CHAPTER III.

“Moida! Moida! you were right; you knew him better than I did: Conrad Seinsheim has already proposed,” were Walburga’s first words as she entered her home in Fingergasse, where her friend was awaiting her to go out for a walk.

“Oh! good, good. How delighted I am! You’ll soon be back in your old castle,” cried the joyous Moida, springing up from her seat by the window and dancing round the room.

“Alas! I scarcely dare yet to give full rein to hope,” added Walburga, shaking her head.

“What is that? I didn’t understand you!” said the other, abruptly pausing in her merry skips. “Of course you said yes to him? Of course you did?”

“I said neither yes nor no; he is to return in three days for an answer.”

“O you naughty, puzzling creature! Why didn’t you tell the poor fellow yes on the spot, as I did to my darling Ulrich?”

“Why?” said Walburga, looking pensively at her; then, after hesitating a moment: “Well, Moida, it was because I have thus far adroitly, but perhaps foolishly, concealed something from him; you know what I mean. And, like a coward, when the crisis arrived, when he asked for my hand, I still put off the revelation for a brief space.”

“Well, Mr. Seinsheim will be a fool, a big fool, if he doesn’t marry you; that’s all I can say,” replied Moida, tenderly twining her arms about her friend’s neck. “And, what’s more, if I didn’t think we were all of us going to live near one another at Loewenstein, I’d hate him for trying to take you away from me.”

“Well, you and I have certainly been very happy together, have we not, Moida?”

“Oh! very, very, very; and you should have kept your pretty nightingale, so as to have brought him with us to Tyrol.”

“Perhaps I ought,” answered Walburga, her countenance now clearing up; for hope, sweet hope, was just at this moment flashing its rays into her bosom and inspiring her to believe that Conrad would surely accept her, accept her exactly as she was, and, like a brave, good husband, bear upon his own shoulders as much of her cross as he was able.

A few minutes later the two friends were passing through the park on their way to Foering. This place is simply a beer-garden—one of the many within an hour’s walk of Munich. Here on the warmest summer day the air is cool, for the spot is high and commanding, and, moreover, well shaded by elm-trees. But better than breeze or shade is the beer—beer such as one can taste only in Southern Bavaria. In the middle of the garden is a platform elevated a few inches above the ground, where those who are fond of dancing may trip it merrily to the music of a fiddle, harp, and flute, dropping now and again a copper into the tin plate which one of the minstrels passes through the crowd.

When Moida and Walburga arrived Foering was well-nigh deserted, and they had no difficulty in being helped at once to whatever they wanted, for the good-natured waiter-girl had only them to wait on. But ere long other people began to come. First appeared a husband and wife, the former carrying the baby—the best of all babies, of course—and so bound up in swaddling-clothes that the little thing could do naught except wink. Then followed a soldier hand-in-hand with a buxom lass, with nature’s own rouge glