes way, the history of the world, Not of one race, one day. Up to its fount That stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang Which, chanted later by a thousand years, Music celestial, though with note that jarred (Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime), Amazed the nations—“There was war in heaven: Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged With Satan and his angels.” Brief that war, That ruin total. Brief was Ceadmon’s song: Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged: Therein the Apostate’s form no grandeur wore: The grandeur was elsewhere. Who hate their God Change not alone to vanquished but to vile. On Easter morns he sang the Saviour Risen, Eden regained. Since then on England’s shores Though many sang, yet no man sang like him.

O holy House of Whitby! on thy steep Rejoice, howe’er the tempest, night or day, Afflict thee, or the craftier hand of Time, Drag back thine airy arches in mid spring; Rejoice, for Ceadmon in thy cloisters knelt, And singing paced beside thy sounding sea! Long years he lived; and with the whitening hair More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek; And they that saw him said he sang within Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed Sonorous strain, and when—that fulgent eye No longer bright—still on his forehead shone Not flame but purer light, like that last beam Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn, Maintains its place on Alpine throne remote, Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud, And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men Daily he less esteemed, through single heart More knit with God. To please a sickly child He sang his latest song, and, ending, said, “Song is but body, though ’tis body winged: The soul of song is love: the body dead, The soul should thrive the more.” That Patmian Sage Whose head had lain upon the Saviour’s breast, Who in high vision saw the First and Last, Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned, Who o’er the ruins of the Imperial House And ashes of the twelve great Cæsars dead Witnessed the endless triumph of the just, To earthly life restored, and, weak through age, But seldom spake, and gave but one command, The great “_Mandatum Novum_” of his Lord, “My children, love each other!” Like to his Was Ceadmon’s age. Weakness with happy stealth Increased upon him: he was cheerful still: He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun, Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept, Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine.

The legend of the last of Ceadmon’s days:— That hospital wherein the old monks died Stood but a stone’s throw from the monastery: “Make there my couch to-night,” he said, and smiled: They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour, The man, low-seated on his pallet-bed, In silence watched the courses of the stars, Or casual spake at times of common things, And three times played with childhood’s days, and twice His father named. At last, like one that, long Begirt with good, is smit by sudden thought Of greater good, thus spake he: “Have ye, sons, Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament?” They answered, wrathful, “Father, thou art strong; Shake not thy children! Thou hast many days!” “Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,” Once more he said. The brethren issued forth Save four that silent sat waiting the close. Ere long in grave procession they returned, Two deacons first, gold-vested; after these That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament, And acolytes behind him, lifting lights. Then from his pallet Ceadmon slowly rose And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching forth His right hand, cradled in his left, behold! Therein was laid God’s Mystery. He spake: “Stand ye in flawless charity of God T’wards me, my sons, or lives there in your hearts Memory the least of wrong or wrath?” They answered: “Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath, But love, and love alone.” And he: “Not less Am I in charity with you, my sons, And all my sins of pride, and other sins, Humbly I mourn.” Then, bending the old head Above the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord To be his soul’s viaticum, in might Leading from life that seems to life that is, And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made, He sat upon his bed, and spake: “How long Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms?” “That hour is nigh,” they answered; he replied, “Then let us wait that hour,” and laid him down With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands Crossed on his breast, and slept.

Meanwhile the monks (The lights removed in reverence of his sleep) Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass Between “_Orate Fratres_” glides away, And “_Hoc est Corpus Meum_.” Northward far The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough Head; For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year, Following the magic of a maiden moon, Had reached its height. More near, that sea which sobbed In many a cave by Whitby’s winding coast, Or died in peace on many a sandy bar From river-mouth to river-mouth outspread, They heard, and mused upon eternity That circles human life. Gradual there rose A softer strain and sweeter, making way O’er that sea-murmur hoarse; and they were ware That in the black far-shadowing church whose bulk Up-towered between them and the moon, the monks Their matins had begun. A little sigh That moment reached them from the central gloom Guarding the sleeper’s bed; a second sigh Succeeded: neither seemed the sigh of pain: And some one said, “He wakens.” Large and bright Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon, And smote the cross above that sleeper’s couch, And smote that sleeper’s face. The smile thereon Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.

CONFESSION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.[160]

The subject of confession has of late been brought prominently before the British public. We need hardly say that a storm of indignation has been raised. Parliament has been called upon to put a stop to a practice which is generally believed to be quite at variance with the spirit of the Church of England, and many of the bishops have publicly condemned it. It may, however, be doubted whether any effect has really been produced; for as long as clergy are found who claim the power of forgiving sin, and as long as people feel the need of absolution, it is certain that confession will be practised.

A Catholic must necessarily look on confession, as existing in the Anglican communion, with feelings of a very mixed nature. On the one hand it is impossible not to appreciate the sincerity and humility evinced by those who voluntarily seek what they believe to be a means of grace. It is hard to doubt that the habit of self-examination and of watchfulness naturally resulting from confession must have its value; above all, it seems as if we might fairly hope that the spirit of obedience and the faithfulness in acting on conviction will be rewarded by fuller light and knowledge.

On the other hand, it is equally impossible to shut our eyes to the great dangers which beset confession among Anglicans. In the first place, there is the absence of all sacramental grace; secondly, of training, and even of theological knowledge, in the clergy; and, thirdly, those who use confession are in an exceptional position, which of itself is fraught with peril to the soul.

Of course no Catholic supposes Anglican clergymen to have true orders. Confession in the English communion is simply a conversation between two lay people on some of the most important subjects that can occupy the thoughts of human beings. There may be on either side sincerity, piety, and earnestness, but sacramental grace there is not. Relations so close between two souls are certainly not without peril; we do not speak of the danger to morals which the Protestant party constantly insists upon, and whose existence we cannot altogether deny, but of the tyranny on the part of the minister, and of the unreasonable obedience yielded by the penitent to a self-appointed guide.

Those who have looked a little into their own hearts, and who have reflected on the subtle influences which have told on their characters, must feel that dealing with another soul is no light matter; that the chances of doing harm are many and great; and that special graces are needed by those who are called to so sacred an office. The need of training, too, is obvious; he who is to be the physician of the soul ought to be as well acquainted with moral theology as a physician should be with medical science. Among the clergy of the Church of England there is an absolute want of theological knowledge. It would be hard to mention an Anglican book on any subject connected with moral theology. Anglican clergymen, even where they have learnt to believe many of the dogmas of the Catholic faith, are, generally speaking, ignorant of the difference between mortal and venial sin. Hence results a spirit of severity on the part of the confessor which tends to produce scrupulosity and depression in the penitent. Converts have declared that the first time they heard Catholic teaching as to the nature of sin it seemed to them the most consoling doctrine possible.

It is true that of late years some Catholic manuals have been translated and “adapted” to the Anglican use. In the recent controversies regarding the _Priest in Absolution_ some of the leading High-Church clergy have proclaimed their ignorance of the book, and have asserted that experience had taught them all that they could learn from its pages; but while they were gaining their experience what became of the poor souls who were the subjects of their study? In the Catholic Church a person cannot be said in any way to distinguish himself by going to confession; he does what has to be done if he would save his soul. Among Anglicans, although the practice is now pretty widely spread, the case is very different; the man or woman who goes to confession occupies a somewhat exceptional position, and is more or less considered as a support of the church, as one of those through whose influence that church is gradually to be reformed and restored.

It is hard to get at statistics as to the actual strength of the extreme High-Church party, and even among those who call themselves High Church there are many shades and differences of opinion; the amount of notice which it has attracted is due rather to the adoption of practices unknown in the Church of England, and to the earnestness and activity of its clergy, than to the great number of its adherents. If we were to count one-tenth part of the members of the Church of England as High Church we should probably be overshooting the mark; and of these it is by no means to be assumed that the greater number go to confession. Personal inquiry in at least one so-called centre of ritualism has led us to believe that it is the practice of a mere minority.

We believe that the practice of confession may be said to be pretty nearly universal in the case of the Anglican religious communities (which are about thirty in number). Many people living in the world are accustomed to go to confession weekly or fortnightly, and in some few London churches the practice is probably followed by the majority of the congregation; children are trained to it from their earliest years, and it is boldly proclaimed to be the “remedy for post-baptismal sin.”

As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. This, after all, is the great danger. It will never be known till the last day how many souls have been kept out of God’s church by the authority of their Protestant “directors.” A director finds that one of his penitents begins to think that the Catholic Church has claims worthy, at least, of being examined. At once active works of charity are proposed as a remedy; all reading of Catholic books, or intercourse with Catholic friends or relations, is forbidden; the director is not afraid to say that leaving the Church of England is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and furthermore will promise to answer at the last day for the soul that, in reliance on his dictum, suspends all search after truth and blindly obeys. The moment of grace is too often lost; the soul holds back and will not respond to God’s call. Too often those things which it had are taken from it, and the sad result is an utter loss of faith.

A Catholic’s interest in the working of the Anglican Church is solely in reference to the work of conversion. Those who in one sense are said to come nearest to the Catholic Church are often in reality the furthest off; for they believe Catholic doctrines not because they are proposed by a divine authority, but because they consider them reasonable, or find that they are in accordance with the testimony of antiquity. Their religion is as much a matter of private judgment as that of the Bible Christian; the difference lies in the fact that the ritualist exercises his private judgment over a more extended field than the other.

An Anglican who goes to confession must be an object of great anxiety to a Catholic friend. In such a case, at least where the practice has been voluntarily and earnestly adopted, we feel that God is calling that soul to his church; that he has awakened in it a sense of need, a craving for the grace and aid which, generally speaking, are only to be found in the sacraments. We can hardly doubt that, if that soul is true to grace, it will ere long be in the one true fold; but the position is one of peculiar difficulty, and the temptations which beset it are of no common kind. Minds of a weak order naturally yield to anything that bears the semblance of lawful authority; the conscientious fear to go against those whom they believe to be wiser and better than themselves; a peace of mind often follows the confession of an Anglican. Perhaps it is the natural result of having made an effort and got over what is supposed to be a painful duty; perhaps it is a grace given by God in consideration of an act of contrition. How is the poor soul to discern this peace from the effect of sacramental grace? So the very goodness of God is turned into a reason for delay and for resting satisfied.

Hitherto we have looked on the subject of confession in the Anglican communion chiefly from the side of the penitent; the case of the clergy who hear confessions is widely different and is beset with many difficulties. Generally speaking, the only question arising in the mind of the penitent would be: Can I get my sins forgiven by going to confession? Of course the reality of the absolution turns primarily on the validity of orders; strange to say, a vast number of the laity of the Church of England are contented to take the validity of the orders of their ministers as an unquestioned fact. The clergy naturally are most positive in the assertion that their orders are valid; as the nature and the necessity of jurisdiction are alike unknown to the ordinary Anglican mind, the matter seems pretty clear. The laity in the Anglican body are not in any very definite manner bound by the Prayer-book or by any of the authorized documents of that body; there is nothing anomalous in the idea of Anglican lay people, especially women, going to confession without even asking themselves whether the practice is in accordance with the mind of the communion to which they belong. Moreover, High-Church Anglicans are avowedly bent on improving their church; their church is not their guide or their mother, but rather an institution which has so far fulfilled its purpose but imperfectly, and which, by a judicious process of reformation, they hope to assimilate to an ideal existing in their own minds. Many conscientious Anglicans would therefore deem any objection founded on the evident want of encouragement of their views by their church as quite irrelevant. The Church of England does not forbid such and such a practice, they would say; we are convinced that it is in accordance with the teaching of antiquity, that it is useful, and therefore we encourage it.

The clergy, however, are bound not only to follow the voice of individual conscience, but to keep certain solemn promises by which they have voluntarily bound themselves. Even if a clergyman be fully convinced that he possesses the tremendous power of the keys, it does not necessarily follow that he should feel at liberty to exercise it at all times or in all places. We do not go at all into the question of Anglican orders, except to remark in passing that it seems strange that the majority of the clergy should give themselves so little trouble on the subject; they know that, to say the least, grave doubts as to their position are entertained by Christendom in general, and yet it is very seldom that any one of them takes the same trouble to investigate his orders that a reasonable man would take in regard to his title-deeds, if a doubt were thrown on them. We believe that the feeling which we once heard expressed by a clergyman said to be High Church is not very uncommon; being told by a friend that there were serious reasons for doubting Anglican orders, and consequently Anglican sacraments, he made no attempt to defend them, but simply remarked: “I don’t suppose that God would let us suffer for such a trifle.” To make the position of the Anglican clergy clear to our readers, we must begin by citing from “The Form and Manner of making Priests” the solemn words which a Protestant bishop, “laying his hands upon the head of every one that receiveth the order of priesthood,” pronounces over him:

“Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

By the thirty-sixth canon of the Church of England, published and confirmed in 1865, it is required that the following Declaration and subscription should be made by such as are to be ordained ministers:

“I, A. B., do solemnly make the following declaration: I assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and to the Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; I believe the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the word of God; and in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use the form in the said book prescribed, and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority.”

An Anglican clergyman, again, pledges himself at his ordination to minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as our Lord hath commanded, _and as this church and realm hath received_ the same. The subject of confession is mentioned three times in the Book of Common Prayer, which, as our readers may perhaps be aware, is the only authorized formulary of devotion possessed by the Church of England. There is no separate ritual for the clergy; the Common Prayer is the one comprehensive whole and is in the hands of everybody.

In the exhortation which is appointed to be read on the Sunday immediately preceding the celebration of the Holy Communion, and which, by the way, a great many regular church-goers seldom or never have heard read, the concluding paragraph runs as follows:

“And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means, (_i.e._, by self-examination and private repentance,) cannot quiet his own conscience herein but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.”

The next occasion on which we find confession in the pages of the Prayer-book is the Visitation of the Sick. A rubric lays down the “priest’s” duty in these words:

“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and, by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Lastly, in the twenty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, which are subscribed by all the clergy, we read:

“There are two sacraments, ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel—that is to say, baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called sacraments—that is to say, confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction—are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of sacraments with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.”

As the Church of England has but one authorized book of devotion, she has but one book of instruction; her Homilies are declared, in the thirty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles, “to contain a godly and wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times,” and it is directed that they should “be read in churches by the minister diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.”

The Homilies are not read in churches; in fact we believe it would be safe to assert that they are hardly ever read anywhere, and we might almost suppose them to be obsolete, were it not that every candidate for orders signs the statement that they are “necessary for these times.” The second part of the Homily on Repentance says:

“And where they (the Roman teachers) do allege this saying of our Saviour Jesus Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular confession to stand on God’s word, ‘Go thy way, and show thyself unto the priest,’ do they not see that the leper was cleansed from his leprosy, before he was by Christ sent unto the priest for to show himself unto him? By the same reason we must be cleansed from our spiritual leprosy—I mean our sins must be forgiven us—before that we come to confession. What need we, then, to tell forth our sins into the ear of the priest, sith that they may be already taken away? Therefore holy Ambrose, in his second sermon upon the 119th Psalm, doth say full well: _Go show thyself unto the priest_. Who is the true priest, but he which is the priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech? Whereby this holy Father doth understand that, both the priesthood and the law being changed, we ought to acknowledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins but our Saviour Jesus Christ, who, being our sovereign bishop, doth with the sacrifice of his body and blood, offered once for ever upon the altar of the cross, most effectually cleanse the spiritual leprosy and wash away the sins of all those that with true confession of the same do flee unto him. It is most evident and plain, that this auricular confession hath not the warrant of God’s word, else it had not been lawful for Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, upon a just occasion to have put it down.

* * * * *

“Let us with fear and trembling, and with a true contrite heart, use that kind of confession which God doth command in his Word, and then doubtless, as he is faithful and righteous, he will forgive us our sins and make us clean from all wickedness. I do not say but that, if any do find themselves troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, or to some other godly learned man, and show the trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God’s word; but it is against the true Christian liberty, that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance.”

Such are the scanty devotional and dogmatical utterances of the Church of England on the subject of confession. The only other instruction given to her clergy in regard to their duties as confessors is to be found in the one hundred and thirteenth canon, which treats of the presentment of notorious offenders to the ordinaries. Parsons and vicars, or in their absence their curates, may themselves present to their ordinaries

“All such crimes as they have in charge or otherwise, as by them (being the persons that should have the chief care for the suppressing of sin and impiety in their parishes) shall be thought to require due reformation. Provided always, that if any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him; we do not any way bind the said minister by this our Constitution, but do straitly charge and admonish him, that he do not at any time reveal and make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy (except they be such crimes as, by the laws of this realm, his own life may be called into question for concealing the same), under pain of irregularity.”

As far as we can gather, the belief of the Church of England on the subject of confession may be summed up in the following propositions:

1. Penance is not a sacrament, but

2. Her ministers have the power of forgiving sins.

3. This power is exercised after confession made by the penitent.

4. But such confession is not to be made, save in case of serious illness or of great disquiet of mind.

5. The absolution of the priest is not the ordinary means by which sins are forgiven.

6. The penitent is to be the judge in his own case. If he feels very much in want of confession, he may have it; if not, he is to do without it. His own feeling is the only rule in the matter.

We think our readers will admit that the above statements are in no way an unfair summary of the teaching of the Church of England as represented by her formularies. Certainly they give no warrant for the assertion now made by the High-Church party that confession is the ordinary remedy for post-baptismal sin, or to the practice of frequent and regular confession which is now so widely advocated and followed. Confession is evidently, according to the teaching of Anglicanism, what it has been well called by an Anglican, a “luxury.” How, it may be asked, can men who are pledged to teach and maintain the doctrines of the Church of England act in direct opposition to the instructions which she has given them? We do not maintain that those instructions have the appearance of being all the expression of the same convictions. There is an apparent discrepancy existing amongst them; they are not consistent with each other. But the one broad fact is plain as daylight: they do not countenance the present action of extreme Anglicans. Lookers-on constantly ask, Are these men sincere? Why do they not “go over to Rome”? Are they not traitors in the Anglican camp? To these questions we can only reply: We judge not; each individual must stand or fall to his own master; but we cannot hesitate in saying that ritualism as a system is dishonest, and that the position occupied by its adherents is the most untenable that any man can undertake to defend.

If we seek for the reason why men whom we are ready to believe upright and honorable act in a manner which is apparently absolutely incompatible with their solemn engagements, it may perhaps be discovered by a consideration of one of the chief characteristics of the Church of England.

St. Paul speaks of the church of Christ as “the pillar and ground of the truth.” The Church of England is essentially a compromise. Some of her dignitaries even look on this as her glory: the High-Churchman can find his belief in the Real Presence supported by her catechism, but the Low-Churchman has the black rubric, which is equally strong in favor of his opinion; her prayers are for the most part preserved from the days of Catholic piety, and her Articles bear the impress of foreign heresy; she prays against “false doctrine, heresy, and schism,” and devotes one of her Articles to the assertion that all churches have erred. Her clergy are required to accept anomalies and inconsistencies; and we cannot but do them the justice to say that they accept them with great equanimity. Every one has something to get over: the High-Churchman could wish some things altered, and the Low-Churchman would be glad to see others omitted; the result seems to be that every one subscribes with a kind of laxity which, if it does not imply a want of honesty, at least betrays an absence of accuracy and of definite conviction. Subscription to articles and formularies seems to sit very lightly on the Anglican conscience; it is a mere means to an end.

But the Anglican clergyman not only pledges himself to the doctrines of the Prayer-book and Articles; he also promises obedience to his bishop. Here is something apparently definite. In the voice of a living bishop there can hardly be the same scope for diversity as the pages of the Prayer-book afford. Generally speaking, the Anglican bishops condemn the practice of confession; if they were really rulers in their communion there can be no doubt that the High-Church party would long since have been extinct. As a fact, the Anglican does not obey his bishop; at this very moment one of the leading High-Church clergy of London has definitely and deliberately refused to obey his bishop by removing from his church a crucifix and a picture of Our Lady, which he believes tend to promote devotion among his flock.

For the reasons which lead conscientious men to disobey the ordinary whose godly admonitions they have engaged with a glad mind and will to follow, and to whose godly judgments they have promised with God’s help to submit, we must again look to the peculiar theories of the Church of England. It is hardly necessary to say that the Church of England does not in any way or under any circumstances claim infallibility; nay, more, she goes out of her way to deny its very existence. One of her Articles asserts that the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome have erred in matters of faith, and another follows up this assertion by the kindred statement that general councils may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining to God. She indeed daily professes her belief in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, but she does not inform her children where and how the voice of that church is to be heard. She constantly asserts the authority of Holy Scripture, but she recognizes no authority competent to interpret Scripture in a decisive manner. Under the influence of such teaching it is not surprising that there should exist in the Church of England two theories regarding authority in matters of faith. One is that there is no authority save Holy Scripture. Everything must be proved by Scripture; and as there is no one necessarily better entitled than another to explain Scripture, this virtually amounts to a recognition of the right and duty of private judgment to its fullest extent. The other theory is based on belief in the One Catholic Church. It admits that our Lord appointed his church to teach men all truth; it believes that the voice of the church in primitive times was the voice of God; it doubts not that at a former period the church was guided by the Spirit of God, but it holds that supernatural guidance to be in abeyance; it recognizes no _living_ voice of the church; it looks forward with a vague hope to the reunion of Catholics, Greeks, and Anglicans, and the possibility in such a case of a general council being held, whose decisions would bind all Christendom. In the meantime the church is dumb, if not dead, and all that can be done is to turn with a reverent mind to the study of antiquity, to an examination of what has been handed down from the days of pure and undoubted faith. This last is the theory of the High-Church party in general. To their mind a bishop is a necessity; he is required for the conferring of orders and for giving confirmation; he is not the centre of sacrificial power in his diocese, nor the source of jurisdiction; he is not a teacher in any other sense beyond that in which they are themselves teachers; their obedience to him is not an obedience to one whom our Lord has set over his flock with a special charge to feed his sheep as well as his lambs; it is an obedience rendered to one who is officially a superior—an obedience which has no direct reference to God, and which is constantly evaded (it may be in perfect good faith) on the principle that “we ought to obey God rather than man.”

Another cause which has probably much to do with the apparent inconsistencies of the High-Church Anglican clergy is the fact that they are in a great many cases absorbed and overwhelmed by an amount of active work which leaves little leisure for the serious examination of their position. It is admitted on all sides that the last century was a period of spiritual apathy and deadness as far as the Church of England was concerned. The movement of the past forty years has not been merely in the direction of Catholic doctrine, but it has also led to a renewal of zeal, to energy and self-sacrifice, which we cannot but appreciate. The poor, the young, the ignorant, and the fallen are cared for with a charity whose root is, we trust, to be found in the increased knowledge of the life and of the love of our Lord. But even works of mercy have their snares; a man who is toiling night and day among the outcast and the poor of great cities, who sees the results of his labor in the reformed life of many a wanderer, and who also sees pressing on him needs which he can never fully satisfy, must be sorely tempted to turn a deaf ear to all such questionings as would stay his course. He hears people’s confessions, and he sees them turn to God and lead better lives; naturally he concludes that all is right, and he resents any interference with a practice which is apparently so salutary.

We have now given a short and, we hope, a fair idea of confession as it exists at present in the Anglican communion. We must add, for the information of those who have not had the opportunity of watching the progress of events in England, that the practice of confession was unknown, or almost unknown, in the Anglican communion until about five-and-thirty years ago. It was one of the first fruits of that turning back to the old Catholic paths which by God’s blessing has led so many souls into the Church. The movement still goes on; it has passed through different phases, and year by year it brings one after another to the very threshold of their true home; they enter in and are at rest, and find the reality of all that they had hitherto sought and longed for.

MICHAEL THE SOMBRE.[161]

AN EPISODE IN THE POLISH INSURRECTION, 1863–1864.

It is a trite remark that every age has produced its heroes, its saints, and its martyrs; but there are few amongst us who have sufficient discernment to recognize them when they cross our path in life. “Should we know a saint if we met him?” asks Father Faber. And so if we were to meet the heroine of this tale, quietly working in her own village or busy with the _ouvroir_ for young girls she has just established in her province in France, we should be far indeed from guessing that we saw with our own eyes a woman who had equalled, if not surpassed, Joan of Arc in heroism, devotion, and courage, and who had done deeds which would be incredible, if not attested by a multitude of living witnesses.

She was born in one of the departments of France unhappily annexed during the war of 1870–71. Having lost her mother in infancy, she was brought up by her father, an old officer under Louis XVIII. and Charles X., who educated her entirely as a boy. At twelve years of age she was a complete mistress

of the art of fencing, riding, shooting, and other manly accomplishments. Then, fearing lest she should be altogether unfitted for the society of those of her own sex, her father suddenly determined to send her to a convent, where her extraordinary cleverness soon enabled her to conquer all difficulties, and she made the most rapid progress in every branch of study. A vein of earnest Catholic piety ran through her whole character, coupled with an equally earnest devotion to her country and her king.

We do not know what family circumstances induced her father to part for a time from a child on whose education he had lavished such thought and care. But at eighteen we find her established in Poland as an inmate of one of its noblest families. After two years thus spent, during which she acquired a thorough knowledge of the Polish and German languages, she returned to France and had the melancholy consolation of nursing and assisting her father in his last moments; after which she was entreated to return to the Countess L—— in Poland, and become the adopted child of the house, to which she consented. So that, when the insurrection in that country broke out in 1863, “Mika,” as she was affectionately called by the whole family, rejoiced in the opportunity it afforded her of repaying the debt of gratitude she owed to those who had been as her second parents, by a devotion which was ready to sacrifice life itself in their service.

It is an episode in this war which we are about to give to our readers, and which we think will be doubly interesting at the present moment, when all eyes are fixed on the terrible struggle going on in the East. The story is told in the heroine’s own words.

* * * * *

It was on the 22d January, 1863, that the Poles, in little bands of ten or twenty men, met by a cross raised in honor of Kosciusko in the palatinate of Radom, and made a vow to deliver Poland from the Muscovite yoke or perish in the attempt. Let those who blame them remember the intolerable persecution which they had patiently endured for years—a persecution which deprived them of their faith, their language, their rights as citizens, and all that men hold most dear.

On the 24th they marched on Miechow, having no other arms than scythes and sticks and old-fashioned fowling-pieces. Led by inexperienced chiefs, who, in their ardor, fondly imagined that patriotism and a holy cause would carry the day against military tactics, they were foolish enough to attack, in broad daylight, a strong body of Russians, well armed and superior to them in numbers, who occupied an almost impregnable position on the heights above the town. The result may be easily imagined. The Poles were repulsed with heavy loss, and the Russians, who delight in celebrating their triumphs by a bonfire, burnt down the town and massacred all the Poles who came within their reach.

Ten of the Polish wounded were secretly brought to the castle, where we had established a subterranean ambulance. It was my business to dress the wounds of these poor fellows, assisted by a holy nun, the Mother Alexandra, who played too important a part in my future history not to be mentioned here. The Count L—— did not approve of the insurrection and considered it hopeless from the first; but he would not abandon his brave peasants. Towards the 30th of this month our couriers gave us warning that the Russians were aware of the wounded men being under our care, and that they were marching on the castle for the purpose of burning it down. The count refused to fly, saying that his place was amongst his own people at Syez, of whom he had always been both the father and protector. But he called me into his counsels, and implored me to carry off his wife and children and his sister-in-law (who lived with us) to Mislowitz, a little manufacturing town on the frontier of Silesia and Poland. After all it was a false alarm; and after a fortnight’s exile, which anxiety and fear had doubled, a letter from the count recalled us. We had nearly reached the end of our journey when we were attacked by a mob of Russian fanatics, who endeavored to seize the carriage. I was on horseback at the head of the little cavalcade, and I managed by means of my revolver to keep these miscreants at bay. The coachman profited by this moment’s respite to lash his horses into a gallop, by which means we escaped the ambush and reached the castle in safety.

But our tranquillity was not destined to be of long duration. About a fortnight later eight insurgents of the legion called of “Despair” sought refuge in our house. We concealed them as well as we could; but in the middle of the night notice was sent us that the Russians were on their track and had discovered their hiding-place. We hastened to send them off to a part of the forest where a cavern had been prepared to receive any such fugitives. They reached it in safety, but unhappily were betrayed by a peasant to whom the secret had been confided. The exasperated Russians again threatened the castle; and again the count insisted on our flight. On our way an alarm was given of some sort which so terrified the coachman that he threw down his whip and fled for his life, leaving us and the carriage at the mercy of the four horses, which were strong beasts and very fresh. Luckily, they stood still for a moment, and, as I was used to driving, I reassured the countess and jumped on the box. Hardly, however, had I taken the reins than the wheels of the carriage became wedged in the sand. I jumped off the box, and, seizing one of the leaders by the bridle, urged him forward with all my might. The animal made so violent an effort that he threw me down and dragged me some twenty paces; but as I held on for dear life, he ended by stopping, and, the carriage being thus released, we went on as fast as we could, continually in dread of pursuit, till we reached the house of Countess N——, who received us with the warmest kindness and hospitality. Our stay here, however, was not of long duration, for my poor friend, the Countess L——, was in an agony to return to her husband, who had been left alone in the castle; and so, at the risk of being again captured, we returned to Syez. Fortunately, this time we had no alarms on the road, and the joy of the family at their safe reunion was as great as their thankfulness.

But our happiness was short-lived. Although the count did not take any part in the insurrection, it was well known that his sympathies were with his people, and this was sufficient to make him a marked man with the Russian authorities. At last we heard from undeniable authority that his arrest had been determined upon, and that he had been already condemned to Siberia. Then followed a heartrending scene—his wife and children (whose whole future would have been wrecked had his deportation been carried into effect) imploring him to take refuge in Germany, where he had a small property, and to remain there till the storm was past; while he clung tenaciously to his old home and to his duties as a proprietor during the struggle. Finally, he yielded to our tears and entreaties; but before leaving he sent for me and solemnly commended his wife and children to my care. I swore to defend them or to die in the attempt. It was agreed that we were to watch our opportunity, and, if possible, obtain an escort so as to cross the frontier and rejoin the count as soon as we could. Three days only after his departure we received intelligence that the Russians were close to our gates and were going to insist on a domiciliary visit. I flew to the count’s private room and commenced making an _auto-da-fé_ of every compromising letter or paper I could find and of all suspected newspapers. Whilst I was fanning the flames the count’s sister came in, and, seeing what I was about, exclaimed with horror:

“O Mika! for God’s sake stop. You don’t know what you are doing. All Arthur’s gunpowder is hidden and stowed away in that chimney!”

I was almost paralyzed with fear, but I said:

“Fly for your life and get the countess and the children out of the house.” And then, with a fervent ejaculatory prayer to God, I tore the burning papers out of the grate before the flames had had time to ignite the gunpowder, which, luckily for me, had been carefully done up in packets and placed in a metal box. I managed to drag the papers into another fireplace, and had time to see that they were all burnt, and to conceal the tinder, before the Cossacks surrounded the house and summoned us to open the doors. Their officers made the most minute examination of everything, but found nothing that they could lay their hands on, and went away disgusted, while I escaped with a few trifling burns on my hands and arms.

A few days after this scene Mme. de I—— and I were sitting talking in the room where we generally met and waited before dinner, when the countess came in with an open letter in her hand and looking more sad and pale than usual. “What has happened?” we both exclaimed; and I added, smiling: “Are we condemned to the knout? Or do the Russians reserve us the honor of a hempen collar?” But my dismal pleasantry produced no response, and the poor lady silently came and sat down by me, taking my hand. After a pause she said:

“Mika, I have been unwittingly guilty of a great indiscretion. You know how miserably anxious I am for news of Arthur’s safety. A servant whom I had sent to the post, in hopes of finding a letter from him, brought me back this one; and, full of my cruel anxiety, I tore it open without looking at the address, being fully convinced it came from him.”

“Well?” I inquired, as she hesitated to go on.

“Well, this letter was a terrible disappointment. It wasn’t from Arthur at all, or for me, but for you, and from your own family, who, dreading the consequences of this sad insurrection, insist on your immediate return to France.”

“Is that all?” I asked, smiling.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I only read enough to find out my mistake, and I was so absorbed by my own anxiety that I hardly took in the meaning of the words at first.”

“But that is not what I ask,” I rejoined. “I want to know what there was in that letter which makes you look so sad.”

The countess’ eyes filled with tears. “I own, Mika, that the thought of losing you breaks my heart. You know, at the first moment of alarm, Miss B—— and Fräulein F—— left the children and returned to their homes. I fancied you would follow their example; but seeing you so brave and so ready to share in all our dangers, I had been completely reassured, until God allowed this letter to fall into my hands.”

“And what have you concluded from that letter?” I asked rather coldly.

“I have made up my mind, Mika, that it would be the height of selfishness on my part to strive to induce you to stay on with us in a country where desolation and terror reign supreme; where we are not safe from one moment to the other; where neither human nor divine laws are respected, and where even ladies are not spared the lash or the stake. Yesterday, as you well know, Countess P——, for having worn mourning for her brother, who had been massacred by the Russians, was flogged publicly in the market-place and hanged afterwards. Fly, then, my dearest Mika, while there is yet time. Already you have done far more than your duty. You have risked your life over and over again for us. I cannot, I must not, exact any further sacrifice. Leave us, Mika, leave us to our sad fate, and may God be with you!”

Here the poor wife and mother hid her face in her hands, and I saw great tears coursing down her cheeks through her clasped fingers. Mme. de I—— and the children, who had come in during the interval and had heard their mother’s words, clustered round me and cried too. When I could command my own voice I turned towards the countess and said: “Dearest madam! seven years have now elapsed since I first became an inmate of your home. When I arrived here, Poland, if not happy, was at least at peace, and I reckoned you among the limited number of the truly happy ones on this earth. You received me (I, whom a deep sorrow had driven from my native land) as a friend, as a child, as a sister; and this affection and consideration for me have never failed for a single moment. When the insurrection broke out your English governess left you; and I think she was right. A sacred duty was laid upon her—that of supporting her old mother, who lived entirely on her earnings. As to Fräulein F——, that is quite another matter. I expected she would go away on the very first alarm. With Prussians devotedness does not exist. I believe they have tomatoes in place of hearts! As for me, I have only one brother in the world, and he is good enough to think of me only when his purse is empty. I have, therefore, not the same excuse as Miss B——, still less that of Fräulein F——; for if I chose to live independently, the little fortune left me by my father would be enough for my wants. If I returned to Poland after his death it was to find the same disinterested love and affection I had left there. I have found more than a duty to fulfil: I have a debt of gratitude to pay; and I thank God for the portion he has assigned to me.”

“But your family?” again urged the countess, whose face began to brighten.

“Since my father and sister died,” I replied, “I do not consider I have any family claims. Now, listen to me, contessina,” I continued, clasping her two hands in mine. “God has put into my heart an inexhaustible treasure of devotedness and tenderness. He has given me likewise unusual courage and strength; and now I thank him that he has also given me the occasion to employ these, his gifts, in your service. Your husband is in exile; you are threatened in your home, in your children, in your property, and by everything around you; and you could imagine for a moment that, under such circumstances, I should go and abandon you! Thank God! that there never has been a stain yet on our family name, and my father, an old soldier, impressed upon me, from a child, the strongest feelings of duty and honor. I swear, therefore, in the sight of God, that as long as this war lasts your country shall be my country, your children shall also be mine, and as long as my heart beats not a hair of your dear head shall be touched! When happier days arise for Poland, and peace shall be restored, then, but not till then, I shall remember that France is my country, and that I have left well-beloved tombs on her soil.”

The countess threw her arms round me in a close embrace and cried on my shoulder. Mme. de I—— looked at me with the sweetest smile. “Thanks, Mika,” she murmured in a broken voice. “I never believed for a moment that you would leave us. You!”

The children seized hold of my hands and covered them with kisses. It was a moment of the purest happiness I had known on earth.

In proportion to the progress and extent of the insurrection the cruelty of the Russians increased. Every day brought new vexations or fresh tortures. We lived in constant fear, and our position became really insupportable. Almost every noble family in the neighborhood had fled and left the country, and we should long before have followed their example had it not been for the great distance we were from the railroad. The count had arrived safely at Dresden, whence he wrote imploring his wife to join him. But we were at least forty versts from the nearest station, and to go there without an escort would have exposed us inevitably to fall into the hands of the Russians, who had lately ranked emigration in the category of crimes of high treason. And how was it possible to form an escort? The peasants, in the pay of the _Raskolnicks_ (or old believers), would refuse to march, and the servants would, in all probability, have betrayed us. In vain I racked my brains to find some way out of this difficulty, and every day the danger became more imminent. Providence at last had pity upon us, and disposed events in a way which became eventually the salvation of those so dear to me.

Every evening, when the rest of the family were gone to bed, I went alone into the library to answer letters, verify the steward’s registers, and look after the accounts. In the absence of the count there was no one to see after these necessary duties but myself, and I looked upon them as my right. One night, when this work had kept me up later than usual, I heard some one knocking at the door. It was past midnight. I rose to open it, very much surprised at any one coming to me at that hour, and all the more as no servant would venture into that part of the house at night, as it was reported to be haunted. What was my astonishment at finding the countess herself outside the door in a pitiable state of agitation.

“O Mika!” she exclaimed, almost falling into my arms as I led her to a seat, “I am in the most horrible perplexity and anxiety. I have just received an entreaty to send a despatch instantly to General B——, my husband’s oldest and dearest friend. He is encamped with his squadron at Gory, on the property of Count Dembinski; and he does not know that eight hundred Russians are in the immediate neighborhood and have laid an ambush to surprise him. This despatch is to warn him of it; for he has only three hundred men with him, who will all be cut to pieces, if he should not be warned in time. Who knows? perhaps already it may be too late. But you, Mika, who are always so clear-headed—can you suggest anything? Can you advise me what to do?”

“But the man who brought this despatch,” I exclaimed—“where is he? Why cannot he go on instantly to Gory?”

“Alas! it is impossible,” replied the countess. “He has just galloped seven leagues without stopping to take breath, and his horse dropped down dead at the entrance of the village. The poor fellow himself is half dead with fatigue and exhaustion.”

I thought for a minute or two, and then said:

“Leave the despatch with me. I will go and rouse the steward, and between us we will find some one who will undertake this perilous mission.”

“Do you really think so, Mika?”

“Yes, I am sure of it,” I replied.

“Oh! what a weight you have lifted off my heart,” said the countess joyfully. “Go at once, dearest child. I will wait for you, and not go to bed till I have heard the result of your consultation.”

When the countess had gone back to her own room a terrible struggle arose in my heart. I had studied the peasants and servants well enough to know that in such a moment of extreme danger not one of them was to be trusted. The steward himself did not inspire me with much confidence; and, besides, he was the father of a family. On the other hand, the lives of three hundred men hung upon the delivery of this message. I knelt down and prayed with my whole heart for guidance. When I rose my resolution was taken. The hour was come for me to pay my debt of gratitude towards this Poland which had become so dear to me, and perhaps in this way alone could I save the family to whom I had devoted my life. I wrote a few lines to the countess, and then went and woke my own maid.

“Marynia,” I said, “in half an hour, but not before, you must take this note to the countess, who is sitting up for me. And if to-morrow, when you get up, I am not come back, you must take another letter to her, which you will find on my chest of drawers.”

“But, Holy Virgin of Czenstochowa!” exclaimed the poor girl, “you are not going out at this time of night?”

“Yes; I am starting this very instant.”

“But then I will wake the whole house. I won’t have you go alone at this hour.”

“No, you will stay quiet,” I said to her in a tone which admitted of no reply, “and in half an hour you will do what I have told you.”

So saying, I left Marynia to her lamentations and went out. The first thing I had to do was to put on a man’s dress—I had received permission to do this from Rome in case of an emergency like the present—and then, taking my pistols, which were always ready, I went to the stable and picked out the best horse I could find, which I saddled myself, blessing again the education my father had given me, that made me independent of any assistance.

The road which I took passed in front of the castle. There was a light in the countess’ room where she was waiting for me. Good, gentle, loving woman with a child’s heart! Twice I saw her shadow pass and repass across the curtain, and twice my heart failed me. This feeling only lasted a minute; but this minute might have been a century for the agony concentrated in it. There to the left was the old castle which held those two young women so dear to me, and those children whose birth I had witnessed and who loved me so tenderly. To the right stretched the road that was to lead me—to Siberia, perhaps, or to a sudden and violent death. If at this thought my heart failed me, and if for a moment I hesitated, God will, I hope, have forgiven it. At twenty-four years of age one does not fling away life without one look back. I stopped my horse instinctively, fully realizing the almost foolhardiness of my attempt. But then my thoughts reverted to those three hundred brave fellows whose lives I held, as it were, in my hand, and, with a sigh which was more like a sob, I dug my spurs into my beautiful “Kirdjcali,” who bounded into the air with surprise and pain, and commenced galloping at a furious pace along the road—a pace I did not even try to check, for it seemed to relieve my bursting heart. Now and then I had to lie down on his mane to take breath. But by degrees the cold and calm silence of the night, and the satisfaction of feeling that I was accomplishing a great and sacred duty, restored my peace of mind. I checked the pace of my horse, and after about three-quarters of an hour came to a thick fir-wood, through which I was quietly ambling when Kirdjcali stopped suddenly, and I instantly perceived the cause. On the edge of the wood, about five hundred paces off, a great fire was crackling, round which were grouped a number of men and horses. It was either a Russian or a Polish patrol; but in either case my situation was a critical one. I had no “safe-conduct” papers, and no password save for General B——. I should be taken for a spy and hanged without form or ceremony. What was to be done? Go back? That would be the height of weakness. Take another road? There was no other. Yet to go on was undoubtedly to run the risk of falling directly into their hands. Again I lifted up my whole heart in prayer; after all I had God and the right on my side, and so I decided to venture it, feeling besides that my good Kirdjcali had the legs of a race-horse and could beat almost any other animal, if it came to a chase. The moon, which till then had guided my path, was suddenly hidden behind a thick cloud that concealed me from the enemy. I made my horse walk, and, lying flat on his neck, I went on to within fifty paces of the Cossacks (for they were Russian Cossacks) without their dreaming of my vicinity; for the soft sand deadened the sound of my horse’s feet. All of a sudden Kirdjcali threw up his head and sniffed the wind with ever-widening nostrils. And then what I most dreaded came to pass. He recognized some companion of the steppes and gave a loud neigh, which was answered instantly by a hurrah from the children of the Don, who were on foot in a moment. Making the sign of the cross, I dug my spurs once more into my poor Kirdjcali’s flanks, and passed like a flash of lightning before the astonished Cossacks. “Stoj!” (stop) they cried with one voice. My only answer to this summons was to urge on my steed to still greater speed. Then they had recourse to a more active means of arresting my course. Two flashes lit up the darkness of the night, and one ball whistled past my ear, grazed my head, and cut off a lock of my hair close to the temple; the other passed through a branch of a tree some paces before me. But Kirdjcali flew like the wind, and I was soon out of the reach of pursuit. As soon as I dared I stopped him to let him breathe; five minutes more of this furious pace, and the poor beast would have dropped down dead.

By the time I had reached General B——’s column it was three o’clock in the morning.

“Who goes there?” cried the sentinel.

“Military orders,” I replied.

“The password?”

“_Polska è Volnoszez_” (Poland and liberty). He let me pass, and I was received by M. D——, one of the general’s aides-de-camp. I gave him the despatch, which he hastened to take to his chief. Hardly had he left me, and before I had time to rejoice at having accomplished my mission, when a discharge of musketry, accompanied by the savage Russian war-cry, was heard to the left. In spite of the fearful speed of my ride, I had arrived too late! The enemy had almost surrounded the little camp. A few minutes sufficed for the general to throw himself into the saddle and place himself at the head of his column.

“First squadron, forward!” he cried in a stentorian voice.

Not a man stirred.

“Second squadron, forward!” The same result. The poor fellows, worn out with fatigue, exhausted from hunger, and totally unprepared for this attack, remained, as it were, paralyzed. To me this first moment was terrible; and those who boast of never having been afraid the first time they take part in a battle either deceive themselves or they lie. It took me a few minutes to master my emotion; but Kirdjcali too made a diversion by furious bounds and neighing, which proved that for him also this was the first baptism of fire.

Seeing the demoralization of his soldiers, the brave general made a desperate charge in the very midst of the enemy’s ranks, followed by a handful of dragoons under the orders of Count K——. I followed his movements with my eye in a mechanical sort of way, when all of a sudden I saw the unhappy general staggering rather than falling from his horse, while an infernal hurrah of triumph burst from the Russians. Then all my fears vanished. I thought of my father, and all that was French in my blood was roused. I seized a sword that lay close by, and turning towards the troops, who were still hesitating and wavering, I cried out: “Cowards, if you have allowed your chief to be murdered, at least do not let his dead body bear witness of your shame by leaving it in the hands of your enemies. Come on and rescue it, and wash out in your blood the stain you have set on Polish honor!”

Saying those words, and recommending my soul to God in one fervent aspiration, I threw myself impetuously into the strife, followed by all the soldiers, whom my words had roused from their stupor. The whistling of balls, the smell of powder, the cries of the dying and the dead, and more than all the savage howlings of the Russians, threw me into a sort of mad rage and furious excitement which made me insensible to anything but a longing for vengeance. Every time I rose in my stirrups to wield my sword a man bit the dust. I felt a sort of superhuman strength at that moment, and never ceased to strike till I saw the Poles driving the defeated Russians completely out of the camp, from whence they fled in the utmost disorder. I woke then as from a horrible nightmare, and felt an inexpressible disgust and horror at the sight of the dead and dying bodies of horses and men all round me weltering in their blood. At that moment an orderly officer galloped up to me.

“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the general desires you to come to him immediately.”

“Your general!” I exclaimed joyfully. “Why, I saw him fall with my own eyes. He is not dead, then?”

“Not yet; but his wounds are mortal, and I fear there is no hope of saving him.”

I followed the officer hastily to a tent where the poor general was lying on a camp-bed. His face was literally hacked with sabrecuts; one ball had gone through his chest, and the surgeon, who was bending over him, was trying in vain to stanch the blood which was escaping in a black stream from this gaping wound. I took off my cap and bowed low before the dying hero.

“Sir,” he said in so weak a voice that I had to bend down my ear close to him to be able to hear, “I do not know you, and I do not remember ever to have seen you before; but whoever you may be, may God bless you for what you have done this day! You have saved my troops from dishonor, and me from having my last moments embittered by the cruelest sorrow I could ever have experienced.”

At this moment a rush of blood from his mouth threatened to stifle the dying man. When he had a little recovered he spoke again:

“Whence do you come, and what is your name?”

“I am French, and my name is Michael,” I replied, blushing deeply. Here the general drew off a ring from his finger. It was a signet-ring used throughout the war as a password of command.

“Take this,” he said, “and swear to me not to leave my troops till the Central Committee have sent another officer to take my place. This is the last request of a dying man, and I feel sure that you will not refuse it to me.”

I hesitated an instant. How reveal my secret and explain my anomalous position at such a moment? The general, striving to raise his voice, reiterated his dying entreaty:

“Swear not to leave them!”

I felt I could not resist any longer.

“I swear it, general, but on one condition: that your soldiers consent to serve as escort to Countess L—— from her château to the frontier, as she wishes to escape with her children and rejoin her husband, who is in exile.”

“What! Countess L——, Arthur’s wife?”

“The same, general,” I replied; “and it was to implore your protection for her in her hour of need, as well as to convey to you the information she had received of the Russian ambuscade, that determined me to accept this dangerous mission.”

“Thanks, my child—thanks for her and thanks for me. Gentlemen,” he added, turning to his officers, who, silent and sad, were standing at the other end of the tent, “you will obey this young officer until my successor be appointed from headquarters. This is my last order, my last prayer. And as long as he, though a stranger, fights at the head of your column, you will not again forget, I hope, that the cause for which you are fighting is a sacred one, the most holy of all causes, for it is the cause of God and your country.”

The officers hung their heads at this tacit reproach—the only one addressed to them by the hero whom they had allowed to be slain in so cowardly a manner. After another fainting fit the general made me a sign to draw close to him. I knelt down by his side. “If death spares you,” he said, “go and tell my poor mother how I died. Console her, and try and replace me to her; for I am the only thing she has left in the world.”

Here tears filled his eyes, which he turned away to hide his emotion from his officers. The surgeon had just finished dressing his wounds, but he shook his head sadly as he rose. The general perceived the movement and said:

“My poor friend! you have given yourself a great deal of trouble, and all for nothing; but I am just as grateful to you.”

The surgeon wrung his hand, too much moved to speak. Then I took courage and said:

“General, when the doctor of the body can do no more, and science is exhausted, a Christian has recourse to another Physician.”

“You are quite right, my child,” replied the good general gravely; “and I have no time to lose, for I feel my life is ebbing away every moment.”

He made a sign to one of his aides-de-camp, and whispered his instructions to him, which the latter hastened to obey. He returned in a few minutes with a young Capuchin, who was the chaplain of the corps. The officers left the tent, and I was about to do the same when a sudden thought struck me.

“One word more, general. I want three days to make my arrangements and get my kit ready.”

“Take them, my son; but do not be away longer, for when you return I shall be no more here.”

“Not here, perhaps, but in a better world,” I exclaimed. “God bless you, general! I cannot replace you, but I may perhaps be able to show your troops how those should fight and die who have had General B—— for their leader!”

“Thanks, my child, and may God bless you! Adieu!”

I pressed the hand which the dying man held out to me with respectful tenderness; and then, hurrying from the tent to hide my emotion, I obtained a “safe-conduct” passport, and, remounting my horse, stopped at the best inn I could find in the next village, and wrote a few lines to Countess L——, not to tell her of the extraordinary position in which I had been placed or the fearful events of the past night, but to reassure her, and bid her to hold herself in readiness for a speedy departure, as an escort had been promised for her. Thence I rode as fast as I could to the convent of the Bernardines at Kielce, and asked to see Father Benvenuto immediately—that eloquent preacher and holy confessor who had lingered for twenty years in a Siberian dungeon. He was my confessor, and at this moment of all others in my life I needed his advice and guidance. Fortunately for me, he was at home, and I instantly told him all that had happened, and of the almost compulsory promise which had been extorted from me by the brave and dying general. The good old father listened in silence, and then said:

“My child, what you have done is heroic and great; but if you were to return to the camp, and had to bear alone this terrible secret, it would crush you with its weight.”

“But, good God! what can I do?” I exclaimed. “Must I give it up and forfeit my word?”

“No; because God, in permitting these extraordinary events, had evidently his divine purpose for you. You must return and fulfil your vow, but you must not go alone. More than a month ago I asked permission of my superiors to be allowed to carry the consolations of religion to our brave troops in the field. This permission I received yesterday; and so I can at once precede you to the camp, and when you arrive will be your safeguard and protector.”

An enormous weight was taken off my mind by this proposal. I thanked him with my whole heart, and he then insisted on my going to sleep for some hours; for all that I had gone through had nearly exhausted my strength. After a good night’s rest I woke, refreshed in body and relieved in mind, to ride to Breslau, where I completed my military equipment and then returned to the camp.

[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]

A FINAL PHILOSOPHY.[162]

The war waged by modern thought against supernatural revelation in the name of the so-called “advanced” science is looked upon in a different light by Catholic and by Protestant thinkers. Catholic philosophers and divines look upon it as a noisy but futile effort of modern anti-Christianism to shake and overthrow the mighty rock on which the incarnate God has been pleased to build his indefectible church. They know, of course, that they must be ready to fight, for the church to which they belong is still militant; but, far from apprehending a coming defeat, they feel certain of the victory. God is with them, and, on God’s infallible promise, the church whose cause they serve is sure of her final triumph. Protestant divines, on the contrary, hold no tokens of future victories, and look upon infidel science not as an enemy whom they have to fight, but as an old acquaintance, and a rather capricious one, whom they must try to keep within bounds of decency, and from whom they may borrow occasionally a few newly-forged weapons against the Catholic Church. Some sincere Protestants, considering the tendency of scientific thought to destroy all supernatural faith, saw, indeed, the necessity of resisting its baneful incursions; but their resistance did not, and could not, prove successful. Protestantism is the notorious offspring of rebellion; it is not built on the rock; it has no claims to special divine assistance; it cannot reckon but on human weakness for its support; it is supremely inconsistent; in short, it is no proof against the anti-Christian spirit of the age, and, what is still more discouraging, it is fully conscious of its progressive dissolution.

These considerations and others of a like nature kept continually coming to our mind as we were perusing the pages of the singular work whose title stands at the head of this article. The great object of Dr. Shields is to reconcile religion with science by means of what he calls _final philosophy_.

In the introduction to the work the author points out the limits and the topics of Christian science; the logical, historical, and practical relations of science and religion; the possibility of their reconciliation, and the importance of their harmony to science, to religion, to philosophy. The work is divided into two parts. The first part is a review of the conduct of philosophical parties as to the relations between science and religion; whilst the second part propounds and explains the philosophical theory of the harmony of science and religion, as conceived by the author. The first part opens with a chapter on the early _conflicts_ and _alliances_ between science and religion, where the author investigates the causes of the present disturbed relations between religion and science, and traces them from the dawn of the Greek philosophy to the Protestant Reformation; describes the conflicts of philosophy and mythology in the pre-Christian age; the wars of pagan philosophy against Christianity in the first centuries of the present era; the alliance of theology with philosophy in the patristic age; the predominance of theology and the subjugation of philosophy in the scholastic age; and, lastly, the revolt of philosophy against theology in the age of the Reformation.

In a second chapter he describes the _modern antagonism_ between science and religion, the conflict in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, in psychology, in sociology, in theology, in philosophy, and in civilization.

The third chapter, which fills more than two hundred pages, describes the _modern indifferentism_ between science and religion, under the name of “schism” or “rupture” in all the branches of science already enumerated—viz., the schism in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, etc., to which is added the schism in metaphysics.

In the fourth chapter the author examines the _modern eclecticism_ between science and religion: eclecticism in astronomy, eclecticism in geology, and so on through the other branches of knowledge already mentioned.

The fifth and last chapter describes the _modern scepticism_ between science and religion: scepticism in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, and in all the aforesaid branches of human knowledge, with a conclusion about “effete religious culture.”

The second part of the work, though much shorter than the first, is divided also into five chapters, of which the first aims to show that philosophy is the natural _umpire_ between religion and science, wherever they are in conflict; the second expounds and refutes the _positive_ philosophy; the third examines and criticises the _absolute_ philosophy; the fourth states that _final philosophy_, or _a theory of perfectible science_, may bring about the conciliation of positivism and absolutism; and the last offers a sketch of the _ultimate philosophy_, the science of sciences, derived scientifically from their own historical and logical development, and whose characteristic features the author thus glowingly describes in the closing sentence of his work:

“The summary want of the age is that last philosophy into which shall have been sifted all other philosophy, which shall be at once catholic and eclectic, which shall be the joint growth and fruit of reason and faith, and which shall shed forth, through every walk of research, the blended light of discovery and revelation; a philosophy which shall be no crude aggregate of decaying systems and doctrines, but their distilled issue and living effect, and which shall not have sprung full-born from any one mind or people, but mature as the common work and reward of all; a philosophy which, proceeding upon the unity of truth, shall establish the harmony of knowledge through the intelligent concurrence of the human with the divine intellect, and the rational subjection of the finite to the Infinite reason; a philosophy, too, which shall be as beneficent as it is sacred, which in the act of healing the schisms of truth shall also heal the sects of the school, of the church, and of the state, and, while regenerating human art, both material and moral, shall at length regenerate human society; a philosophy, in a word, which shall be the means of subjecting the earth to man and man to God, by grouping the sciences, with their fruits and trophies, at the feet of Omniscience, and there converging and displaying all laws and causes in God, the cause of causes and of laws, of whom are all things and in whom all things consist; to whom alone be glory” (pp. 587, 588).

These are noble words. It is certain that our age is in great need of a philosophy at once catholic and eclectic, as the author very wisely remarks. But it is our firm conviction that if Dr. Shields had studied our great Catholic authors, he would know that there is a philosophy and a theology which does already all that he wishes to do by his projected final philosophy, and much better too. We praise his excellent intention; but we do not think that his project has any chance of being carried out in a proper manner. We even doubt if a _new_ system of philosophy can be found so comprehensive, coherent, impartial, and perfect in all its parts as to justify the high expectation entertained by the author.

This new system of philosophy cannot be the product of infidel thought, as is evident. Hence none of the advocates of advanced science can have a part in the projected work, except as opponents whom philosophy shall have to refute, or as claimants upon whose rights philosophy has to pronounce its judicial sentence.

Nor will the new system be the product of Catholic thought; for we Catholics are under the impression that the world has no need of _new_ philosophical systems. As for us, we have a philosophy of admirable depth, great soundness, and incomparable precision, which has ever successfully refuted heresy, silenced infidelity, and harmonized the teachings of revelation and science to our full satisfaction. This philosophy can, indeed, be improved in some particulars, and we continually strive to improve it: but we are determined not to change its principles, which we know to be true, and not to depart from its method, which has no rival in the whole world of speculative science.

Who, then, would frame and develop the new and “final” philosophy? Free-thinkers? Freemasons? Free-religionists? These sectaries would doubtless be glad to dress philosophy in a white apron, with the square in one hand and the triangle in the other; for, if the thing were feasible, they would acquire at once that philosophical importance which they have not, and which they have always been anxious to secure, but in vain, by their united efforts. But then we are sure that they would only develop some humanitarian theory calculated to flatter the sceptical spirit of the age, and to merge all creeds in naturalism and free-religion; and this, of course, would not do, for the “final philosophy” should, according to Dr. Shields’ view, maintain the rights of supernatural revelation no less than of natural reason.

Should, then, the great work be abandoned to the hands, industry, and discernment of the Protestant sects? Men of talent and men of learning are to be found everywhere; but as to philosophers, we doubt whether any can be found among Protestants who will be honest enough to draw the legitimate consequences of their principles, when those consequences would imply a condemnation of their religious system. In other terms, if the work were to be entrusted to Protestant thinkers, one might, without need of preternatural illumination, boldly predict that the whole affair must end in nothing but failure. What can be expected of a Protestant thinker, or of any number of Protestant thinkers, whether divines or philosophers, but an inconsistent and preposterous tampering with truth? Protestantism lacks, and ever will lack, a uniform body of doctrines, whether philosophical or theological; it has no head, no centre, no positive principle, no recognized living authority, no bond of union; it has only a mutilated Bible which it discredits with contradictory interpretations; it is neither a church nor a school, but a Babel confusion of uncertain and discordant views; and it has no better foundation than the shifting sand of private judgment. On what ground, then, can a Protestant apologist force upon modern thought those shreds of revealed truth which he claims to hold on no better authority than his own fallible and changeable reason? And what else can he oppose to the invading spirit of unbelief? Alas! Protestantism is nothing but a house divided within itself, a ship where all hands are captains with no crew at their orders, an army whose generals have no authority to command and whose soldiers have no duty to obey. Such a House cannot but crumble into dust; such a ship must founder; and such an army cannot dream of Christian victories, as it is doomed to waste its strength in perpetual riots, unless it succeeds in putting an end to its intestine troubles by self-destruction. It is evident, then, that “final philosophy” cannot be the product of Protestant thought.

Dr. Shields seems to have seen these difficulties; for he holds that such a philosophy must not spring full-born from any one mind or people, but mature “as the common work and reward of all.” Here, however, the question arises whether this mode of working is calculated to give satisfactory results. When a number of persons contribute to the execution of a great work, it must be taken for granted that, if their effort has to prove a success, they must work on the same plan and tend in the same direction, so that the action of the one may not interfere with the action of the other. If all men were animated by an intense love of truth, and of nothing but truth, if they all could agree to start from the same principles, if they were all modest in their inferences, if they were so humble as to recognize their error when pointed out to them, and if some other similar dispositions were known to exist in all or in most students of science and philosophy, Dr. Shields’ plan might indeed be carried out with universal satisfaction. But men, unfortunately, love other things besides truth and more than truth: they love themselves, their own ideas, and their own prejudices; they ignore or pervert principles; they defend their blunders, and even embellish them for the sake of notoriety, and they are obstinate in their errors. On the other hand, we see that an ignorant public is always ready to applaud any philosophic monstrosity which wears a fashionable dress; and this is one of the greatest obstacles to the triumph of truth, as error grows powerful wherever it is encouraged by popular credulity. Thus error and truth will continue to fight in the future as they did in the past. The history of philosophy is a history of endless discords. The wildest conceptions have ever found supporters, and charlatanism has ever been applauded. The only epoch in which error had lost its hold of philosophy, and was compelled to retire almost entirely from the field of speculation, was when theology and philosophy, bound together in a defensive and offensive alliance under the leadership of the great Thomas Aquinas, so overpowered the Moorish philosophers and confounded their rationalistic followers that it was no longer possible for error to wear a mask. Then it was that the principles of a truly “final” philosophy were laid down, faith and reason reconciled, and false theories discredited. And it is for this reason that the disciples of error, who after the time of the Lutheran revolt have never ceased to attack some religious truth, style that scholastic epoch a _dark age_. Dark, indeed, for error, which had lost much power of mischief, but bright for philosophy, which had triumphed, and glorious for Christianity, which reigned supreme. If any age must be called _dark_, it is the one we live in, owing to the numbers of ignorant scribblers, unprincipled men in responsible positions, and illogical scientists who disgrace it.

This state of things is the product of free thought, which has disturbed and nearly destroyed the harmony of all the sciences, and all but extinguished the light of philosophical principles. The idea of employing free thought as an auxiliary for the defence of philosophy is so preposterous on its very face that none but a sectary or a sceptic could have entertained it. It must be pretty evident to all that such a course is like introducing the enemy into the fortress. Introduce Draper and Büchner, Tyndall and Moleschott, Haeckel and Darwin, Huxley and Clifford into the parlor of philosophy, and you will see at once how utterly mistaken is Mr. Shields if he reckons on them for his great work; you will see with what self-reliance, arrogance, and intolerance they condemn everything contrary to their favorite views. Tell them that they must help you to make a “final philosophy” which shall reconcile Scripture and science, Christianity and human reason. What would they think of such a proposal? Would they condescend to answer otherwise than by a sneer? But let us admit that they will favor you with an honest answer. What will they say?

Draper would probably remark that philosophy cannot undertake any such task, as the conflict between religion and science has its origin and reason of being in the nature of things, which is unchangeable.

Büchner would laugh impertinently at the idea of a God, a Scripture, and a religion.

Tyndall would have nothing to do with the scheme; for modern science cannot shake hands with revelation without encouraging a belief in miracles and in the utility of prayer—both which things science has exploded for ever, as conflicting with inviolable laws.

Moleschott would object that revelation and science are irreconcilable, at least, as to psychology; for the study of physiology has made it clear that thought consists in a series of molecular movements, and he is not willing to renounce this new dogma of science or to modify in any manner his view of the question for the sake of a new philosophy.

Haeckel would indignantly protest against the scheme, for there is no philosophy but the Evolution of species and the Descent of man; and he would turn to the great Darwin, his respected friend, for an approving smile.

The great Darwin would then smile approvingly on his loving and faithful disciple, and remark that Logic, for instance, which is believed to be a part of philosophy, and his Descent of man are on such bad terms that it would be but a waste of time to attempt a reconciliation between them, so he would let them alone.

The talkative Huxley would gladly second Mr. Darwin’s resolution by the further remark that a logic or a philosophy which cannot be weighed in the balance of the chemist, or be verified by the microscope, or be illustrated by the series of animal remains preserved in palæontological museums, has no claims to engage the attention of the noble scientists present in the room.

Clifford would scout the idea of a philosophy enslaved by theological prejudices. For free thought cannot come to terms with theology; it must combat it in the name of progress and civilization with all available weapons, and with an ardor proportionate to the grandeur and importance of the cause.

This sketch, which is certainly not over-colored, might be enlarged almost indefinitely by the introduction of other living or dead materialists, pantheists, atheists, theists, idealists, free-religionists, etc., whose discordant views would have to be either accepted, reformed, or refuted, as the case may be. John Stuart Mill and Comte, Bain and Spencer, Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Hume and Hobbes, and a host of other minor lights of heterodox thought, would have to be harmonized, if possible, or else condemned and forgotten. But let the dead rest in peace and suppose that none but living thinkers are to be consulted. A dilemma presents itself: either Dr. Shields and his co-operators get the best of fashionable errors, and reject them, or not. If _not_, then a final philosophy _reconciling revelation with science_ will be out of the question. If _yes_, then the final philosophy will be denounced by the evicted party as a mass of unscientific and _à priori_ reasoning, a counterfeit of mediæval metaphysics, a tardy and clumsy attempt at resuscitating the discredited notions of a slavish and intolerant past. Newspaper writers, pamphleteers, lecturers, and professors would sneer at your final philosophy, as they now sneer at the scholastic doctrine; and the ever-increasing mass of sciolists, who think with the brains of others, would take up the sneer and propagate it even to the ends of the world. Thus science and religion, so long as human pride and human obstinacy are not curbed by the keenest love of truth, will remain antagonistic, and the present war will continue in spite of the “final philosophy.”

Dr. Shields very explicitly declares that he believes in God, in Christ, and in the Bible. For this we cannot but praise him. Yet his book leads thoughtful readers to suspect that his faith is still undeveloped, uncertain, indefinite, and, as it were, in an embryonic condition. In fact, religion and science, as he conceives, are still at war, and revelation must yet be reconciled with reason by the aid of final philosophy; and this final philosophy is a thing of the future. What will he believe meanwhile? What will all other Protestants believe? Must they adopt a provisional scepticism? This is, indeed, what most of them do; nor can we see that any other course is open to them, if they are waiting for the final philosophy. But, since “without faith it is impossible to please God,” how will they be saved? The question deserves an answer.

There is a science which teaches that man’s soul is not immortal, not spiritual, not even a substance, but only a molecular function, which cannot survive the body. Must Dr. Shields’ disciples remain uncertain about this point of doctrine until the final philosophy is published? And there is a science which maintains with the greatest assurance that what we call “God” is nothing more, in reality, than nature, or the universe and its forces and laws. Must we suspend our judgment on this all-important subject on the plea that final philosophy has not yet shed its brilliant light on the question? And there is a science, too, which contends that the human will, though long believed to be free, is nevertheless determined by exterior and interior causes according to a law of strict physical necessity which admits of no exception. Ought we, then, to consider ourselves irresponsible for our deliberate actions, till the final philosophy shall teach us that we are not mere machines, and that the freedom of the human will has at last been reconciled with the general laws of causation? To our mind, a Christian divine cannot for a moment admit that such a provisional scepticism could be recommended as a healthy intellectual preparation for the attainment of truth. Nor could a Christian divine fancy for a moment that a provident God has hitherto left mankind without sufficient light to understand and solve such capital questions as we have mentioned, and many others whose solution was equally indispensable for the moral and the religious education of the human race. The truth is that mankind has been endowed from the beginning with the knowledge of the principles of moral science, the laws of reasoning, the precepts of religion, and the eternal destiny of the just and the unjust. This knowledge was transmitted from fathers to sons, but was soon obscured by the surging of turbulent passions and a proud desire of independence. The human family soon emancipated itself from the moral law, and learned to stifle the voice of conscience by false excuses and by worldly maxims. Nations fell into polytheism, idolatry, revolting superstitions, and barbarism. Indeed, a few pagan philosophers, still faintly illumined by the remnants of the primitive tradition, attempted the reconstruction of human science; but they were only partially successful, and their names became famous no less for the errors with which they are still associated than for vindicated truths. Even the Jews, who were in possession of an authentic record of the past, and could read the Law and the Prophets, often adopted pagan views, or at least mistook the spirit of their sacred books by a too material adherence to the killing letter. At last Jesus Christ, God and man, the light that enlightens the world, the new Adam, the divine Solomon, came, and brought us the remedy of which our ignorance and corruption had so much need. He gave us his Gospel of truth and life, and not only restored but increased and perfected the knowledge of divine and human things; he founded his church; and he appointed, in the person of his vicar on earth, a permanent and infallible judge of revealed doctrine. The two hundred and odd millions of Christians who recognize this infallible judge know distinctly what they ought to believe. They need not await the decisions of any “final philosophy” in order to be fixed on such questions as the origin of matter, the creation of man, the liberty of the soul, the existence of a personal God, and the worship acceptable to him. And as to the scientific questions, these millions very naturally argue that any theory which clashes with the doctrine _defined_ by the church bears in itself its own condemnation, whilst all the other theories are a fit subject of free discussion by the rational methods. This is our intellectual position in regard to science; and we venture to say that even Dr. Shields could not find a better one either for himself or for his pupils and friends. But he, unfortunately, does not belong to the true and living church of Christ; he belongs to a spurious system of Christianity, which countenances intellectual rebellion, and which, after having imprudently fostered free thought, is now at a loss how to restrain its destructive influence. Hence he is anxious to be on good terms with all free-thinkers, in the hope, we assume, that, by yielding in a measure to the spirit of infidelity, some arrangement may be arrived at, equally acceptable to both sides, by which Protestantism, as an old but now useless and despised accomplice, may be left to die a natural death. Thus the “final philosophy” of Dr. Shields, so far as we can judge from the details of his work, will put in the same balance God and man, revelation and free thought, wisdom and folly, with the pitiful result that we have briefly pointed out.

Final philosophy, as conceived by our author, can be of no service to the Catholic, and of no great benefit to the Protestant, world. At any rate a truly “final” philosophy has scarcely a chance of seeing the light in the present century, especially through the exertions of Protestant divines. The century to which we belong, though famous for many useful discoveries, is even more conspicuous for its great ignorance of speculative philosophy. In the middle ages, which were not half so dark as modern thinkers assume, there was less superficial diffusion of knowledge, but a great deal more of philosophy. Giants, like St. Anselm, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, had collected, sifted, and harmonized the philosophical lore of all the preceding ages, refuted the errors of a presumptuous pagan or heretical science, shown the agreement of revelation with reason, reconciled metaphysics with theology, and made such a body of philosophical and theological doctrines as would, and did, satisfy the highest aspirations of deeply-cultivated intellects. It is men of this type that could have written a “final” philosophy. But who are we men of the nineteenth century? Are we not mere pigmies when compared with these old masters? Where do we find profound metaphysicians and profound theologians? Some, of course, are to be found in the Catholic Church, which alone has preserved the traditions of the ancient intellectual world; but we do not think that any one of them would consider himself clever enough to write a “final” philosophy. And should such a competent man be found, who would care for his doctrine? Scientists would certainly not bend to his authority, as they only laugh at metaphysics, nor to his arguments, which they would scarcely understand; and unbelievers would probably not even listen to him, as they would be afraid of being awakened from their spiritual lethargy.

On the other hand, to expect that a Protestant divine, or a body of Protestant divines, will be able to compose such a final philosophy as Dr. Shields describes in the passage we have quoted is the merest delusion. Not that there are not able and learned men in the Protestant sects, but because the Protestant mind is trained to look at things in the light of expediency more than of principles, and, besides other disqualifications already referred to, it sadly lacks the jewel of philosophical consistency. Dr. Shields, who holds, as we gladly recognize, a prominent place among the learned men of his own denomination, is by no means exempt from the weaknesses of his Protestant compeers. For example, he is apt to confound things which should be distinguished, and to draw consequences which go farther than the premises; he frequently yields to partisan prejudices; he makes false assumptions; he seems ready to sacrifice some religious views to modern thought; and he misrepresents or misinterprets history. A few references to his book will suffice to substantiate this criticism.

Thus, in the very first chapter of his work he says that in the first age of Christianity there was on the side of the church “an apparent effort to supplant philosophy” (p. 31); and to prove this he alleges that “the apostles had scarcely left the church when there sprang up, in the unlettered class from which the first Christians had been largely recruited, a weak jealousy of human learning, which, it was claimed, had been superseded in them by miraculous gifts of wisdom and knowledge.” This statement is captious. From the fact that the first Christians, guided by the wisdom of the Gospel, had come to despise the absurd fables of pagan philosophy, it does not follow that they rejected human learning, but only that they had common sense enough to understand and to fulfil the duties of their religious position. On the other hand, to imagine that “the unlettered class” could have thought “of supplanting human learning” is as ridiculous as if we pretended that our carpenters and blacksmiths might conspire to supplant astronomy. The author adds that “Clement of Rome was held by his party to have enjoined abstinence from mental culture as one of the apostolic canons,” that “Barnabas and Polycarp were classed with St. Paul as authors of epistles which carry their own evidence of imposture,” and that “Hermas, as if in contempt of scholars, put his angelical rhapsodies in the mouth of a shepherd.” We scarcely believe that these three assertions will enhance the credit of Dr. Shields as a student of history. Clement was himself a theologian and a philosopher; “his party” is a clumsy invention; “apostolic canons” never condemned mental culture; St. Paul’s epistles bear no evidence whatever of imposture; and, as to Hermas, it is well known to the learned that he put his instructions in the mouth of a shepherd, not that he might show his “contempt of scholars”—for he himself was a scholar—but because his guardian angel, from whom he had received those instructions, had appeared before him in the garb of a shepherd.

The author says (p. 33) that in the age of the Greek Fathers “there was a false peace between theology and philosophy; and religion and science, in consequence, became more or less corrupted by admixture with each other.” This statement is another historical blunder.

“The doctrines of St. John were sublimated into the abstractions of Plato.” This, too, is quite incorrect.

“The Son of God was identified as the divine Logos of the schools.” By no means. The Logos of the schools was only a shadow as compared with the Son of God; the Logos of the schools was an abstraction, whereas the Logos of the Fathers was a divine Person.

“Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregories, Chrysostom, and the two Cyrils did scarcely more than consecrate the spirit of the Academy in the cloisters and councils of the church.” This statement has no need of refutation. The works of all the Fathers here mentioned are extant, and they eloquently protest against the slander. But Protestant authors are anxious to show that the Catholic Church was corrupted from its very first age; and to do this they do not scruple to gather lies and misrepresentations from all accessible sources, to transform history into a witness to facts that never had an existence.

“Philosophy,” continues the author, “became not less corrupted through its forced alliance with the new theology.” Who ever heard of a _new_ theology in the patristic age? or of a theology with which philosophy could not make an alliance, except by force, and without being corrupted?

“If philosophy gained somewhat on its metaphysical side by having its own notional entities traced up to revealed realities as the flower from the germ of reason, yet it lost quite as much on its physical side through a narrowing logic and exegesis which bound it within the letter of the Scripture, and turned it away from all empirical research; and, consequently, even such crude natural science as it had inherited from the early Greeks was soon forgotten and buried under a mass of patristic traditions” (p. 34). From this we learn that logic, according to Dr. Shields, “narrows the physical side of philosophy,” and exegesis opposes “empirical research”! Is it not surprising that such assertions could find a place in a work which purports to be serious and philosophical? And as to the “crude natural science” of the early Greeks, which was a confused mass of conflicting guesses, does the author believe that it had a right to the name of science? or that it commanded the respect of theologians? or does he think that the Scripture has not a literal sense, which contains more truth than all the crude natural science of the early Greeks?

“In geology the speculations of Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, tracing the growth of the world from water, air, or fire, were only exchanged for the fanciful allegories and homilies of Origen, Basil, and Ambrose on the Hexaëmeron, or six days’ work of creation.” Dr. Shields has just complained that the Fathers bound science “within the letter of the Scripture”; and he now complains of Origen abandoning the literal for the allegorical sense! Such is his need of quarrelling with the Fathers. We may grant that some of Origen’s allegorical interpretations were rather “fanciful”; but since such interpretations were generally rejected even in his own time, it is difficult to understand how they could supersede the speculations of philosophers. As to St. Basil and St. Ambrose, however, no one who has studied their works will dare to maintain that they have indulged in fanciful theories. Of course they were not professors of science but of Christianity; nor were they obliged to forsake Moses for Anaximenes or Heraclitus, whose theories were nothing but dreams. Geology, as a science, was yet unborn; and we are certain that, had the Fathers embraced the theories which they are denounced for ignoring, Dr. Shields or some of his friends would have considered the fact as equally worthy of censure. Such is the justice of certain critics.

“In astronomy the heliocentric views of Aristarchus and Pythagoras had already given place to the Ptolemaic theory of the heavens.” This does not prove that the Fathers have corrupted astronomy; it shows, on the contrary, that the false system of astronomy originated in what was then considered science. It is to false science, therefore, and not to false theology that we must trace the false explanation of astronomical phenomena.

“In geography, the corruption of natural knowledge with false Biblical views became even more remarkable, and the doctrine of the earth’s rotundity and antipodes which had been held by Plato and Aristotle, and all but proved by the Alexandrian geometers, was at length discarded as a fable not less monstrous than heretical.” We wonder how it could have been possible to prove “by geometry” the existence of men at the antipodes, and we still more wonder how could the doctrine of the earth’s rotundity, which is a Scriptural doctrine, be discarded as a monstrous and heretical fable by men familiar with the teachings of the Bible. But what is the fact? Did any of the Fathers suggest that the words _orbis terræ_, which are to be found in many Scriptural texts, could be understood to mean anything but the earth’s rotundity? Or did any of them maintain that the earth’s rotundity was a “false Biblical view”? The author replies by quoting the _Topographia Christiana_ of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who teaches that the earth is flat. But we answer that Cosmas was not a father of the church, and that his work has never been considered “a standard of Biblical geography,” as the author assumes. The theory of this monk was not the result of “theological” learning, as Dr. Shields imagines, but the offspring of Nestorian ignorance and presumption. Nor does it matter that Cosmas cites “patriarchs, prophets, and apostles in its defence as doctrine concerning which it was not lawful for a Christian to doubt” (p. 35); for we know, on the one hand, that there is no monstrosity which heretics are not apt to defend obstinately with Scriptural texts, and on the other that the theory of the Indicopleustes made no fortune in the Christian world; which further shows that the theological mind was not “inwrought” with any such fancies as the author pretends to have swayed the doctors of the Catholic Church. We know, of course, that our old doctors did not admit that the antipodes were inhabited by men; but this scarcely deserves criticism, as it is plain that before the discovery of the new world no serious man could take the responsibility of affirming a fact of which there was not a spark of evidence.

The author adds: “At the same time all the issuing interests of this paganized Christianity could not but share in its hybrid character. Its piety became but a mixture of austerity and license.” He then says that the Christian ritual “was a mere medley of incongruous usages”; that “the sign of the cross became a common charm as well as a sacred rite”; that Pachomius organized monasteries and nunneries as sanctuaries of virtue “amid a social corruption too gross to be described”; that “Christian and pagan factions contended for supremacy in the Roman senate”; that “the Lord’s day was observed by imperial edict on a day devoted to the god of the sun,” etc., etc.; and he winds up his survey of the patristic age by the remark that “the patristic type of Christian science has been likened to a twilight dream of thought before the long night-watches of the middle ages” (p. 35, 36).

It would be useless to ask Dr. Shields how he has ascertained that Christianity was “paganized,” and that the sign of the cross had become a “charm”; he would tell us simply that these gems of erudition have been culled by him from Protestant or infidel books. As to the “mixture of austerity and license” nothing need be said, for the contradiction is glaring. That the social corruption was “too gross to be described” is not astonishing, as the world was still more than half pagan; but to connect social corruption with the monasteries and nunneries organized by St. Pachomius, in order to denounce them as a mixture of austerity and license, is a proof not only of bad taste, but of bad will and of want of judgment. The author forgets to tell us why the Christian ritual should be called “a mere medley of incongruous usages”; and yet, as our present ritual does not substantially differ from that of the patristic age, it would have been easy to point out a few of such usages, were it not that their incongruity is only a crotchet of Protestant bigotism. That the Lord’s day was observed “by imperial edict” may indeed seem scandalous to free-thinkers and free-religionists, but not to Protestant doctors; for they must know that in Protestant countries the Lord’s day is still observed by a law which has the same power as an imperial edict. But Protestants are perhaps scandalized at the Lord’s day being kept on the “day devoted to the god of the sun” instead of the Sabbath; and from this they argue that the Church of God has been utterly corrupted and paganized. If so, then they should either prove that the Lord’s day, the day of Christ’s resurrection, was the Sabbath, or denounce Jesus Christ himself for doing on the day “devoted to the god of the sun” what he ought to have done on the Sabbath. O the Pharisees! We cannot wonder if they despise the “patristic type of Christian science” as a dream when we see how shamelessly they strive to misrepresent the most glorious ages of Christianity, and to turn truth itself into poison.

The few quotations we have here made, and the remarks we have appended to them, are far from giving an adequate idea of the partisan spirit and unreliable statements with which Dr. Shields has filled the first part of his book. What we have given is only a small sample of the rest, and was extracted from three pages. Were we to extend our criticism to only ten pages more, we would find matter enough for a volume. Our author, as nearly all Protestant authors, characterizes the scholastic age as one of philosophic bondage. Theology subjugates philosophy: “The church is the only school; orthodoxy the one test of all truth; the traditions of the Fathers the sole pabulum of the intellect; and the system of Aristotle a mere frame-work to the creed of Augustine.” Peter Lombard “narrowed the circle of free thought by putting the authority of the church above that of Scripture”; Alexander of Hales “rendered the thraldom of the intellect complete by systematizing the patristic traditions or sentences with Aristotelian logic.” Alas! we know only too well that Protestantism detests logic as much as the patristic traditions. But, then, why should a Protestant D.D. undertake to harmonize philosophy and theology? Is there any philosophy without logic, or any theology without patristic traditions?

Thomas Aquinas “dazzled all Europe”; but Duns Scotus “proceeded to evaporate the distinction of Aquinas in a jargon which defies modern comprehension.” This does little credit to modern comprehension; for the jargon of Scotus is nothing but the Latin tongue adapted to philosophical use. “Philosophy,” at this time, “could only succumb to theology.” “In logic any deflection in mere form as well as matter was enough to draw down the anathemas of the church.” Roscellin “was arraigned as a tritheist,” William of Champeaux “was pursued as a pantheist,” Abelard “was forced to cast his own works into the fire, and condemned to obscurity and silence.” It is evident that these facts, and others of a similar nature, must fill with horror our liberal Protestants and all free-religionists, just as prison and capital punishment fill with horror a convicted criminal. But if Dr. Shields condescends to examine the doctrines of Roscellin, William of Champeaux, and Abelard in the light of Scripture, as they are faithfully portrayed in reliable works (such as St. Thomas’ life by Rev. Bede Vaughan, for example), he will see that all three were guilty of heresy, and that they richly deserved the treatment to which they were subjected. We cannot, of course, enter here into a discussion of such doctrines; we merely state that they have been fully examined and debated in the presence of the interested parties with all the calm, patience, and impartiality which characterize the proceedings of the Catholic Church.

As to the singular notion entertained by Dr. Shields, that philosophy “could only succumb to theology,” we wish to tell him that no man can be a theologian unless he be also a philosopher; whence it follows that philosophy and theology are naturally friendly to one another, and, if they ever happen to disagree, they do not fight like enemies, but they state their reasons like good sisters equally anxious to secure each other’s support. Philosophy is like a clear but naked eye; theology is the same eye, not naked, but armed with a powerful telescope. Will Dr. Shields maintain that the eye succumbs when it sees by the telescope what the naked eye cannot discover? Yet this is the idea latent in his notion of philosophy succumbing to theology. What succumbs to theology is not philosophy, but error masked in the garb of philosophy. The author himself tells us that “reason and revelation are complemental factors of knowledge, the former discovering what the latter has not revealed, and the latter revealing what the former cannot discover.” This is exactly what we were saying; for the science of reason is philosophy, and the science of revelation is theology.

We would never end, if we were to follow our author through the five hundred and eighty-eight pages of his book. We only add that the theological and philosophical erudition which he parades throughout the whole work has been derived from the same baneful sources from which Dr. Draper collected the materials of his _History of the Conflict between Religion and Science_, and deserves the same heavy censure. The late Dr. O. A. Brownson, when Dr. Draper’s work was published, said of it: “The only thing in Dr. Draper’s book that we are disposed to tolerate is his style, which is free, flowing, natural, simple, unaffected, and popular. Aside from its style, the book cannot be too severely censured. It is a tissue of lies from beginning to end. It is crude, superficial, and anything but what it professes to be. It professes to be a history of the conflict between religion and science. It is no such thing. It is a vulgar attack on Christianity and the Christian church, in which is condensed the substance of all that has been said by anti-Christian writers from the first century to the nineteenth.” We do not say that Dr. Shields’ intention has been to attack Christianity in general as Dr. Draper did; he, on the contrary, professes to labor for a reconciliation of Christianity and reason. But, good as the intention is, the book will do as much harm as that of Dr. Draper. Its style is as good, to say the least, as Dr. Draper’s, and its subject-matter is well distributed and orderly developed; but these and other good qualities, instead of redeeming its numerous misrepresentations of truth, make them more dangerous by adding to them a charm against which the average reader can ill defend himself. Besides, Dr. Draper’s work, owing to its shameless infidelity, disgusts the Christian reader and makes him unwilling to swallow the poison it contains; whereas Dr. Shields’ book has such an attractive title, professes such a reverence for Scripture, and displays such an earnestness and ingenuity in the holy task of reconciling religion with science, that the unsophisticated reader (the Protestant reader in particular) will follow him, not only with great pleasure, but also with great docility and deference, till he persuades himself that religion is now in such a state that it needs to be purified by philosophy, and that reason must be made the _umpire_ between revealed and scientific dogmas. The consequence is that the author’s “final philosophy” will serve the interests of rationalism rather than of religion. The more so as the author shows himself well acquainted with the errors of modern thought, some of which he exposes and refutes in a truly philosophical spirit, and with a talent and ability of which we see few instances in modern thinkers. We have been particularly struck by his powerful handling of positivism and absolutism, not to mention many other topics which he has treated in a very fair and intelligent manner. Had he not taken his stand on the shifting ground of Protestant opinions, he might have achieved a very meritorious task. He speaks of catholic views, catholic philosophy, and catholic spirit as something indispensable to carry on the much-desired conciliation of natural with supernatural knowledge. But what can the word “catholic” mean on the lips of one who does not listen to the Catholic doctors, and who is a stranger to the Catholic Church? His “catholic” spirit cannot but be a spirit of compromise, and a kind of rationalistic eclecticism, ready to accept only so much of revelation as men will condescend to authorize on a verdict of their fallible reason, and no less ready to sacrifice and ignore as much of it as human reason cannot explain or harmonize with natural science. It is evident that such a spirit can lead to nothing but religious scepticism. And this should convince even Dr. Shields that his “final philosophy” will never achieve a success. The Catholic thinker, if he had to compose a final philosophy, would place himself on much higher and much securer ground; he would first range in a series all the truths which the Catholic Church has defined to be of faith; he would then range in another series all the _demonstrated_ truths of the natural sciences, and all the principles, axioms, and propositions of philosophy which are generally received by the different schools; he would next inquire whether any proposition of this second series clashes with any of the truths contained in the first series; and, as he would be unable to find any truth of science or of philosophy conflicting with any revealed truth, he would conclude that the world is not just now in need of a final philosophy for settling a conflict which has no existence except in the imaginative brains of scientific charlatans. Dr. Shields may think that this course is not calculated to secure the alliance of religion and science; but let him read the magnificent article published by Dr. Brownson in his _Quarterly Review_ (April, 1875), on Dr. Draper’s pretended history of the conflict between religion and science, and he will see his mistake.

The “final philosophy,” as we have already remarked, will be of no use to the Catholic world. Protestants may, perhaps, relish it all the more. But no class of men will, in our opinion, be more gratified with it than the sceptics, the free-thinkers, and the enemies of supernatural truth; for they will not fail to see that to set up philosophy as “umpire” between religion and science is to make men distrust the doctrines of religion, and to prepare, though with the best intentions, the triumph of religious scepticism.

A GREAT BISHOP.

In writing the lives of saints their biographers often forget that they are writing history, and telling the part which a wise, strong, and manly character bore in that history. William Emmanuel von Ketteler, the late Bishop of Mayence, might by many be reckoned among saints, so holy was his life and so like the primitive Christian ideal. But he has another claim to fame, as one of the greatest modern champions of order against socialism, and of the church against organized godlessness. The “iron bishop,” the “fighting bishop,” were nicknames given him by his foes, and, though given in hate and derision, they unconsciously set forth one side of his powerful character. A man of his reach of mind, however humble, could not have taken a less prominent part and position in the struggle of principle against license of which the present religious disturbances in Germany are the type. It fell naturally to his share to be the speaker and standard-bearer of the cause of church liberties, and the representative of the episcopal order. His legal studies and experience, as well as his hardy habits and magnificent _physique_, seemed to have prepared him and pointed him out among all others for the championship of his party, including all the bodily fatigue and mental anxiety incident to such a leadership. He was as thorough a man as he was an ideal bishop and exceptional orator, and this manliness, physical and intellectual, was the basis of his simple and grand character. His chosen motto, “Let all be as one,” is no bad interpretation of the leading ideal which he tried through life to realize: church unity and Christian loyalty, served by the whole round of his exceptional and perfectly-developed faculties. Before setting forth the fruits of his special studies, and examining his life and personality from the point of view most important in this century of social strife, we purpose giving a short biographical sketch of the Bishop of Mayence.

He was born on Christmas day, 1811, at Münster in Westphalia, of a noble family, one branch of which, embracing the doctrines of the Reformation, had in the sixteenth century migrated to Poland and become hereditary dukes of Courland, and a second, remaining German and Catholic, had been distinguished by giving more than one member to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His own branch, the third, known as that of Alt-Assen, was worthily represented by his father, a stern, faithful, and upright man, an uncompromising Christian, and a moralist of what our easier age calls the “old school.” As in every great character, there was something of the soldier in Baron Frederick von Ketteler of Harkotten, and this streak was reproduced in at least two of his sons, William and Richard. His mother, Clementina, Baroness von Wenge of Beck, was a woman of superior character, as it is noticed that the mothers of remarkable men almost invariably are, and one of the bishop’s biographers is certainly entitled to dwell as he does, with special force, on the fact of the home-training of young Ketteler having had more real influence in shaping his character than either the schooling he got at the cathedral school of Münster until he was thirteen years of age, or the atmosphere of the Swiss Jesuit College at Brieg, where he studied until he was eighteen. The two most conspicuous traits in the youth were his passion for hunting and sport of all kinds, athletic games, Alpine climbing, and all exercises requiring hardiness and disregard of wind and weather, and his earnest and unobtrusive piety. He was spared the trial through which so many noble natures pass before fully identifying themselves with the spirit of the church, whose letter they have been early taught to obey: he experienced no time of doubt, of wavering, of temptation, and the modern sore of unbelief never seems to have even come near his mind. From a youth passed in alternate study and sport and a free, out-of-door life he grew to a manhood serious and industrious, with a routine of work always hallowed by early prayer and daily attendance at Mass, and a social position in his native town, as counsel or referee for the government, which was, if not fully worthy of his talents, yet sufficiently honorable as the beginning of a professional career. His university life had, like that of most young Germans, been marked by one duel, which seriously displeased his father, and his military obligations had been discharged, according to the laws as they then stood, by his service as a “one-year volunteer” in the local militia. His legal career seemed assured, though there were many among his early friends who foresaw that his entering the church was not unlikely. The incident that determined this change was the outbreak of Cologne in 1838, when the first note of the coming ecclesiastical troubles was sounded by a municipality that went to the length of imprisoning the archbishop, Clement von Droste-Vischering; the friend of Stolberg, and the primate of the Rhine provinces.

Ketteler, never averse to Prussia, in whose mission to Germany he believed, even up to the late Falk or May Laws which tore away the veil, could, nevertheless, not reconcile himself to serve any longer a government that allowed such violations of personal freedom and of the principles which underlie that freedom. In the autumn of the same year he went to the Münich Theological College and began his ecclesiastical studies. Among his professors were Döllinger and Görres, and others whose fame is less European but scarcely less great in Germany itself; and among his fellow-students Paul Melchers, the present Archbishop of Cologne, who, like himself, had been a lawyer of great promise. Coming at the age of twenty-seven to study among a body of whom many members were hardly more than boys, it may have been a hard task to preserve humility and charity; yet the verdict of his fellow-students, summed up by one of themselves, was to the effect that Ketteler’s simplicity and good-nature were in every way as marked as his intellectual superiority. These qualities came out again later in his intercourse with his country parishioners, each of whom, peasants as they were, he treated with the cordiality and respect of a neighbor and an equal. He was no demagogue, and had no theories save the everlasting theories of the Gospel and the church; but, as is usually the case, his practice with his social inferiors went far beyond the noisy and deceiving show of equality made by professional agitators. After four years’ study in Münich he devoted one year more to theological subjects in the episcopal seminary at Münster, and received holy orders in 1844, when he was sent as curate to Beckum, a small town in Westphalia. He was then thirty-three, and had reached half his allotted years; for it has been noticed that his term of service as priest and bishop was also thirty-three years. The coincidence of his last illness having lasted thirty-three days also struck many persons who are fond of these calculations.

At Beckum, where he was associated with two other young priests (one of whom, Brinkmann, is now Bishop of Münster), he led a life as near as possible to one of his ideals—still unfulfilled in practice, but only postponed in his mind because of more urgent and present needs—the life in common of the secular clergy. He and his fellow-curates lived in a small house, where each had one room besides the common gathering-room, and one purse for all uses, whether personal or charitable. He and Brinkmann founded a hospital during their short stay, and this grew afterwards to very satisfactory proportions; but Ketteler had opportunities of proving himself a good nurse under his own roof, where his third colleague was often bedridden for months at a time. His public ministry, however, never suffered, and his assiduity at the bedside of his sick parishioners and in the confessional at all times, in season and out of season, were remarkable. If all priests would reflect how momentous, nay, how awful, is the responsibility incurred in this matter of ever-readiness to hear a man’s confession, they would less seldom deviate from the self-sacrificing example which Bishop Ketteler gave consistently throughout his life. His zeal in this particular was not inferior, however, to his care of the schools which in his public career so distinguished him; and both led his diocesan after two years to remove him from Beckum, to a full parish, that of Hopsten.

His life here was a repetition of the life at Beckum; his ministry was so efficacious that the spiritual life of the parish resembled a permanent “mission,” or revival, and his active charity had a large field for exercise in the famine and the fever which visited his people during his incumbency. It is related of him that, his sister coming to visit him at Hopsten, he proposed to take her to see some of his friends in the neighborhood, and accordingly took her to his poorest people, begging for each a gift sorely needed, which resulted in her emptying her purse so effectually that she had to borrow money for her journey home. He provisioned his parish during the famine, and got his rich relations to help him in the work; and in the fever, besides his gifts of food, bedding, and medicines, and his regular offices as their pastor, he literally became his people’s physician and nurse.

It was no wonder that he should so have won the respect and trust of his neighbors that, even in that very Protestant borough of Lengerich, of which his parish formed part, he was unanimously returned as deputy to the Frankfort Parliament in 1848. It was here that he first came publicly before Germany as an orator and a statesman, and that he made that famous speech at the funeral of the Prussian delegates, Lichnowsky and Auerswald, murdered during the riots, which has become the most popular and widely known of any of his discourses. After his retirement from Parliament, and his attendance in the same year at the first meeting of the Catholic Union at Mayence, he was asked to give a course of lectures in the cathedral on the social and political problems of the day. It is said that Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, besides free-thinkers, crowded to hear these eloquent and exhaustive lectures, and that the competition for seats was a fitting type of the intellectual stir they made in the city. His physical endurance was no less marvellous, and added much to the impressiveness of the discourses, delivered in close succession, with a full, melodious, resounding voice under perfect control of the speaker, and carefully husbanded, so that neither enthusiasm nor emotion should drive it into shrillness or sink it into huskiness. That year saw the preacher transferred to the provostship of St. Hedwige’s Church in Berlin, which he occupied only for ten months, but long enough to win the love of his city congregation as he had that of his country parish. His younger brother, Richard, who had left the army to become a priest, succeeded him at Hopsten, but left the place later to become a Capuchin; he was long known as Father Bonaventure. In 1849 Provost Ketteler was chosen Bishop of Mayence, after a stormy election and dispute in the cathedral chapter. The first nominee, Doctor Leopold Schmid, professor of theology at Giesen, the local university, being, on grounds of “undue influence,” strongly disapproved of by a large minority of the canons, they and their opponents of the majority agreed to a re-election and to an appeal to the Holy See, upon which, out of the three names sent in, the Pope chose the provost of St. Hedwige. He was not consecrated till July, 1850, by the archbishop of Freiburg, assisted by the bishops of Limburg and Fulda. Thenceforward one may say that his life was entirely a public one, so intimately was it connected with the living and burning questions of the time. Each year the crisis between church and state seemed to draw nearer; and, if one may say so, the gap between the two has become complete since the promulgation of the May Laws. In this struggle, which lasted all through his episcopate, the state certainly proved the aggressor, for the lukewarmness of German Catholics in the last generation was a proverb; and Ketteler succeeded to a diocese in very different order from the one he has left. Things were working, or rather lapsing, into the hands of the church’s enemies, had they been wise enough to wait and watch; by hurrying matters they roused the spirit of Catholics, and raised against themselves a zealous band firmly attached to their faith and determined to vindicate its rights and liberties.

Of this band Bishop Ketteler, whether as deputy, pamphleteer, lecturer, or spiritual guide, was practically the head. His first works in Mayence were, on a wider scale, the repetition of those in Hopsten. He instituted reforms and amendments in every department; gathered the clergy together in yearly retreats, during which the exercises of St. Ignatius, which he held in high esteem, were made the basis of instruction; founded several Capuchin convents for the purpose of giving missions, especially in the country, and one Jesuit college, on the occasion of whose establishment he had to bear the brunt of a determined journalistic opposition; set up schools and an orphanage for girls under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, an asylum for repentant women under the nuns of the Good Shepherd, a refuge for servant-maids out of employment, a community of Poor Clares to visit and relieve the poor in their own homes, a Boys’ Orphanage, Boys’ Reformatory, and Boys’ Refuge, several unions and brotherhoods to keep the people together and preserve them from the snares of irreligious associations—notably a Working-men’s Catholic Union—and last, not least, a school taught by the Christian Brothers, which soon won such golden opinions that Protestants by scores withdrew their children from the communal schools and placed them under the new teachers. With rare liberality a Lutheran clergyman was allowed free access to the school to teach these children the religion of their parents. The bishop’s care for, and personal visitation of, the hospitals also reacted on the management of these institutions, so that they were more than ever well conducted during his episcopate. Though his enemies, despairing of finding other sins to lay to his charge, accused him of undue harshness as a taskmaster in the things he required of his clergy, this body itself never found fault with his zeal for discipline and austerity. He counselled nothing which he did not perform and, indeed, far surpass; for, unlike many bishops, estimable and even holy men, he did not consider his rank as exempting him from the most ordinary duties of a priest; he sat as many hours on regular days in the confessional as any country curate, and his daily Mass at five o’clock was always said in the cathedral instead of a private house-chapel—that is, until the last four or five years of his life, when old age made this indulgence necessary. He preached almost incessantly; the Sundays in Lent and Advent always in his own cathedral, other Sundays alternating with his clergy, and in the evenings of Sundays and week-days alike in any church, chapel, or even hall, where he was asked to further any good cause. His confirmation and church-visitation journeys were remarkable; he returned to the rightful custom of confirming, no matter how few the candidates, separately in each parish, instead of lumping many parishes together in one central ceremony, and this in order that he might gain a personal knowledge of each place, its needs and workings. On these occasions he would give a preliminary introduction on the eve of the confirmation, then hear confessions far into the night or morning, say Mass early, and confess again till he preached the sermon and administered the sacrament; in the afternoon inspect the schools, catechise the children, and visit any sick persons there might happen to be; conduct the evening service himself and preach a second time, the intermediate moments being passed again in the confessional or in private intercourse with any one who asked for special advice or comfort.

His daily life at home was as simple, hardy, and frugal as it had been at Beckum: he rose at four and worked incessantly, yet finding time, besides his Breviary, to say the rosary and the office of the Third Order of St. Francis every day. Add to this his writings, his minute supervision of the ecclesiastical machinery of his diocese, his conferences with political leaders, his necessary journeys or excursions, besides his frequent undertaking of the duties of the archbishop of Freiburg after the latter grew too infirm to go on long confirmation rounds, and it will be easily seen that he was far from an ordinary man. In virtue of his office he was entitled to a seat in the Upper House (in the grand-duchy of Hesse), with the right of sending a representative, if he chose, which he did, sending one of his canons, Dr. Monsang, who, among other things, distinguished himself by voting for the freedom of the Jewish religious bodies, in the matter of internal reform, from state interference, and for their right to receive state aid, provided they themselves solicited it. In the German Reichstag, however, where Bishop Ketteler represented the borough of Tauberbischofsheim, he sat in person, and was numbered among the members of what was known as the Fraction of the Centre, of whom Windthorst, his friend, was and is the leader. During the two German wars, 1866 and 1870, he, though deploring the civil nature of the first, according to the tradition of the greater part of the Westphalian nobility, leaned to the side of Prussia, in whose mission to unite Germany his belief never wavered, and whose influence in things purely political he always upheld. His very patriotism and enlightened views in this direction made his firm stand against the Prussian aggression on the church of more weight and importance—a fact which his enemies fully appreciated and often tried to make capital of, dubbing him as inconsistent with himself. Every one will see how one-sided this view was.

He was so far modern in his ideas that he claimed not to have lost any of the rights of a citizen by becoming a priest; but the way in which he used those rights, civic and parliamentary, roused the anger of men whose interpretation of the same principle led them to see in a priest nothing more than a military serf of the empire. He never claimed for the church any privilege or any exemption, only the full meed of liberty due to any other corporation; the exception need not be in her favor, but should not be directed specially against her. The state and the church were separate bodies, indeed, and well for the latter that such a doctrine could be conscientiously held; but the very separation involved perfect autonomy for the church, and forbade any interference on the part of political authorities, while her influence in social questions was to be exerted only through her direct influence on individuals; for a state under bondage to the church never occurred to him as desirable. Meanwhile, he labored to carry out his ideal of internal church government, a noble and primitive one, based upon the importance of parish organization and of the thorough efficacy of the parish clergy, to whom the religious orders, in his view, were to act as helpers and subordinates. To the disuse of ancient church laws and customs he attributed the troubles that have often come upon the church in all times; for he held her discipline, and even her ritual, to be no less than her doctrine under the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost. This alone would have made him a reformer in a lax and lukewarm age, when it was the fashion for Catholics themselves to join in mild or witty reflections upon their own faith, and to remain outwardly in conformity with that faith only by habit and by intellectual sluggishness. But this, joined to his powerful zeal in matters more prominent and public, made him specially the leader of a spiritual revival among the people of his city, his diocese, and Germany at large. It was not in vain that he sat in the see of St. Boniface; and when he encouraged the celebration of his predecessor’s eleventh centenary, it was fully as much to stir up the zeal of his people for church liberty as to honor the memory of the great missionary. His five journeys to Rome on various solemn anniversaries, and notably that on the occasion of the Vatican Council, were the only other incidents of his life that remain to be noticed; on his way back from the last, in 1876, when the Holy Father received him with special marks of esteem and rejoiced to have him as a witness of his “golden” anniversary, Bishop Ketteler fell ill at Alt-Oetting, a shrine where he had encouraged and taken part in many a pilgrimage. He could get no farther than the Capuchin convent of Burghausen, where he died on the 13th of July, of typhoid fever; on the 18th he was buried in his own cathedral amidst the lamentations of his clergy and people. The country people, to whom he had always had a special leaning, and who knew him as familiarly as his own canons did through his frequent presence at and ministry in the great Rhine pilgrimages, were loud in their expressions of grief; all felt that they had lost a father, but those whose chief concern was in temporal matters felt also that a great speaker and thinker had departed. Of his style, his mode of thinking, and the zeal, always burning yet never intemperate, which he brought to his work even so early as 1848, one can judge by the famous passage of his speech at the funeral of Lichnowsky and Auerswald at Frankfort: “Who are the murderers of our friends? Are they the men who shot them through the breast, or those who clove open their heads with their axes? No, these are not the murderers. Their murderers are the principles which produce both good and evil deeds upon the earth, and the principles which produced this deed are not born of our people. I know the German people, not, indeed, by the experience of conventions, but by that of its inner, daily life.... I have devoted my life to the service of the poor people, and the more I have learnt to know them the more have I learnt to love them; I know what a great and noble character our German people has received from God. No, I repeat it: it is not our noble, our honest German people who are answerable for this wicked deed.... The true murderers are those who, before the people, seek to bring into contempt and to soil with their low ribaldry both Christ, Christianity, and the church; those who strive to efface from the heart of the people the healing message of the redemption of mankind; those who do not look upon revolution as a sad necessity under certain circumstances, but erect revolution into a principle, and hurry people from revolution to revolution; ... those who would take from the people the belief in the duty of man to command himself, to curb his passions, and to obey the higher laws of order and of virtue, and would, on the contrary, make laws of those passions and therewith inflame the people; those men who would set themselves up as lying gods over the people, in order that it may fall down before them and worship them.”

Ketteler’s first well-known speech on social subjects was delivered on the 4th of October, 1848, at the original meeting of the Catholic Union at Mayence—a body whose “congresses” have been held yearly since that time, and have been distinguished by speeches such as those of Montalembert, Dupanloup, Manning, Döllinger, before 1870, and others whose names are public property. His subject was “The Freedom of the Church, and the Social Crisis”; and says one of his biographers, “It is no mean testimony to his far-sightedness that he already foresaw and took part in the importance of the social question.” His lectures in the cathedral took in such themes as these: “The Catholic Doctrine of Property,” “Rational Freedom,” “The Destiny of Man,” “The Family, based on Christian Marriage,” “The Authority of the Church, based on Man’s Need of Authority.” Of the impression these discourses made on all classes we have spoken already. To show how liberal were his views on the form of government, it may be mentioned that it was one of his axioms that it mattered little _who_ ruled, but much _how_ he ruled. All forms of legitimate government were practically alike to him, though his own ideal for Germany was a revival of the old unity of confederation, with the equal representation of the burghers and of the peasantry by the side of the clergy and nobility; but the manner in which the government, no matter what it called itself, dealt with weighty questions of morals was in his view a touchstone. It will be seen from this that if his foes delighted in calling him the most ultramontane of ultramontanes, they had no reason, politically speaking, to call him retrograde, absolutist, or even monarchist. In fact, it seems as if one might sum up his political character thus: a citizen of a free imperial city of the middle ages, imbued with the keenness of sight and the versatility of tongue peculiar to the modern European politician.

In 1851 and 1852 a new phase of unbelief, dubbing itself “German Catholicism,” did its best to bewilder the mind of Catholic Germany, and the bishop plainly warned his people against it, saying: “Though I should incur hereby the reproach of intolerance, I must warn you against ‘German Catholicism,’ for it denies the Godhead of Christ, revelation, and redemption, and makes itself a god according to its own fancy.” In 1852, in his Lenten pastoral, he touched upon the connection between this belief and political radicalism; also upon the common reproach of rebellion against authority or of flattery towards princes which these new philosophers were constantly bringing against the church. “When the church,” he says, “advises the people to submit to the civil power, she is thus attacked: ‘See the flatterer of princes, the protectress of all abuses, the willing instrument of the oppression of the people.’ When, on the other hand, she reminds the state of its obligations, and, under certain circumstances, proclaims that God is to be obeyed rather than man, the spirit of deception cries out: ‘See the rebel, the seeker after undue authority.’” In 1873, when a new attack was made on religion by the establishment of communal schools, he resisted, by writing and preaching, “these institutions which contradict all the principles of religion, disturb Christian education, contradict and confuse the understanding and the nature of childhood, and damage all the interests of the Christian family.” In 1851, when every government in Germany had been more or less remodelled, and many fetters of old prescription and prejudice had been shaken off by the revolution of 1844, the bishops of the Upper Rhine province came together at Freiburg, and presented a memoir on church relations with the state to the neighboring rulers of Hesse, Würtemberg, Baden, and Nassau. No notice was taken of it, and two years later it was repeated with almost the same result, save that in Hesse the grand-duke and his prime minister, Dalwigk, called a convention in 1854, and established the liberty and autonomy of the church upon a legal basis. Ketteler’s pamphlet in the same year, three months previous to the convention, had some influence on the course of affairs; it was on “The rights, and the right to protection, of the Catholic Church in Germany, with special reference to the claims of the episcopate of the Upper Rhine and the present struggle,” and may be summed up in this quotation from it: “The rights of sovereignty are doubtless holy. They belong to God’s ordinances, and are therefore of God; but those indefinite, boundless, unhistorical, unfounded rights of sovereignty stand exactly on a level with the equally indefinite, boundless, unhistorical, unfounded rights of humanity. They are distorted images of lofty truths, and are born of the same fallacy as absolutism. Once face to face with them, the church must either allow herself to be ravaged or must begin a struggle for life and death.”

However well known and widely spread were Ketteler’s influence and writings, the latter partook of the local and circumstantial nature of most political writings: they were not solid, dignified, technical treatises of theology, nor popular and “taking” books of devotion, but the outcome of present necessities, quick and vigorous protests against injustice, weapons specially adapted to the ever-shifting warfare between socialism and religion. His pamphlets were mostly short, terse, and to the point; he slept in his armor and was always on the watch. He speaks of his work in this direction with great simplicity to Prof. Nippold, of Heidelberg: “Besides my spiritual ministry in my diocese, I follow and observe all the movements of my time, and cannot help meeting with all the injustices which men do to one another, not always, indeed, of malice prepense, but often through misunderstandings, prejudices, and false representations. Then, if I can spare time from my work, I make an effort towards clearing up those unfortunate misunderstandings....” But though he spoke and felt thus modestly about his important part in the questions of the day, we know how impossible it is for a man of his stamp not to rise to his natural level. He was born to be a leader, and neither necessity nor humility could block the path to political prominence. Such a man, weighted with even more absorbing work than his, would have made time for occupations so naturally fitted for him; such a mind, even had it been in a less robust body, would have overcome disease and weakness, and wrested from them the power to make itself known. A list of a few of his writings will show how universal was his watchfulness: _Can a believing Christian be a Freemason? The True Foundations of Religious Peace. The Defamation of the Church by the Tribune. The Right of Free Election of the Cathedral Chapter. Germany after the War of 1866. The Fraction of the Centre at the First German Reichstag. Catholics in the German Empire. Freedom, Authority, and the Church, considerations upon the Great Problem of the Day. The Labor Question and Christianity. Liberalism, Socialism, and Christianity. The General Council and its Influence on Our Time. The Doctrinal Infallibility of the Pope after the Definition of the Vatican Council._

What he has said and written on the social question, including the subjects of marriage, the family, education, and the relations between capital and labor, even most of his opponents judge to belong to the quota of wisest utterances extant on the subject. His gift of opportunity, or of speaking always to the point, has been noticed already. Here is what a German contemporary says of it: “The bishop did not devote himself to journalism as a profession, for he looked upon his ministry as immeasurably more precious and higher than political influence. But he used it as a weapon at every important turning-point of contemporary German history, when dangers threatened the moral order of German society, and when the rights of the church were violated and her institutions hampered; and precisely because his writings sprang from instant necessities or the peculiarities of the day, they were, in the noblest sense of the word, _timely_—not productions of labored pulpit-wisdom, but the forcible words, piercing through bone and marrow, of a powerful voice sounding the battle-cry of a mind-conflict; of a man whose keen and far-sighted look measured the heights and depths of the mind-disturbances of his day, and shared heartily in the joys and sorrows of his time.”

It is worth while to notice his usual method in these earnest pamphlets. It consisted, as a rule, of taking his opponents’ own arguments or “accomplished facts” nakedly as they stood, and carrying them on to their strictly legitimate but startling consequences. Yet, in the whole course of his polemical writings, he carefully abstained from the least personality. In this he might with advantage be taken as a model by most schools of political pamphleteering. Soon after his speech at Frankfort his fame as an orator was already held so high that it suggested the following poetical portrait of him by Bede Weber, in a work entitled _Historico-Political Sketches_. This is almost a literal translation:

“The parish priest of Hopsten has a tall and powerful figure, with sharply-cut features, in which speak a fearlessness impelling him irresistibly to ‘do and dare,’[163] joined to an old Westphalian tradition of loyalty to God and church, to emperor and realm. To his discerning spirit the German nation, in its unity, its history, and its Catholic traditions, is still living and strong. Luther and Melanchthon, Charles the Fifth and Napoleon, the Peace of Basle and the cowardly Pillersdorf, are nothing in his eyes but passing shadows over the black, red, and gold shield of the German people. From the blood of General Auerswald and of Prince Lichnowsky, from the murder of Lamberg and Latour, the roses of hope spring only more obstinately for him, and his tears hang on them only as the pearly dew of the dawn of German freedom, German loyalty to the faith, and German order. He bears the great, brave German people, with the everlasting spring of its virtues, in the innermost depths of his heart, and from this union, or rather identification, flows the peculiar pride of his address, which, in the evil seething of elements in the ‘days of March,’ still points out the means of building up the cathedral of the German Church sooner and more beautifully than the cathedral of Cologne. Therefore was it that his words impressed his hearers with a resistless might. When I think of the orator Ketteler, I see before me a thorough man, who can awake fear in many a heart, but whose individuality is in itself a right to do so.”

Most of his bitterest opponents in the Reichstag acknowledged his power in speaking, and respected the fearless use he made of his position to remind them of their duties as men, Christians, and lawmakers; and when circumstances made it impossible for him to combine his duties as deputy with his dignity as bishop, and caused him to retire from his place, his party felt the loss of his voice as much as his adversaries rejoiced in their deliverance from a parliamentary “Son of Thunder.” His lectures and sermons, even on ordinary days and stereotyped subjects, were always startling and mind-compelling by the manner in which old truths were handled and new meanings brought out therefrom; while his open-air preaching at pilgrimages, where he was often heard by ten thousand people, bore an equally powerful and peculiar stamp, and, though his thoughts were then clothed in simpler language, they lacked none of the breadth which distinguished his more finished speeches.

In a monthly magazine edited at Mayence by the bishop’s friends Heinrich and Monsang, both dignitaries of his cathedral chapter, is a review of his life which gives a prominent place to his opinion on the importance and seriousness of social questions:

“He was deeply and firmly convinced that political and social problems are so inseparably connected with religious questions that any one aiming at defending religion from a high stand-point and in a comprehensive manner cannot indifferently pass by these problems.”

A newspaper generally opposed to his political views, the _Catholic Voice_ (or “Opinion”),[164] speaks in the same sense:

“One of the most noteworthy traits in the life and works of Bishop Ketteler is the lively interest which he took, by deed, word, and writing, in the social question. It is precisely in this direction that most misunderstandings take place. But we would remind the public that the attitude of the bishop towards this problem was wholly shaped by his Catholic principles and his priestly duties. Nothing was further from his mind than the wish to use the needs of the laborer as a basis for political agitation, or to carry out any chimerical theories of a general millennium. He took a part in the labor question, because he saw in working-men the victims of so-called liberal lawgivers, and because he found it his duty as a pastor to care for the poor. These high and noble motives were not always appreciated, but working-men themselves have repeatedly testified their confidence in him, and after his death were published many gratifying tributes from the same source.”

The sense in which he took part in this question is again impressed on the German public by means of the article from which we have quoted before—namely, that it was determined by personal experience and a sensitive consciousness of his duties as a priest.

“What he wrote and did concerning this subject proceeded not from mere theoretical interest, still less from political reasons, but from Christian love and brotherly feeling towards the people, especially the poorer classes, and from the ardent wish to further their eternal and temporal welfare, as well as to save them, together with the whole of society, from the terrible chaos towards which we are being hurled, if the old maxims and practice of Christian charity and justice do not prevail against the principles of modern liberalism and pseudo-conservatism.”

In his political prominence, and his fearless handling of questions often, under specious pretexts, withdrawn from the allowed limits of clerical oratory, Ketteler seems to invite a comparison with Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, who, having fought in the earlier struggle for freedom of education in France, has lived to take part in a struggle more vital and less local—that of the whole field of Christian doctrine in arms against systematized revolution. Occasion naturally moulds the men it needs; the material of such characters is always present, but in the church, as in the world, “mute, inglorious Miltons” and “village Hampdens” die and leave no mark. This explains the rush of talent to the rescue of every cause seriously imperilled by its successful adversaries; among others the cause of the church, under whatsoever persecution it may chance to suffer. This also explains the present superiority, as a body, of the German episcopate. In the first quarter of this century the reconstruction of society in France, and the reorganization of the church on a basis less majestic but more dignified than that of the _ancien régime_, brought about the same bristling of great gifts greatly used around the threatened liberties of the church. In Poland, during the two insurrections which this century has witnessed, heroes rose up naturally wherever there was a priest or a bishop; in the late French war, and its sequel, the Commune, the martyrdoms and Christian stoicism of 1793 were repeated and nearly surpassed, while the present more tedious, less brilliant struggle of the church in Germany has called forth men of iron will and fathomless patience to resist, legally and passively, an active, goading injustice. In countries where there is no need for it there is less of this public display of unusual powers; bishops who might be statesmen remain simply administrators, priests who might be heroes remain obscure pastors; in literature it is research, learning, theology which take up their leisure time, not public speaking or political writing; the silent, healthful life of the church goes on, without struggle and hindrance, and work is done indeed, but it seldom becomes known beyond a small local circle. And even this happens only under the shadow of suppressed hostility to the church, such as there exists at present in almost every country; for there have been times when, splendid as the outward position of the church has been, or seemingly unfettered her organization, there was at the core a spiritual drowsiness which was far from honorable. Such a period came before the first French Revolution; another earlier, before the German Reformation; another later, before Catholic Emancipation in England; and another before the late Prussian church laws in Germany. There was either security or sovereignty; no shade of persecution; at most a polished indifference or a scornful toleration, and hence no revival, no earnest, quick-pulsing life.

We have omitted to mention one of Bishop Ketteler’s most important undertakings—that of the theological institute in Mayence, to replace the education given to the clergy at the local university of Hesse, Giesen. The grand-duke heartily approved of the plan of restoring to the episcopal seminary the whole training of the diocesan clergy, instead of the taking on, as a secondary branch, of a chair of theology to Giesen; and the bishop was enabled to carry out his plans in this matter, and to leave behind him a body of priests, zealous, loyal, whole-hearted, and imbued with his own spirit.

Ketteler was in every sense a great man, and no less a man of his age. He accepted everything as it legitimately stands, with no hankerings after the old order of things, no political, or rather romantic, longings after forced revivals of bygone conditions; but he took his stand firmly on the principle that the church has her own appointed and immutable place in every successive system, and ought to stand by her claim to this place. This is the basis whence every member of her army should in these days fight her battles, and, taking up the new weapons, make them his own. Ketteler has shown them the way.

THE OLD STONE JUG.

A TALE OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND.

A century ago on the post-road to Boston, and sixteen miles from the city of New York, stood a tavern called the Old Stone Jug. It was a one-story building of dark-colored stone, with a single window fronting upon the highway—a quaint, lozenge-shaped window, of thick, dingy glass, through which the sun’s rays penetrated with difficulty. The chimney, battered by two generations of northwest winds, sagged considerably to the south; a frowning rock rose close behind the house; and altogether the Old Stone Jug wore a sinister appearance, which tallied well with the stories told about it. A band of Indians had come in the night-time and massacred the first family who dwelt here; a peddler had been seen to enter the doorway and never been heard of afterwards; a cavern of fathomless depth was said to connect the cellar with the rock; and certain it is that no one who had made this spot his home had either remained long or prospered there, except Peter Van Alstyne—better known in the township of East Chester as Uncle Pete—who kept the tavern at the opening of the Revolution.

But he did well; the poorer his neighbors became, the more light-hearted did he grow and the richer, and all because the fox which prowleth about in the dark was not cunninger than Uncle Pete.

His wife was dead, but he had a daughter named Martha, who kept house for him, and whom he tenderly loved and strove to bring up in his own principles—namely, to be all things to all men. “For these are critical times,” he would say, “and who can tell, child, which side will win?”

Martha was just twenty years of age, and, if not what we might call a handsome girl, had something very attractive about her. She was tall and graceful and abounding in spirits. She knew everybody for miles around, and everybody knew her; and if the more knowing ones shook their heads and looked a little doubtful when they spoke of Van Alstyne, all agreed that Martha was a fine young woman.

The only member of the household besides herself and parent was a diminutive negro boy christened “Popgun.” And at the moment our tale begins Popgun is perched on the topmost limb of a wild-cherry tree hard by, Martha is in the kitchen making doughnuts, while the publican is standing in the middle of the road gazing up at the sign-board which hangs immediately above the entrance—and, considering that he painted it himself, ’tis not a bad work of art. Here we see King George with a crown on his head; at the royal feet crouches a lion, and around the two figures, in big red letters, are the words, “God save the King!”

He was still contemplating the features of his sovereign when a shrill voice cried down from the sky, “Be ready, sir.” In an instant Uncle Pete’s face lost its tranquil expression, and putting his hand to his ear, so as to catch well Popgun’s next warning note, he listened attentively.

In another minute came the voice again: “‘Lisha Williams, sir, on Dolly Dumplings.”

“Ho! Then I must be brisk, for the mare travels fast,” muttered Van Alstyne, hastening toward a ladder which lay a few yards off in readiness for these occasions. In less time than it takes to relate the sign-board was turned round, and, lo! in place of King George and the lion behold now George Washington, holding in his hand a flag whereon are thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, and circling the picture are the words, “God save our Liberties.”

“Child, here’s ‘Lisha coming,” shouted Uncle Pete, thrusting his head into the doorway.

“Elisha! Indeed!” exclaimed Martha, letting drop the cake she was rolling in her hands. “Oh! how glad I am. Haven’t seen the dear boy for an age.” Then away she flew to make ready for her lover, or rather for one of her lovers. And now, while the girl is putting on another gown, let us speak a few words about the horseman who is approaching.

Elisha Williams was a young man of five-and-twenty, with sandy hair and blue eyes, and whose father owned a farm half a mile east of the inn. He and Martha had been friends from childhood, and when at length the time came for him to think of matrimony there was no lass whom he desired more for his wife than Martha.

She was a girl after his own heart: not demure and timid and silent as a tombstone, but brave and full of fun; he had even known her to pursue and kill a rattlesnake; and she was as fond of a horse as he was himself.

When news came of the fight at Lexington Elisha openly took the patriot side, bought Dolly Dumplings of Martha’s father (a mare so given to kicking and jumping fences that, although of unstained pedigree, Uncle Pete was fain to part with her), and now he is one of the most daring troopers in the Continental army, and is known far and wide as The Flying Scout.

But Elisha was not the only one who courted Martha. He had a rival named Harry Valentine, son of Doctor Valentine, the most notorious Tory in East Chester; and this caused Elisha not a little anxiety. For, although Martha always received him very cordially when he paid her one of his flying visits, and seemed pleased to hear of his exploits, she never would listen when he said anything harsh of the Tories.

Elisha’s heart was beating quite as fast as her own when presently he reined in his foaming steed before the tavern door. Martha was standing on the threshold, looking, in his eyes, never so bewitching. Between her fingers she held a lump of sugar for Dolly Dumplings—she seemed to care only for Dolly; her long, luxuriant brown hair, which flowed loose down her shoulders, had a spray of wild honeysuckle twined through it—you might have fancied she had been wandering through the woods, and that the flowers had got tangled there by accident. Her cheeks were slightly tinged by the sun; but what of it? They were plump, healthy cheeks, adorned by two pretty dimples; and Elisha, who loved cherries, felt his mouth water when he looked on Martha’s lips.

“How is my Martha?” he exclaimed, sliding nimbly off the saddle.

“_Your_ Martha, indeed!” answered the girl, tossing her head; then with a smile, as he caught both her hands: “Well, I’m alive and well, and—”

“Not at all pleased to see me, eh?” interrupted Elisha.

“Delighted to see you,” she added, a sweet pink blush spreading itself with the quickness of light over her face.

“Really? Truly? ‘Pon your honor?” cried Elisha, squeezing her hands tighter.

“Come inside and let’s have a talk,” said Martha, trying to free herself from his grasp. But she only half tried; and when presently they were seated side by side he was still holding fast to her right wrist.

“What delicious flowers!” observed Martha, looking down at a nosegay which the youth had stuck in his belt. “Wild-flowers give no such perfume.”

“These are for you,” said her lover, presenting them to her. “They came from Van Cortlandt’s garden. I spent last night at the Manor. Van Cortlandt is a patriot, and is not ashamed to offer a farmer’s son hospitality.”

“How delicious!” said Martha, bringing the nosegay to her nose. “Colonel Delancey’s hot-house plants cannot surpass them.”

“Delancey! The Tory! The Cowboy chief! What do you know about his flowers, Martha?”

“Harry Valentine brought me a magnolia from there a few days ago,” replied Martha frankly.

The other murmured something to himself, then burst out: “Confound and hang the Tories!”

Martha was silent a moment, then remarked: “Well, however much you dislike them, I hope you will not harm Harry Valentine, if he ever falls into your hands.”

“It being your wish, I will always aim a mile above his precious head,” returned Elisha.

“You are a good fellow—a real good fellow; just the same as you always were,” continued Martha tenderly. “Oh! I often think of our old frolics together, Elisha.”

“Do you, really? Well, Martha, I often think of them too. What happy days those were!”

“Yes, much happier than these. O Elisha! you can’t think how changed everything is since this dreadful war began. Not a sloop sails up the creek now; no carriages pass along the road; no bees, no husking parties—everybody is gloomy. First this man’s barn is burnt, then that man’s; and chickens and horses and cattle are stolen. In short, between the Skinners and the Cowboys poor Westchester County is fast becoming a desert.”

“Well, for all that it is a glorious war, and will end in freeing us from England,” said Elisha, thumping his fist upon his knee.

“Ay, to be sure it will. God save our liberties! Hurrah for the Continental Army!” cried Uncle Pete, waddling into the house. Then, as he opened a cupboard which contained a number of bottles of rum and cherry-bounce: “Tell me, ‘Lisha, how you like Dolly Dumplings.”

“Like her? Why, Uncle Pete, she’s just the best animal that ever was shod. Nothing can catch her—not even the wind.”

“Right, my boy! Colonel Livingstone, who imported her sire from England, and who sold the mare to me five years ago, declared that she has in her veins the blood of the Flying Childers, and you know he ran a mile a minute.”

“Father, Popgun is calling,” said Martha, with a disturbed air.

“Is he?” And Van Alstyne hurried away as fast as possible; but before you could count ten he was back again.

“Too bad, ‘Lisha,” he said, “that you must quit us so soon—hardly time to take one drink. But some enemy’s cavalry are in sight and they’re on a trot.” Then out he went again to fetch Dolly Dumplings.

“Well, dear boy, may the Lord watch over you and keep you safe!” spoke Martha, in a tone of deeper feeling than she had yet evinced toward her lover. The latter gazed earnestly in her face a moment, then said: “Must I bid good-by and depart in uncertainty? O Martha dear! tell me what I so long to know: will you be my wife?”

Her response was: “Elisha, I love the brave, and the bravest shall win me.”

“Then, by Heaven, I’ll be a hero!” cried Elisha. These were his last words; in another moment he was gone. But ere Dolly Dumplings had galloped fifty paces the sign-board was turned round and King George came once more in view.

“Who are they, pa—Hessians or real Britishers?” inquired Martha calmly; for she knew they could not overtake Elisha.

“Hessians, I believe,” replied Van Alstyne.

“Detestable creatures!” exclaimed the girl, withdrawing into the house.

“Don’t say that, child. They’re as good as any soldiers who fight for the king; and if they halt here they’ll leave more than one guinea behind them.”

And so they did, for they were a party of very thirsty and hungry men who shortly arrived; and for the next hour and a half the Old Stone Jug was as busy as a bee-hive. Many a bottle of spirits was emptied, every doughnut and pie was devoured; and in consideration of his being a staunch loyalist they paid Uncle Pete without grumbling, albeit the score was rather high.

“They’re gone at last—what a blessing!” said Martha, while her father was counting over the money to make sure it was all good coin.

“Why, how foolish you talk!” said happy Uncle Pete.

“Well, father, I’m in earnest. I don’t dislike real Britishers or Tories; but these German mercenaries I do detest.”

“Bah! bah!” growled Van Alstyne. “Perhaps to-morrow we’ll have a band of Continentals or some roving Skinners; then perhaps, day after, ‘tother side may visit us again. Why, child, I’m getting rich out of this war.”

“Take one side or the other,” returned Martha, shaking her head. “I’d rather be fair and open, even if we made less money.”

“Humph! We’d be in a pretty fix if I did that, child—a pretty fix. Why, this tavern wouldn’t stand a week, except for my double-faced sign-board; whereas now George Washington might be entertained here and depart highly edified, and so might King George. The only unpleasantness would be if they both happened to come at the same time. And so, child, you ought not to be finding fault.” Then, after pausing long enough to take a chew of tobacco: “And besides,” he went on, “’tis not easy in this world always to see the clear path we ought to follow. Why, you yourself are in a fix; and I don’t wonder at it, for in this township I can’t name two honester, jollier more manly fellows than ‘Lisha Williams and Harry Valentine. And if I were a girl with those two boys for sparks, I believe I’d jump into East Chester Creek, so that neither of ’em might be disappointed.”

Here Martha’s merry laugh rang through the house; then, taking Elisha’s bouquet in one hand and Harry’s magnolia in the other, she stretched forth her arms and stood exactly half-way between the two love-gifts, and said: “Well, yes, I am in a fix.”

“And a very, very sweet fix,” mumbled Uncle Pete, rolling the quid about in his capacious mouth. “Many a young woman might envy you.”

“Well, I do wonder how long it will last. I must decide one of these days.”

“Don’t be in a hurry, child. Wait; have patience. If we are beaten and forced to remain colonies, marry Harry Valentine; if we secure our independence, then choose ‘Lisha. For ’twill go hard with the party that’s beaten; their land will be confiscated.”

“Dear, darling flowers! How delicious you are!” said Martha, bringing the magnolia and the nosegay together and pressing both to her lips; and she kept kissing them and smelling them, and smelling and kissing them, till at length her father said:

“Humph! they’ll soon wilt, if you treat the pretty things that way.”

“Oh! I’ll get fresh ones afore long,” answered Martha. “However, I will put these in water. They may as well last a few days.”

But a week went by, and then another week, without bringing again either of her suitors. The weather was delightful, for it was early June. The summer heat had not yet begun; and if it were not for war, ruthless war, how fair all nature would have appeared! But although the meadows were spangled with dandelions and buttercups, the woods scented with dogwood blossoms, and the air full of the melody of bobolinks and orioles, the people of East Chester were more depressed than ever. Bob Reed’s mill had just been burnt by the Cowboys; in revenge the Skinners had scuttled a Tory sloop anchored in the creek; while some miscreants had even made an attempt to fire St. Paul’s Church in the village. But, sad as all this was, nothing caused Martha Van Alstyne so much distress as the doings at the Old Stone Jug. For two whole nights she was kept awake and bustling about, attending to the wants of a set of profane marauders who belonged both to the British and American side. These villains, sinking all difference of opinion, would occasionally unite to rob friend as well as foe;[165] and it was to the Old Stone Jug they carried their plunder, which Uncle Pete would hide in the cavern behind the house.

“Well, don’t blame me, child,” said Van Alstyne. “Remember how I am situated. Why, if I had refused to conceal those bags of gold I’d like enough have been hung forthwith; for among the men who were here last night and the night before are some of the greatest scoundrels in America.”

“Well, I am going to choose my husband afore long,” answered Martha—“either Elisha Williams or Harry Valentine; and then you must abandon this tavern and come live with me. For if you stay here—”

“O child! I sha’n’t stay after you’re gone. But why marry so soon? Why not wait a while?—at least, until we see what Burgoyne does with his army, which is large and well appointed. He may sweep everything before him; and if he does, then you’ll see your way much clearer, and I’ll be the first to tell you to wed Harry Valentine.”

Martha shook her head: “I’ll give my hand to the bravest, father, no matter which side he is on. And it is because they are both so good and so brave that I hesitate.”

“Well, now, child, if you’re not careful you may cause the death of ’em both. Ay, ’tis hard to say what wild, foolhardy deed they may not attempt in order to win you.”

“Do you think so?” exclaimed Martha, pressing her hand over her heart and turning pale. This thought had not occurred to her before. But it was too late. She had already told each wooer that the bravest one should have her.

The girl was inwardly lamenting her folly when a voice from the cherry-tree cried: “Be ready, sir.” And immediately she and her father listened with all their ears for the next call.

“Red-coats!” shouted Popgun in about three minutes.

“All right,” said Uncle Pete, and off he went to get the ladder. But quick Martha checked him, saying: “Why, father, the sign-board is all right for Britishers.”

“Oh! so it is,” ejaculated Uncle Pete; then, with a grin: “The fact is, child, I’m so used to turning it round and round—first to King George, then to George Washington, then back again to King George—that I’m afraid some day I’ll make a mistake, and I’ve half a mind to give you charge of it.”

“If you do I’ll either nail the sign fast to the house, or else take it away entirely,” answered Martha.

Her parent was still laughing at this innocent, unbusiness-like speech when the British dragoons arrived, and at their head was Harry Valentine.

Harry was a very different looking man from Elisha Williams: not only was he clad in a brilliant scarlet uniform, but he had more refined features and courtly manners, which seemed to confirm the view that Martha’s father held—namely, that the most genteel people were Tories. And now, while Harry clasped the hand of his sweetheart, the latter forgot altogether Elisha’s freckled but honest face, his sandy hair and homespun coat, with naught to distinguish him from an ordinary citizen save a black cockade and eagle feather in his hat, and she thought to herself: “Was there ever such a magnificent wig as my Harry’s! ’Tis powdered to perfection! Dear, darling boy!”

“Ah! there is the magnolia I gave you,” said Harry, smiling, as they entered the little sitting-room, where Martha passed most of her time when not engaged in the kitchen.

“How fresh it looks! Yet ’tis a good while since I brought it.”

“An age,” returned Martha, eying him fondly.

“And what pretty flowers those are yonder!” he continued, looking toward the other end of the mantel-piece.

“None could be prettier,” said Martha in a quiet voice, yet she felt the blood stealing over her cheeks.

“From Reverend Doctor Coffee’s garden, perhaps?”

“No indeed! They were given me by one whom nobody can come up to—one who keeps ahead of everybody. Now guess his name!”

“Oh! I know—that Skinner, Elisha Williams,” said Harry with apparent indifference, but inwardly groaning.

“He is not a Skinner, any more than you are a Cowboy. You are both in the regular armies,” said Martha; then, laying her hand on Harry’s shoulder: “And, Harry, I hope, if Elisha is ever your prisoner, that you will treat him kindly.”

“For your sake he who in your eyes is ahead of all the rest of the world shall have not a single one of his red hairs injured,” answered Harry, making a low bow. “But might I venture to ask what valiant exploit has Elisha performed that you say he is ahead of me, his open, determined, but honorable rival?”

“O Harry! your dear brains are running away with you,” said Martha. “You speak hastily. I only meant that Dolly Dumplings is so fleet that not a trooper in the king’s army can catch Elisha. That is all I meant.”

“Is that really all?” exclaimed Harry, giving a sigh of relief.

“Yes, upon my word it is.”

“Well, Elisha must look out,” continued the young man, his countenance beaming once more. “He must not presume too much on the fleetness of his steed; for a hundred pounds reward has just been offered to whoever will capture Dolly Dumplings.”

“Indeed! A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Martha. “Well, for all that Dolly will still continue to show you her heels.”

At this Harry laughed, then said: “Martha, I hope the next time you see me I’ll have a decoration; we expect stirring events soon.”

“O Harry! pray don’t be rash,” said the girl. “Do, do take care of yourself.”

“Stop no preaching, dear Martha. I love you too much to heed the bullets. You remember you said the bravest should possess you; and you are a treasure worth shedding blood for.”

“Oh! did I say that?” Here she pressed her hand to her brow. “Well, yes, I believe I did. But I was a fool, for who can be braver than you and Elisha? Who can doubt the courage of either of you?”

“Well, then, precious Martha, why not decide at once between us? Oh! I assure you ’tis a great trial for me, this long uncertainty.”

When he had spoken these words Martha turned her eyes upon Elisha’s nosegay, which, despite the water, was beginning to fade; then from the flowers her eyes dropped to the floor, while her heart throbbed violently. Then, looking up, she was on the very point of uttering something of vast moment, when, lo! a bullet crashed through the window, whizzed close by her head, and buried itself in the wainscoting, half blinding her with whitewash and mortar.

Immediately there was a great stir and confusion in the bar-room, where Harry’s company were drinking and smoking their pipes.

Quick the troopers were on their feet and rushing pell-mell out of the house, while their horses were pawing the earth and neighing furiously, for “whizz!” “whizz!” “whizz!” like so many bees the balls were flying past them.

“Good Lord! here they come, and close upon us!” gasped Uncle Pete, shaking like an aspen leaf as he glanced up the highway, then looking toward the sign-board. Would he have time to make the sign change front? Momentous question! And on the American cavalry were coming—a whole regiment—on, on, at full speed. But, rapidly as they approached, the Britishers were too quick for them; every man of the latter was already in the saddle, and Martha, although seeing but dimly, was giving Harry’s hand a parting squeeze, heedless of the danger she was in and deaf to his urgent entreaties to withdraw.

“No, no, I’m not afraid,” she said. Nor did she retire until he had pressed his lips to her cheek; then back she flew into the house.

Scarcely had Harry put spurs to his horse when Uncle Pete—his movements happily hidden by a cloud of dust—sprang up the ladder, turned the sign-board round in a jiffy, then, pulling from his pocket a bit of chalk, drew it thrice across George Washington’s benign visage. After which down he came, or rather down he tumbled; the ladder was hastily flung aside, and through the doorway after Martha he ran, shouting: “Smash the bottles, child! Smash a lot of ’em!”

Poor Martha, who was cleansing the mortar from her eyes, was filled with amazement at these words. Had her parent suddenly lost his wits? Ay, surely he had, for he was already hard at work breaking bottle after bottle, and by the time Colonel Glover’s regiment, which pursued the enemy only half a mile, drew up at the Old Stone Jug, two pounds ten shillings would not have made good the damage which Uncle Pete had wrought to his own property.

“God save our liberties, and the devil take King George!” cried Van Alstyne as the American colonel dismounted; then, pointing indignantly at the sign-board: “Look, sir, what the British villains have done! Look!”

“Ay, disfigured our noble commander-in-chief,” answered the officer.

“But now come, sir, and see what they have done inside,” continued Uncle Pete, foaming at the mouth.

In a few minutes the tavern was crowded with officers and soldiers heaping maledictions upon the British for having destroyed so much excellent rum; the whole floor was reeking with spirits.

But Uncle Pete, in consideration of his loyalty to the American cause, recovered all he had lost, and more too; for the cavalry-men made the inn merry until the day was well-nigh spent. And when at length they departed there was not a more contented citizen in the township than Peter Van Alstyne.

“What a narrow escape we had!” he said to Martha when they were once more alone.

“Very; and we may thank God ’tis all over without one drop of blood being spilt,” answered the girl.

“Well, no, ’tisn’t quite over yet,” added the publican; then, going to the door, he shouted: “Popgun, come down.”

Popgun obeyed, but his movements were slow; he moved like one who has the rheumatism, and he took double the usual time to descend the tree.

“I say, you little black imp,” growled Uncle Pete as soon as the boy got within reach—“you little black imp, you fell asleep on your perch to-day. Now, don’t lie; you did, and you’re ‘sponsible for the broken bottles, and the disfigured sign, and the bullets in the wall. Ay, you’re ‘sponsible for every penny’s worth of damage, and now I’m going to punish you.”

“O massa! please don’t make me dance a hornpipe,” said the unhappy boy, whining and wringing his hands. “Don’t! don’t! I’ll never fall asleep again—no, never.”

“Well, it’s a hornpipe I’m going to make you dance; and now begin.” So saying, Uncle Pete lifted up a stout ox-gad and brought it down with all his might on Popgun’s legs. The blow was followed by a piercing cry. Martha implored her father not to strike him again, but Van Alstyne was deaf to her appeals for mercy, and during several minutes Popgun continued to hop about like a dancing bear, and you might have heard his screams as far as East Chester village.

Finally, Uncle Pete having broken the whip over the poor child’s legs, Martha, who was truly vexed at such cruelty, led Popgun into the kitchen, intending to console him with something good to eat. But Van Alstyne, who knew how soft her heart was, said:

“Martha, I positively forbid you to give him one mouthful of sweetmeats, and not a single doughnut or tart. Obey me!”

The girl made no response, but, having fastened the kitchen door and brushed a tear out of her eye, bade the little sufferer sit down; then said: “Now, mind, you are to have no sweetmeats and no tarts and no doughnuts, so here’s some honey and a corncake.”

Popgun looked up in her face, and Martha was not a little surprised to see him recovering so rapidly from his terrible castigation; so broad was his grin that every one of his gleaming teeth was visible.

“I’d like to dance a hornpipe every day, Miss Martha,” he said, “for I love corncake and honey.”

“Do you? Well, then, you shall have plenty.”

But before the urchin began his feast he whispered: “Miss Martha, you won’t tell anybody if I tell you a secret, will you?”

“Of course not,” answered Martha, who was anxious to please him, and thus make amends for the barbarous treatment he had received.

“Well, then, Miss Martha, look here.” And Popgun stooped, and, turning up the rim of his light linen trowsers, revealed underneath a pair of cowskin breeches about a quarter of an inch thick; and these breeches had proved a good friend to him, for he had danced many a hornpipe.

“Oh! fie, you naughty boy!” exclaimed Martha; and she was strongly tempted to take away the honey-jar. But after reflecting a moment she burst into a laugh, while Popgun tried to laugh too, but did not succeed for the honey which filled his mouth.

Never had Martha known so much anxiety as during the four months which followed Harry Valentine’s last visit. Neither of her lovers came to see her. Never had they stayed away so long before; and whenever any one arrived at the tavern with news she would listen with rapt attention and a sinking heart, fearful lest she might hear that some evil had befallen them. Often and often Martha would turn from her spinning-wheel to gaze on the flowers they had given her—poor faded flowers, but more precious now than diamonds in her sight; and instead of keeping them far apart, Martha set the nosegay and magnolia near together—so near that she might circle them both in one fond embrace.

It was an anxious, trying summer, too, for the patriots. Washington was suffering defeats in Pennsylvania; two important posts on the Hudson River—Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton—were captured by the British; and Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York. Nothing seemed likely to rescue the cause of independence from utter ruin, save the army under General Gates, which was marching to meet Burgoyne; and every breath of rumor from the north was eagerly listened to.

“A crisis is approaching, child,” Uncle Pete would say, “and I guess you’ll be able to select your husband afore the next moon.”

But Martha had grown too down-hearted to heed what her father said, and more than once he found tears in her eyes.

By and by autumn came—rich, ripe, golden autumn. But in many an orchard the apples were left unpicked, for the young men were gone to the war and the old folks had no heart for the labor. The blackbirds were flocking, and Martha would watch them as they took wing for the south, and she felt toward the little birds as never before; for perhaps in their long journey they might pass over Harry and Elisha; in New Jersey, in Delaware, in Maryland, or even in the far-off Carolinas, they might see their camp-fires, might hear the cannon booming.

“Sweet birds, you will come back in spring-time,” she sighed. “Will Harry and Elisha come back?”

“Child, here is something that may cheer you up,” said Uncle Pete one October evening. The girl looked round, and, lo! he had a letter for her. Martha’s hand trembled as she took it.

A century ago people did not write as often as nowadays; indeed, comparatively few knew how to read and write. Hence it was not so very strange that Martha was unable to tell at a glance from whom the letter came. Was it from Elisha? or Harry? or from some comrade of theirs imparting sad news?

Few moments in life are more big with keen suspense than the moment between the breaking of a letter’s seal and the reading of the first line, when the missive is from one very dear to us and far away. This interval of time—brief as three heart-throbs—may prove the boundary-line where happiness ends for ever and dark days begin, or it may set us smiling as Martha is smiling now; therefore let us peep over her shoulder and learn what the glad tidings are:

“I am coming in three days, dearest Martha, to take you to St. Paul’s Church and make you my darling wife. Now, don’t say nay. I implore you not to break my heart. I have won two decorations, and am a major, and in all America nobody loves you more truly than your devoted

“HARRY VALENTINE.”

Although an exceedingly short letter, it required some little time for Martha to spell it all out; and when she did get to the end she was in such a flurry that she could barely speak when Uncle Pete asked what was the matter.

“O father! Harry Valentine says he will be here in—in three days to marry me. And—and he has won two decorations, and he is a major, and I don’t know what to think about it.”

“Humph! he has risked his life twice for you, has he? Got two decorations! Well, that ought to count a good deal in his favor.”

“Well, yes, it ought, father.”

“And do you know, child, there is a rumor flying about that Gen. Gates has found Burgoyne too strong for him, and that he is retreating. Therefore, all things considered, I think you may bet on King George and marry Harry.”

“O father! how little you understand me,” exclaimed Martha with a look of reproach. “I may seem a flirt, a coquette, but I’m not. My heart is not like your sign-board, and I have suffered more than you imagine from not being able to decide between Harry and Elisha, who love me so truly, and each of whom is so worthy of my love.” Then, pressing her hands to her bosom: “Poor heart!” she cried, “what must I do? Oh! tell me, what must I do?” Then, hastening into the sitting-room, where she kept the nosegay and the magnolia, she put her lips to Elisha’s withered love-gift, then carried it off, leaving the magnolia alone in its glory. But ere Martha reached the window, where she meant to fling the flowers away, the glass which held them slipped from her quivering hand, and in an instant it lay shattered at her feet.

“Well, really, child, you do astonish me,” said her father the afternoon of the day when Harry Valentine was expected. “You can’t sleep, you’ve lost your appetite, and all because ‘Lisha’s posy dropped on the floor. Why, what nonsense!”

“Well, yes, it is silly,” said Martha. “One of the two I will wed, and I have made up my mind it is to be Harry, and I doubt not Elisha will live fifty years and be happy too. Any one might let a glass break.”

“Ay, ay. I’ve smashed scores of ’em, child, and never knew any ill to follow—except once, when I stumbled and fell on top of the broken bits and cut my finger.”

Martha now made a strong effort to dispel the sense of approaching evil which for three days had been haunting her, and during the next hour she kept in good spirits. She had on her best gown, there was a flush upon her cheeks, and every few minutes she would go to the foot of the cherry-tree and ask if Harry Valentine were in sight.

“No, miss,” answered Popgun the last time she put the question to him. “But there is a man in the cedars yonder making signs; I guess he wants to speak with you or master. He looks like an Indian.”

Martha did not hesitate to go herself and see what the stranger wanted; and after the latter had spoken a few words to her and she turned to leave him, the bright color had fled from her face and she trembled.

A half-hour later a cavalcade of gay horsemen arrived at the tavern, and, as we may imagine, Van Alstyne wondered very much why his daughter was not present to greet Harry Valentine. He searched all through the house for Martha; he called her name, but she did not answer. Where could Martha be?

In the meanwhile Harry, directed by Popgun’s finger, which pointed to the woods, had set out in quest of his love.

And Martha was soon found; but not, as the young officer had fancied she would be, gathering chestnuts or wild grapes by the brookside, by Rattlesnake Brook, where he had first met her five years ago—oh! never-to-be-forgotten day, when she was just emerging from girlhood and the first down was on his chin. But now Harry found her kneeling upon a mossy rock, praying. And when at the sound of footsteps Martha rose up and flew into his arms, although transported with delight to meet her again, and to feel she had yielded him her heart at last—that heart which it had taken so long to win—nevertheless a pang shot through him when he discovered a tear on her cheek; ’twas easy to kiss the tear away, but why had she been weeping? He asked the question, but Martha only shook her head and said:

“Remember, dear one, the promise you once made me: if Elisha ever falls into your hands, you will do him no injury. Remember.”

And now evening has come, and a jovial party is assembled in the Old Stone Jug. Uncle Pete bestirred himself as never before to do his guests honor; he could scarce remain quiet a moment. The best his house afforded he gave without stint, and ’twas a free gift. Uncle Pete intended that his future son-in-law should long remember the hospitality of this autumn evening.

Martha was the only one who did not make merry. She sat close beside Harry Valentine, her eyes resting on his manly, sunburnt face; she seemed ready to devour him with her eyes, and spoke very little.

But ever and anon she would withdraw her hand from his and go peep out of the window. It was when she had done this for the third time, then come back and placed her hand within his again, that Harry observed in a tone of surprise:

“Why, my beloved, what is the matter? Your hand is grown suddenly cold as ice.”

“Is it?” said Martha nervously. There were other words quivering on her lips, but she held them back. In after-years she bitterly lamented her silence at this critical moment. It was late, yet not too late—the moon was still a quarter of an hour below the horizon—and when Harry noticed her agitation, if she had only been frank with him, how different might have been the whole current of her after-life—how very different!

And now the sky in the east is growing rapidly brighter, and Martha’s heart is throbbing faster and louder—so loud that Harry might almost have heard it. But ’twas not necessary for him to hear the beating of her heart in order to discover her growing distress. Martha was leaning back in the chair, her cheeks were become as cold as her hand, and her eyes strayed from his eyes to the window in a wild, fearful way; then, looking at him again, she seemed about to say something, but did not, and Harry was really becoming alarmed at the strange mood she was in, when the tavern door was suddenly flung wide open, and, as it swept round on its hinges, a small, black hand passed swiftly over the table. In an instant the candles were extinguished, and in the pitchy darkness which followed Martha found herself borne away in somebody’s arms.

“Now, Martha, you’re mine,” said Elisha Williams exultingly, as he bounded like a deer up the road to the spot where he had left his horse.

“Be true to me, Martha. Mount! and we’ll hie to the Jerseys together.”

What the girl’s feelings were just at this moment ’twere not easy to describe. In her ears came deafening uproar from the Old Stone Jug—quick commands; the neighing of steeds; a voice cried, “Fire!”

Then—well, she must have swooned; for when next she became conscious of anything, Martha found herself seated on the saddle-bow, Elisha’s arm supporting her, and Dolly Dumplings galloping at terrific speed along Cusser’s Lane.

And here let us say that the very first thought to enter Martha’s mind was a glad thought. Ay, her dark presentiment in regard to The Flying Scout had proved utterly untrue, and she even laughed aloud when presently she told Elisha what her fears for him had been. Whereupon he cried: “Me dead! Ha! ha! No indeed! Hurrah for Independence and Martha Van Alstyne!”

Then, while his voice was echoing through the woods which lined the road on either side—frightening an owl and rousing a partridge out of its sleep—Elisha went on to tell the great news of Burgoyne’s surrender. “I was present, my love,” he said. “I saw the British colors lowered. Hurrah for Martha and Independence! Hurrah! hurrah!”

But swift as was Dolly’s pace—her tail, back, and nose formed one beeline—it was none too swift, and she needed all the blood of her grandsire, the Flying Childers, to save her from being overtaken. On, on at a furious rate Harry Valentine was coming. He led the pursuit; his friends were close behind him. And now, we may ask, did Martha remonstrate with Elisha? Did she urge him to draw rein?—to surrender her to the one whom she had consented to wed on the morrow? No, indeed. Elisha’s astounding boldness in stealing her away from her home when surrounded by a score of armed men drowned every other thought; verily, he was the boldest of the bold. The bracing night-air, too, was like wine to her throbbing veins, and the moonbeams shimmering through the trees lent a weirdness to the scene which prevented Martha from thinking calmly about anything. She felt as if bewitched. Dolly Dumplings appeared like a ghostly steed; Elisha was a wizard knight bearing her off to his enchanted castle; and not for all the world would she have slipped off the saddle to go back to the Old Stone Jug.

But great changes often come unawares, and in a few minutes everything changed. It happened thus: lying in the middle of the lane, directly in front of old Isaac Cusser’s house—from whom the lane takes its name—was a cow, and between the cow and the stone wall opposite the farmer had piled a load of salt hay. Now, had there been a little more light, Dolly Dumplings would have discovered the animal in time and jumped over her. But the trees just at this spot threw a broad shadow across Dolly’s path, and naught was visible until the mare got within a stride of the obstacle. Then she swerved violently to one side, and in another moment Martha found herself rolling over and over in the hay.

Needless to observe that Elisha did his utmost to stay the course of Dolly Dumplings. But, once past the cow, Dolly had instantly resumed her headlong gait, and she went quite a distance ere she was brought to a halt.

Poor Elisha! he knew well that Martha was lost to him; yet he did not hesitate to return—to approach within easy pistol-shot of where Harry Valentine and his friends were assembled round about the young woman. The farmer, too, had come out with a lantern, and Elisha, plunged in despair, could distinguish the figure of Martha standing upright, and he could hear her voice, and even fancied she was laughing! Was this possible? No, no! Elisha would not believe his ears; and he called to her to be true to him—that he would never love another.

“Martha, Martha, I will always love you,” he cried.

“Save yourself! Do! do! Make haste!” came back the response to his words; and Elisha was slowly turning Dolly round when the crack of a pistol rang through the forest; ’twas followed by a sting in his breast; and while the mare continued her flight Elisha’s life-blood trickled down upon the saddle and left red marks along the road.

But, although desperately wounded, The Flying Scout was not going to be captured, and faithful Dolly, who heard the clatter of hoofs behind her, flew on swifter than ever. It was the firm belief of Elisha’s pursuers that he would turn to the right after leaving Cusser’s lane and take the way to Tuckahoe; for the bridge across the Bronx River, a half a mile on his left, had been destroyed. Although aware of this fact, Elisha nevertheless had the audacity to turn Dolly’s head toward the stream; and down the hill which led to it Dolly plunged, a dozen bullets whizzing by her. Would the Scout venture such a leap? From bank to bank was farther than any horse had ever been known to spring. But blood will tell—Dolly’s grandsire was the Flying Childers—and now like a bird she rose into the air, and, lo! to the amazement of the enemy, Elisha was landed upon the west side of the Bronx.

Here, as they abandoned the chase, let us go back to Martha Van Alstyne.

It is the morrow morning, and we find her once more under her father’s roof, making ready to repair with Harry Valentine to St. Paul’s Church; for she has promised to become his bride, and she cannot break her word. Yet at this the eleventh hour Elisha holds the first place in Martha’s heart; she openly rejoices to hear that he escaped, and even twits her affianced husband for not having been able to catch Dolly Dumplings, whereupon Harry good-naturedly admits that not another steed in America could have cleared the Bronx at one leap.

“’Twouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Martha said to herself, as they were about to set out for the village, “if Elisha dashed up to the very church-door and carried me off a second time. But then,” she added after a moment’s reflection, “it is not likely to happen; no, I must banish him from my heart as soon as possible and love Harry alone.” Here she threw her eyes upon her betrothed and in all the lovely autumn landscape nothing was more lovely than those two faces as they met.

But although Martha was struggling hard to conquer her greater love for Elisha, ’twas a difficult battle she was waging with herself.

There are embers which will live and glow despite the ashes we heap over them; so even now, while her eyes were searching into Harry’s eyes, while her smile was answering his smile, Martha’s countenance fell anew and she recoiled from him. ’Twas at this very moment Popgun’s voice cried out:

“Dolly Dumplings’s in sight!”

This startling announcement was more than Martha could bear without the deepest emotion. Quick she looked up the road; the astonished Uncle Pete and all the others did the same, while the girl stretched forth her hands to welcome the one who was approaching. Her heart was in her throat; every limb of her body quivered. On, on galloped the mare.

In less than two minutes Dolly dashed into the midst of the party gathered in front of the Old Stone Jug. And what a spectacle did she present! She had no rider, and the red marks which stained the empty saddle were blood-marks! Oh! surely they were. The wild look, too, and the fierce neigh of poor Dolly told plainly enough that something horrible had occurred.

It took Martha but an instant to decide what to do, and, breaking loose from Harry and her father, who were vainly striving to calm her, she sprang upon the saddle; then, turning to Harry Valentine with an expression pen cannot describe, “Marry you!” she cried. “No, not for the kingdom of England!” And away she galloped.

In a remote corner of the graveyard at East Chester is a tombstone with the following inscription carved upon it: “Here lie the remains of Martha Van Alstyne, spinster, who departed this life in the year of grace 1838, aged 81.” These few words tell the rest of our story. Martha, when she discovered that Elisha Williams had been killed, never married; and although no man knows Elisha’s burial-place, his name is not forgotten, and the bridge which spans the Bronx River at the point where Dolly Dumplings made her wonderful leap is called Williams Bridge.

As late as 1840 the ruins of the Old Stone Jug were visible on what is now known as Schieffelin’s Lane; Rattlesnake Brook still flows on, but the rattlesnakes have long disappeared; and here and there stands an aged tree beneath whose shade Martha and Harry and Elisha used to play together in the days when George III. was king.

BROTHER AND SISTER.

Happy those turtle-doves that went, my Queen, With you to the temple—tho’ to death they went. Could they have known, they had been full content To give their little lives. And well I ween Your pitying hand caressed them; and, between The turns you took with Joseph (favored saint!) At carrying Jesus, you would soothe their plaint, And hold to your heart their bosoms’ silver sheen. But cherish more my sister-dove and me: Carry _within_ your heart, and all the way, Our souls to the true Temple. Offered so, They cannot perish—no, nor parted be: For He whom you presented on this day Whom you present His own must ever know.

FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION, 1876.

CHRISTIANITY AS AN HISTORICAL RELIGION.

II.

To know the true genius of Christianity is the same thing as to know the true destiny of man, and the actual order of Providence by which he is conducted to its fulfilment, through the state of his earthly probation. The true destiny of man is supernatural; his end is beyond the earth and the present life, which is the place and period of origin and transit only, where he has his point of departure, his impulse of direction, the beginning of the movement which is to draw a line of endless length on the absolute duration and absolute space of eternity and infinity. The actual order of Providence, within the infinitesimal limits of time and extension which bound man’s earthly existence, is exclusively determined, as to its ultimate end, to this eternal and infinite sphere of being, where man shares with God, according to the mode and measure which is possible to his finite nature, the “total, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life.” This is precisely what is meant by eternal salvation, final beatitude, union with God, and all other terms of similar import. Any temporal good, in comparison with this, is trivial. It cannot be an ultimate object of God’s providence, and ought not to be regarded as an end by a rational man. These are the suppositions, the _præcognita_, from which all Christian philosophy must take its initial movement. Dr. Fisher enunciates, therefore, one of the axioms of Christianity when he says that in the design of the divine religion given by God to mankind, “the good offered is not science,” or, as is evidently implied, any other temporal good, “but salvation.” The original right to this salvation and to the means of attaining it having been forfeited in the fall and restored only through Christ, “the final cause of revelation is the recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true religion.” As a consequence from this, “whatever knowledge is communicated”—and, equally, whatever other good is communicated for human perfection in this present state—“is tributary to this end” (p. 3). The whole of human history before the Christian epoch, in general, and specifically the whole inspired history of patriarchal and Judæan religion, being a record of events looking towards the coming of the Son of God to the earth, the learned professor proceeds logically in making the statements which follow:

“Christianity is the perfect form of religion. In other words, it is the absolute religion, ... the culminating point in the progress of revelation, fulfilling, or filling out to perfection, that which preceded.... In Jesus religion is actually realized in its perfection.... In Christ the revelation of God to and through man reaches its climax.... In Christianity the fundamental relations of God to the world are completely disclosed.... Through Christ the kingdom of God actually attains its universal character.”[166]

Many passages scattered throughout the entire work of Dr. Fisher repeat, confirm, or amplify these general statements of his fundamental conception of Christianity. Thus, he says that it “proposed the unification of mankind through a spiritual bond” (p. 42); that it brings God near “to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers merely, but of the humble and ignorant” (p. 189); that it “made human brotherhood a reality” (p. 190). “From his first public appearance Jesus represented himself as the founder and head of a kingdom” (p. 443), and this kingdom “was to be bound together by a moral and spiritual bond of union” (p. 444). Moreover, “his kingdom was to act upon the world, and to bring the world under its sway” (p. 456); it was to “leaven human society with its spirit, until the whole world should be created anew by its agency”; “a world-conquering and world-purifying influence,” destined “for the accomplishment of a revolution, the grandest which it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive—it being nothing less than the moral regeneration of mankind” (_ibid._)

The idea which lies at the foundation of all these statements is nothing else than that which St. Ignatius has made the basis of his _Spiritual Exercises_, and which is fully developed in the meditations on fundamental Christian principles which are placed at the beginning of the series for a retreat in books like the _Raccolta_ of Father Ciccolini. On these principles is founded the whole system of instructions given to ecclesiastics and religious during their retreats, by which they are formed for the sacerdotal or religious life or renovated in the spirit of their state. The very same form the basis of the sermons preached at the beginning of missions given to the faithful in churches, “On the End of Man,” “On the Value of the Soul,” “On the Necessity of Salvation.” That man is the only being on the earth who is an end in himself, and that all other creatures, together with all arrangements of divine Providence respecting this world, are for him; that the chief and ultimate end of man is his eternal salvation, and that everything else is intended as a means for attaining this end; is the doctrine inculcated and preached in all Catholic spiritual books and in all sermons, in all theological treatises, and expositions of Catholic philosophy which profess to explain the fundamental relations of the natural to the supernatural order. Any other idea of Christianity than this is unworthy of its Author. It is a very low and childish view which represents the perfection of humanity in respect to the political, social, and intellectual spheres of the earthly and temporal order as the direct object of the mission and work of Christ in the world. _Præterit figura hujus mundi._ That which is transitory cannot be an ultimate end.

There is nothing permanent and having an eternal value on the earth except the spiritual perfection of the human soul and whatever appertains to it or is inseparably connected with it. The regeneration and perfection of men in the spiritual and divine life is necessarily the only direct and primary object of the theandric work of Christ as the mediator between God and mankind. His kingdom is in the soul, his reign and conquests are in the spiritual realm. St. Augustine explains that difficult statement of St. Paul, that the Son will finally deliver up his kingdom to the Father, by means of this Scriptural conception of the nature of his kingdom. This kingdom is the multitude of the saved, the complete number of the elect, in whose glorification the special work of the Son as creator and redeemer reaches its consummation and attains its final end. The kingdom is delivered up when these souls, in whom the reign of Christ is perfectly and for ever established by grace and divine love, are united with the divine essence in the beatific vision. The initial and temporal conditions of the eternal kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, disappear, of course, in the fulfilment; as his human childhood, life, death, and resurrection were transient states or events, as the whole of human history is transient. In its initial state the kingdom of heaven on the earth is a preparation for its perfect state, which it contains in germ and principle, and with which it must necessarily have a similitude of nature. It is therefore only a truism to say that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual and its bond of unity spiritual. We may even say that the whole universe is a spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual. Physical beings, in the ontological order are metaphysical, and in the order of cognition are logical. All the transcendental predicates, which really express only phases of the same idea; being, unity, truth, and good; are, in an analogous sense, predicable of God and of everything which has or is capable of having existence. God is a spirit, and the ideal of all beings is in his intelligence. The [Greek: Logos] [Greek: endiathetos], in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and the [Greek: Logos] [Greek: prophorichos], uttering the creative word whose effect is in time, whose intelligible expression is in all creatures, are one—the Word of God. There are material substances and forces, but their origin is spiritual; their essence and existence are the expression of thought; the space in which they move has its foundation in the essence of God; they are an adjunct of the spiritual world, and are subordinated to it with a view to the same end. There are temporal and contingent things, but their duration has a fixed relation to the absolute duration of God, and to his eternal, immutable decree and foreknowledge. Though some things are trivial and worthless by comparison with others, and every being is infinitely less than God, yet nothing is absolutely trivial or worthless, and every finite thing has infinite relations. Bodies are infinitely inferior to spirits, yet they are infinitely superior to nothing, and not only the grand bodies which express in magnitude and number an image of the immensity of God, but grains of sand and the minutest molecules, are terms of divine Omnipotence, and their being presupposes and imitates the being of God. God formed the body of the first man out of the dust of the earth before he breathed into him the living soul, and he will awaken all human bodies to an everlasting life from the dust of the universal tomb of humanity. The Word assumed not only a rational but also a corporeal nature into hypostatic union with the divinity in his own person, and arose bodily from the sepulchre to glorify matter as well as spirit, and make it a gem eternally lustrous and sparkling with divine splendor. God came to this small solar system, a mere point in the milky way, to this minute planet, to the insignificant country of Judæa, to the little village of Bethlehem, to the narrow cave of the Nativity, to the humble cottage of Joseph and Mary, and was born and brought up the son of a humble maiden under the guardianship of an obscure artisan. The future and eternal kingdom of heaven with all its splendor, which was only made that it may serve as a reflection of the glory of the Incarnate Word, has its origin from these mere points in time and space. Things which, isolated and in their mere physical quantity, are almost nothing receive an infinite value through their relations. Nude first matter, apart from form, is, as St. Augustine says, “_fere nihil_—a being not-being.” Yet it seems to be rigorously demonstrated that the active force of every material element is capable of attracting or repelling other elements in an infinite sphere of space around its centre. The visible universe, considered as having a mere isolated existence and motion in space and time, is not much, compared with even one finite spirit—is _fere nihil_. The intellectual creation, considered as isolated within the bounds of nature, finite, actually existing only in one indivisible now of time, which by its gliding from a beginning point on an endless line never actually draws more than a line of finite duration, compared with the infinite possibility is not much more. All creation, even supposing that God continued to extend and multiply it for ever, could never become anything which would not be infinitely less than absolute space and duration. On the lower surface of things which faces the nothingness out of which they came they participate in not-being and resemble nothingness. In their negation and privation, they _are not_. On their upper surface which faces the being above them they participate with all being, even the highest. That which is lower touches by its highest point that which is lowest in the higher, and so from the bottom to the top. The physical universe has a sufficient reason of being in the intellectual universe, the intellectual in the spiritual, and the spiritual at its apex touches God by the union of the highest nature—the created nature of the Word, with the uncreated, divine essence. The universe, notwithstanding its intrinsically finite and contingent being, receives thus a mode and order of relation to the infinite and eternal being, giving it a species of divinization which extends to its least and lowest parts. Therefore we say that the whole universe is a spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual.

This world is a garden of God, set apart for the planting and growth of human souls. The garden of Eden, which God planted and beautified as the residence of the first parents of the human race, is a type of the ideal earth as it was conceived in the mind of God. The redemption, in its ideal form, is a work for the restoration of paradise on earth, under a modified condition suited to the fallen state of man, and in its actual results is an approximation to this idea. The growth of human souls in the regenerated and spiritual life is its end, and the only thing of absolute importance in the sight of God. The Creator himself came on the earth in human form expressly for the sake of fulfilling this divine intention of bringing souls to the completion of their growth in a perfect likeness to himself. It is needless to quote his own distinct and solemn affirmation of the value of the soul, and the worthlessness of the whole world beside, in comparison with its highest spiritual good. His great work in humanity may therefore be fitly summed up in the terse and succinct formula of “moral regeneration,” provided that these terms are so defined as to give them an adequate extension and comprehension. The whole plan of God in creating the universe, and elevating it through the microcosmical being man by the Incarnation, must be kept in view; and the nature of the regeneration to be effected must be so understood as to justify the necessity of the stupendous and multiplied means employed by the divine wisdom in bringing it to actual accomplishment. The universe, and this little epitome of creation which is man’s world, as well, is complex and composed of heterogeneous parts. The problem of man’s destiny and of the end proposed in the plan of the divine creator and redeemer of human nature is, therefore, necessarily complex. If it is expressed in a ratio of simple terms, these terms must be virtually equivalent to a great number and a great variety, corresponding to the complex reality which they denote and signify. A simplification of our ideas which is not the result of a combination of all the elements that ought to enter into composition, but is produced by the suppression of some, is a work of destructive and not of constructive philosophy. If we interpret, therefore, that spiritual doctrine which we have laid down in the beginning of this argument too literally and exclusively, we make a misinterpretation of the sense of Holy Scripture and of the writings of the saints, and manufacture for ourselves a false and absurd doctrine.

A philosophy which aims to give the spirit a complete riddance of matter, and of the whole world beside spiritual existence in its purest and most immediate relation to God, may arrogate the name of spiritual philosophy, but it is a counterfeit spiritualism. If God desired that we should get rid of matter, and had no other aim except to produce purely spiritual being in his own likeness and in participation with his own pure essence, he would never have created anything except spirit, and he would have made it at once in that state of perfection which he willed it to possess. If this perfection were limited to the order of pure nature, nothing more was requisite than to create a multitude of intellectual beings naturally endowed with the intelligence and felicity conformed to their essence. If they were to be elevated to supernatural perfection in the beatific vision of God, one act of divine power and love would suffice to place them at the first instant of their creation in the term of being, the ultimate perfection, the everlasting felicity in the possession of the sovereign good, to which they were destined. There is no necessity for probation, gradual progress, or any sort of conditions precedent, in order that created spirits may be made perfect in cognition and volition, either natural or supernatural, in any finite degree and grade of existence and beatitude which God may choose in his pure goodness to communicate. Still less is there any reason, on the hypothesis of such an end in creation as we suppose, for the existence of matter and corporeal beings. Matter and body cannot help purely intellectual beings to attain their proper intelligible object. The light of glory, and the direct illumination which gives the spirit an immediate intuitive vision of the divine essence, cannot be conjoined with any material, corporeal medium or organ. Why, then, did not God create angels only, and, if he desired to elevate creation to the hypostatic union with himself, assume the angelic nature? The only possible answer to this question is derived from the manifestation which God has made, through his works and through his word, that his plan of creation included something besides the natural and supernatural communication of glory and beatitude to created spirits. It was his will to create the corporeal, visible universe in connection and harmony with the invisible and spiritual world. It was his will to place man in the middle-point of all creation, and to give him a complex essence composed of rationality and animality, that he might unite in his substantial being the highest with the lowest—_ima summis_. Moreover, the creating Word assumed this nature as microcosmical, that in humanity he might elevate the entire universe and bring it in his own person to its acme.

Even this might have been accomplished instantaneously, without probation, without the long procession of second causes, without the efforts and the pain which the struggle toward the ultimate end has cost the creature, and to which the Incarnate Word subjected himself when he became _obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis_.

Why the long process from the chaos at the beginning toward the consummation of the end which has not yet been attained? The only answer to this question which can possibly be given is that God chose to make the creature concur to its own glorification by the way of merit, and to bring the utmost possible effect out of created causality. This is the reason for the probation of the angels and of man; for the full scope given to free-will, notwithstanding the incidental evil which through this avenue has rushed in upon the fair creation of God; and for the choice of the most difficult and painful way of redemption and restoration through ineffable labors and sufferings.

The regeneration of humanity must, therefore, take its character from the supernatural destiny of man, his complex nature, and the relations in which it places him to the complex plan of God which takes in all the parts of the universe, from the lowest to the highest, and gives the utmost possible play to the action of created causality. Its chief end is to prepare human souls, through the grace and fellowship of Christ, to share with the other sons of God, the holy angels, in the glory and beatitude of the Incarnate Word in the kingdom of heaven. Included in this end of beatification in God, which is essentially the same for all spiritual beings who attain it, are the distinctive grades of glory, gained through grace and personal merit, in an ascending scale from the souls of infants to the soul of Jesus Christ, by which the celestial firmament is decorated. This beatitude in the vision of God certainly does not exclude the secondary and natural beatitude arising from the knowledge and enjoyment of the creatures of God, and this must therefore be a secondary and subordinate end in the divine plan. Intellectual cognition and volition are not organic acts of human nature; and, therefore, if we believe in the bodily resurrection of our Lord and of the saints to a glorified corporeal life, we must admit the existence in the divine plan of some subordinate end, in view of which man was created as a composite being, and in view of which, also, the Word assumed the composite human nature, which is complete only by the union of the spiritual and material substances. The glorified body no doubt receives a reflected lustre from the glorification of the soul. But its glorified senses cannot be the organs of anything more than an elevated and sublimated sensitive cognition and enjoyment. The term of their action is the physical, visible creation to which human nature partially belongs; and therefore the final end of man is partially identified with the final cause for which the vast and everlasting visible universe was created. The Incarnate Word touches this visible, material realm of his creation by the bodily part of his human nature. The what and the wherefore of this almost infinite realm of nature we do not pretend to understand. It is certainly not a mere _jeu d’esprit_ of Omnipotence, a causeless or transitory spectacle to excite the babyish wonder of the human race not yet out of its nursery. It belongs to the great sphere of the divine plan, a segment of one of whose great circles is human history on this earthly planet. As we cannot demonstrate the problem of this sphere and its great circles, we cannot completely solve the problem of man’s destiny on the earth. It is an enigma, a mystery. And, above all, the question _Cur Deus Homo_? the what and the wherefore of the Incarnation, is an enigma, a mystery for human reason, only obscurely manifested to faith. Christ in history, universal history as having its _mot d’enigme_ in Christ, must consequently present to the believing and enlightened mind of the Christian student an object of investigation and thought which he cannot hope to understand and know adequately, much less to comprehend. Whatever we can know must be learned by the manifestation which God makes of his wise intentions through his word and his works, the instruction which he deigns to give us by experience, reason, and divine faith.

For what is man being educated on the earth, and what did his Creator intend to bring him to when he came down in person, after a long series of precursors had prepared the way before him, to teach and to do that which could be entrusted to no mere creature, whether man or angel? The manifestation of Christ in the history of mankind on the earth will make known the answer to this question to all intelligent beings when this history is completed. But this will be only at the day of universal resurrection and final judgment. Until that day arrives there can only be a gradual and incomplete disclosure and justification of the ways of God to men, which are unsearchable and past finding out by human wisdom. The Eternal Word, who created all things, and directed all nations on the earth by his providence before he assumed human nature and died on the cross for their salvation, has not ceased, since his Incarnation, to carry on his work, or confined his care to a small number elected out of the mass of mankind. Nature has not been substantially or totally depraved by the fall, or become the property of Satan. The Incarnation is not a mere device and contrivance, to which God was forced to resort because he could not otherwise pardon the elect, and substitute for the eternal punishment which was due to them an eternal reward due to Christ, and transferred to them without any personal merit of congruity or condignity. The plan of God for salvation through Christ is not a mere segregation of a certain number of individuals from the world, that they may devote themselves exclusively to their sanctification by purely interior, spiritual acts—waiting until death shall release their souls from a bodily existence which is a mere degradation, and a world which is utterly accursed and given over to the dominion of the devil. Such ideas are exaggerations and perversions of Christian doctrine. They necessarily provoked a reaction and revolt in the minds and hearts of men whenever they were taught; and there has been, consequently, a perpetual effort, among Protestants who were not willing to abandon Christianity altogether, to find some kind of rational religion which can plausibly assume to be the pure, original Christianity of Christ. But by eliminating or altering and diminishing the mysteries and supernatural elements of Christianity, they change its nature and reduce it to something so ordinary and commonplace that its divinity is lost. The ideal Christianity becomes a sort of peaceable, orderly, moral, well-educated society, in which as nearly as possible all men enjoy the comfortable and respectable mode of life belonging to the gentry of England, and the poorest class are as well off as the ordinary inhabitants of a pleasant, old-fashioned New England village. That there is something attractive about this picture we will not deny. But we cannot think that the production of a state of merely natural well-being in society, of commonplace human happiness, even supposing it founded upon religion, sanctified by piety, and tending toward a more perfect happiness in the future life, was the real, ultimate end which our Lord had in view when he founded the church. The old idea of a millennium which used to prevail among the Puritans of New England had something in it very beautiful; but it was only a beautiful dream, never destined to be realized in this world. The philosophical dream of a golden age, to be attained by progress in science, civilization, political and social reform, is still more futile. The doleful and terrible wail of the pessimist philosophers and poets of Germany, which begins to find an echo over all the civilized world, would be the outcry of a despair justified by the whole history of mankind, were it not for the light which faith casts across the gloom, and the solution of the dark enigma of life which is given by the cross on which Jesus died, exclaiming, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The drama of human history is grand and terrible and tragic. It has scenes and episodes which have a character of quiet, delightful, and joyous comedy, but it is a tragedy; it has been so from the first, and will be the same to the end. The Son of God came on the earth in the very crisis of human history, and his human life was a tragedy, ending in a sublime triumph, but a triumph won by sorrow, conflict, and conquest. All that was tragic in previous history culminated in him, and subsequent history can be nothing else than the last act of the tragedy hastening to the _dénoûment_, and preparing the way for the second coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, with great glory, to achieve his final triumph. The Apocalypse of St. John, in which all things that were to come to pass in the last age of the world passed before his entranced spirit in a series of sublime and awful pictures, shows that this horoscope is true. What for him was a vaticination is for us in great part a retrospect, by which it is historically verified, so far as the scroll of time has unrolled itself, and by which the similar character of that part which is still in prospect is surely foreboded.

Christianity is an historical religion. It is the outcome of all previous history, and its inspired documents alone, in which the genealogy of its founder is traced back to Adam, and the record of the origin of the human race preserved, give us authentic history of the most important facts which underlie all the great events and movements of the world. This history connects the beginning of human destinies with the earlier and higher sphere, where the history of the intelligent creation begins—with those great events, the trial of the angels, the rebellion of Lucifer, and the commencement of the warfare whose seat was transferred to the earth by the successful ruse of the serpent in the temptation of Eve. In the expulsion of our weeping parents from Eden into the outside world, humanity was led by a counter strategic movement upon the new battle-field, where Satan was to be vanquished in fair and open war. All the demons, reinforced by all the traitors and deserters they could gain from among men, were allowed to pit themselves against the sons of God and the holy angels, and against the First-begotten Son himself when he came in the infirmity of human nature, as the captain of salvation, to become perfect through sufferings and to lead his brethren by the same arduous road to glory. Redemption and salvation consist essentially in liberation from the servitude of Satan; victory in the combat against that mass of false maxims, evil principles, and wicked men called the world, those low and vicious propensities called the flesh, and the seducing spirits sent forth by Satan to draw men into his rebellion against God. Human society was organized under the law of redemption, in the family, in the social, and in the political community, in religious communion, in order to reconstruct fallen humanity; to repair the ruin effected by the devil; to oppose a barrier against his further aggressions; to consolidate a perpetual force of resistance and warfare against him; and to be the instrument of the Son of God, the creator and redeemer of mankind, in effecting the final subjugation of the rebellion inaugurated and carried on by Lucifer. The division of nations, the colonization of the earth, the foundation of states, of industry and commerce, of art and science, of culture and civilization, is a divine work. Everything good in humanity is from the Word, the predestined Son of Man. The Book of Wisdom says that it was the delight of the eternal wisdom to be with the sons of men, and the early Fathers dilate on what is expressed in the German word _Menschenfreundlichkeit_, better than in any equivalent English term, as an attribute of the Logos. That admirable sentiment of the Latin poet, _Homo sum, et nihil humani alienum a me puto_, may be most appropriately ascribed to the divine Person who joined the human nature to his uncreated essence in an indissoluble marriage. The devil is the author of nothing on the earth which has real being and life, but only of error and sin with their logical consequences—that is, of intellectual and moral perversion, of ruin, decay, and death. His kingdom is a graveyard and a realm of darkness beneath it. The kingdom of the living is the kingdom of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father through the Son. The power of Satan on the earth is gained by the invasion and treasonable surrender of the cities and fortresses founded by the rightful King of men, and consists in the influence which he usurps in the affairs of men, in the schism and heresy by which he breaks the unity of human brotherhood in Christ. The apostasy, the false religions, the corrupted ethics, the degenerate institutions of the old heathen world were schisms and heresies against the primitive revelation and the patriarchal unity of mankind in one true doctrine, worship, and discipline. The foundation of Judaism was a measure which the Lord adopted to oppose a bulwark against universal apostasy, to preserve the treasure of revelation and grace, and to prepare the way for a more perfect organization of the universal religion. Without abandoning the other nations, he concentrated his special providence upon Israel. And even here the history of his own special kingdom and peculiar people is altogether different from what our human reason and sentiments would expect and wish for, and especially so in reference to the epoch when the Messias appeared. We cannot understand it, unless we recognize the universal law pervading the divine plan, by which almost unlimited play is given to free-will; the conflict of the powers of good and evil permitted to run its course; victory and salvation are achieved by labor, combat, and suffering; the world and humanity are set apart as a battle-field, between the Son of God, with his brethren by adoption among angels and men, on one side, Lucifer, with his army of apostate angels and men, on the other—a battle-field on which the everlasting destinies of the universe are decided for eternity.

After this long and circuitous digression we may direct our attention now on the specific nature of Christianity as an historical religion, and consider what organization Jesus Christ gave redeemed humanity in the universal church, how he embodied the absolute, universal religion, what means he adopted for achieving the work of the moral regeneration and eternal salvation of mankind.

The work undertaken by the Incarnate Word in person is evidently the continuation of that which he began through his ministering angels, his prophets, and his other human agents, and by far the most difficult and important part of the entire plan of God. Passing over his principal theandric work of redemption, we must affirm the same with equal emphasis and certainty of that which is supplementary to it, and by which it is extended to its term. In assuming human nature the Son of God assumed all its temporal and eternal relations; he grasped and drew into himself universal humanity and the whole creation. His first and direct object was the glorification and beatification of human souls in God, but his action toward this end drew into its current and impelled by its energy all things connected with and subordinate to this highest and purely spiritual sphere of his creative wisdom. The action of Christ in history after his resurrection is necessarily more complex, more far-reaching and universal, more manifest and immediate, more obviously dominant and victorious, more evidently bearing on the final and eternal consummation of the divine plan in the universe through the destinies of man and the earth, than it could have been before that glorious and decisive event. Christianity, as an historical religion, must have more comprehension in its actual development than in its inchoate state before Christ. While it remains true that it is characteristic of the pure and perfect religion taught by the mouth of its divine Author to lead men to an interior, spiritual life, to the contemplation and love of God, to a paramount desire and effort for the salvation of the soul, and to bring this way of union with God in loving, spiritual brotherhood among men down to the level of the lowly and the poor in all natural goods, this idea does not require an exclusion of other and different aspects of the same religion. The specific good proposed and placed within reach is salvation, and not science, art, civilization, political order, social well-being, national development, the natural progress of mankind, the production of a brilliant series of great men, extraordinary works and events in the temporal order. The empires and cities, the grand monuments, the intellectual masterpieces, the entire array of results produced by human activity, and all the splendor and felicity of the men who in outward seeming are the most favored and fortunate, are transient; they return to the nothingness from which they came. Nevertheless, they may be made tributary to something higher and more durable, and what is substantial and indestructible in and under these evanescent forms may survive and reappear, like the mortal part of human nature, by a future resurrection. There is no reason, therefore, why Christ, the Incarnate Word, in effecting the regeneration of the human race by means and instruments which are natural and human, yet not purely natural and human, or standing alone in their nude and finite essence, should not take hold of all human things and relations and subject them to his own special service. There is no reason why he should not have secondary and subordinate ends indirectly connected with his one principal and ultimate object. There is no reason why Christianity, though not identified with and merged in human affairs, should not be in intimate relations with them all. In fact, there is every kind of reason to the contrary, and as an historical religion it cannot be regarded in any other light. It must be in continuity with its own past on the same lines. The same constructive principles must pervade religion in all ages. The same law of curvature must be verified in every segment of the circle, and all the diameters must be equal. Unity is essential to universality. The superior courses of stone in the building must correspond to the inferior, and rest upon them and upon the foundation. Christianity as an historical religion must be of equal dimensions and similar structure to the substratum furnished by the pre-Christian universal history, where, so to speak, its sub-cellar, crypts, and basement are covered, and in great measure buried in inexplorable obscurity, beneath the walls of its colossal architecture.

When we consider Christianity as a religion in the precise and restricted sense, and the church as a strictly religious society, we cannot identify the Christian Church and religion so completely with Christianity in the wider sense as to confound the central nucleus with its environment and atmosphere. We must distinguish, accurately and carefully, those things which are really distinct, though not disunited and separate from one another. Religion is well defined by Mr. Baring-Gould as consisting essentially in dogma, worship, and discipline. The church is its organic embodiment. The absolute and universal religion must of course throw off what was proper only to a state of inchoate and imperfect development, and the church must be freed from what was proper only to a partial and national organic constitution. This is a doctrinal certitude with an actual verification in history. It is needless to prove that our Lord never thought of making Christianity a mere extension of Judaism, and of founding a universal kingdom which should be an enlargement, co-extensive with the world, of David’s monarchy, with the institutes of Moses and the religious ceremonial of Solomon’s temple as the model of its civil and ecclesiastical polity and its ritual of worship. It is equally unnecessary to prove that the divine Master thought as little of going back to the more ancient and simple dispensation of patriarchal religion. This would have been a regression instead of a progression; a dwindling and dwarfing of humanity into a second infancy instead of its expansion into adult proportions, similar to the absurd imagination of Nicodemus in respect to the process of regeneration. The absolute, universal religion, by virtue of the law of continuity in growth, must necessarily retain all that which pertained to the essence and properties of religion as such—that is, of religion generically and specifically considered in respect to human nature in a state of probation; a lapsed condition; and in the way of restoration, through the redemption with its law of grace, as revealed by God from the beginning. All pertaining to its integrity and to its accidents, in so far as any such appurtenance is suited to human nature in all ages and nations—giving greater perfection, adaptation to its end, and power in its operation to religion—must also be considered as permanent for a sufficient reason, viz., that its cause and motive are general and persistent, though it may undergo modification and be subject to variation. Natural religion is preserved in revealed religion, the patriarchal in the Mosaic, and all these in the Christian religion. Precisely how much has been preserved, how much modified or altered, and in what way, how much dropped as obsolete in Christianity considered as an historical religion, must be determined historically. We know, however, before we examine the historical documents of Christianity, that, unless God manifests in his actual providence a determination to derogate from constant and general laws by introducing an entirely miraculous dispensation, we shall surely find in historical Christianity certain features absolutely requisite in a human religion. There are such features or characteristics which in their generic ratio are known with certainty, prescinding from any information given by the actual, objective manifestation which Christianity presents in its history. It must be adapted to human nature—that is, it must be a religion suitable to a being who is not a pure spirit, or one united to a body by accidental, extrinsic, and temporary relations, but who is composed of soul and body in his specific and permanent essence. It must be adapted to the conditions in which human nature exists in its earthly stage of progress toward perfection—that is, suitable to men who are in multifarious relations with one another in the family, in society, in the state; relations both amicable and hostile, relations of similarity and of opposition, relations of great complexity and variability. It must be adapted to the character of the divine Person from whom it proceeds; as the Son of God and the Son of Man, united with the Father in one essence by the Holy Spirit; hypostatically united within his proper personality subsisting in two distinct natures, by the same Spirit; sanctified in soul and body by this life-giving Spirit; and by the same Spirit sanctifying, and uniting in himself to the Godhead, redeemed humanity. It must be adapted to the temporal and eternal end for which it is intended—that is, suitable for the instruction, sanctification, unification, temporal and eternal salvation of all mankind, in all nations and ages; for the work of regeneration, individual, social, political, intellectual, moral, and physical, as an absolute, universal, world-conquering power.

In order to meet these requisitions, its spirit and body must be essentially and indissolubly united; it must be organized in a perfect and unequal society of universal extension, sovereign independence, complex and irresistible forces. It must have both divine and human attributes, and be vivified by the divine Spirit. It must be inseparably united with its head and throughout its members, indefectible, immutable, and endowed with the plenitude of graces, gifts, and powers merited by Jesus Christ for mankind and sufficient for the production of the highest degrees of human virtue in the greatest possible variety. It must be supreme, and have all things subordinated to its own end, controlled by its influence, subservient to its purposes as instrumentalities of its dynamical action.

As the absolute world-religion, its dogma, worship, and discipline must vastly transcend the initial revelation, elementary ritual, and propædeutic order of Judaism. There is a kind of foreshadowing of all these features of the kingdom of Christ in universal history, and there are abundant types and prophecies of it in the history and inspired documents of the patriarchal and Judaic dispensations. We need only to confront the idea of Christianity, derived _à priori_ from the consideration of the plan of God manifested in his works and word before the time of Christ, with the actual, historical Christianity, in order to give this idea distinctness, and to add the last complement of certitude to our judgment that it truly represents the reality. Wherever we find existing as a concrete, historical fact that which realizes in the fullest and the highest sense the predictions of the prophets; that which fulfils in the most perfect manner the anticipations of history; that which is the most worthy of the stupendous miracles culminating in the resurrection; that which corresponds in magnitude and grandeur to all the great works of God; that which gives the most sublime significance to the destiny of man; that which magnifies in the most wonderful way the power and love of God and the object of the Incarnation—there we behold, with all the evidence which moral demonstration can furnish, the genuine, absolute religion, manifest before our eyes as historical Christianity. Facts interpret prophecy, confirm and consolidate the conclusions of reason, determine the sense of much that is ambiguous in the disclosures of revelation. The test of history is therefore safe and conclusive in respect to the genuine essence and nature of Christianity.

The application of this test shows that Catholic Christianity, which alone can claim unbroken, unaltered historical continuity and universality from the apostolic age, is the genuine and absolute religion of Christ. Any other species is unknown to history as an historical religion. The Catholic faith, worship, and discipline manifest themselves in the church of apostolic succession at the earliest period in which this church is clearly and distinctly visible through the medium of historical testimony. There is no resource for those who call in question the identity of Nicene Christianity with the apostolic religion, except in the obscurity of the century immediately following the death of St. John, and in the indistinct, incomplete, and, as considered separately from the traditional supplement and commentary, partly ambiguous records, allusions, and testimonies, in respect to some parts of Christian doctrine, worship, and discipline, of the New Testament. The nobler class of modern Protestant writers admit in a general sense the historical continuity of the essence of Christianity in the Catholic Church, placing their own restrictions on the definition of that which is essential as distinguished from the non-essential, as well as from abnormal modifications. Those who are not of the semi-Catholic school are obliged to seek for some tenable ground on which to maintain their claim of fellowship in essentials with the universal church, in a theory of transition from apostolical to ecclesiastical Christianity during the period lying between the close of the first and the end of the second centuries. The hinge of the question is the institution of the episcopate, as a distinct and superior grade of the Christian presbyterate, with hierarchical authority. We do not propose to discuss the proofs from Scripture and the most ancient historical records of the apostolic institution of the episcopate, and of what is called the apostolic succession of bishops, as a principal and immutable part of organic Christianity. This controversy has been exhausted by the able writers of the high-church school. Professor Fisher presents but little in addition to what has been urged by the advocates of parity, and fully answered in several works easily accessible to English readers, though his manner of presenting his case is such as to make the most of it, and shows both critical ability and a candid spirit. A rejoinder ought to be minute and critical like the argument itself. As we have not at present time and space for this, we prefer to pass it over altogether. Our line of argument leads us to consider some deeper and more universal and at the same time more obvious and easily apprehended principles of bringing the Catholic and Protestant theories of Christianity to an historical issue.

The essential nature of Christianity as represented by one of these theories is specifically different from what it is as represented by the other. According to the latter theory, the essence of the Christian religion is something exclusively spiritual and individual. The exterior organization is not in vital and substantial unity with it, but is an habiliment, an extrinsic instrument, a vehicle, or a separate medium. One who considers that faith, the way of salvation, spiritual union with God in Christ, are in a separate and independent sphere, very naturally and logically considers that questions of ecclesiastical organization and government are of inferior moment; that symbols of doctrine, forms of worship, and modes of discipline are not matters of perpetual and universal obligation as founded on divine right and law. Such a question as that of episcopacy must, therefore, appear to him as among the non-essentials; and even supposing that he admits the certainty or probability that it is the apostolic form, he will see no reason why it should be necessary to the being of the church, or even to its well-being, or why Christians should be divided in fellowship on account of matters merely belonging to exterior order and indifferent forms.

According to the former theory, the spiritual and corporeal parts, religion and the church, are after the model of human nature and the Incarnation, in vital, essential, and perpetual unity. The church is the way of salvation, the body of Christ vivified by his Spirit, the medium of union with God. Christianity is a sacramental religion. The episcopal order has been established and consecrated by Jesus Christ to possess and transmit the plenitude of sacerdotal grace and power received from him as a gift; to preserve and transmit the faith, sacramental grace, the pure oblation of Christian worship, the discipline of the New Law in Catholic unity.

A Christianity of the first species, loosely organized in an imperfect society, could never have been transmuted into the second species. The specific Catholic Christianity, hierarchical, dogmatic, sacramental, liturgical, is the historical Christianity of the period of the first six œcumenical councils, and appears at the Council of Nice, in the person of the great Athanasius, in all parts of the earth, in all the saints and doctors, in all writings and all monuments, pointing backward to the past, the era of martyrdom, the period of foundation and of apostolic labor, as the origin and source of its doctrine, discipline, and worship. A transmutation of species in Christianity like that which the Protestant theory supposes is rationally impossible. There is the additional impossibility to be taken into account of such a great and universal change having occurred without leaving its records and traces in history. Christianity is an historical religion, and the historical Christianity is identical with Catholicity. It is the absolute and universal religion which has manifested itself as a work which only divine power could have produced, in the history of the past; in present history it is showing before our eyes its supernatural and divine character; and the fulfilment of its end in the final consummation and triumph of the kingdom of Christ will finish the last chapter of the Revelation of Christ in History.

“THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR THEM IN THE INN.”

Foot-sore and weary, Mary tried Some rest to seek, but was denied. “There is no room,” the blind ones cried.

Meekly the Virgin turned away, No voice entreating her to stay; There was no room for God that day.

No room for her round whose tired feet Angels are bowed in transport sweet, The Mother of their God to greet.

No room for Him in whose small hand The troubled sea and mighty land Lie cradled like a grain of sand.

No room, O Babe divine! for thee That Christmas night; and even we Dare shut our hearts and turn the key.

In vain thy pleading baby cry Strikes our deaf souls; we pass thee by, Unsheltered ‘neath the wintry sky.

No room for God! O Christ! that we Should bar our doors, nor ever see Our Saviour waiting patiently.

Fling wide the doors! Dear Christ, turn back! The ashes on my hearth lie black— Of light and warmth a total lack.

How can I bid thee enter here Amid the desolation drear Of lukewarm love and craven fear?

What bleaker shelter can there be Than my cold heart’s tepidity— Chill, wind-tossed, as the winter sea?

Dear Lord, I shrink from thy pure eye, No home to offer thee have I; Yet in thy mercy pass not by.

THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE.

_A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.”_

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN,” “THE ROMANCE OF A PORTMANTEAU,” ETC., ETC.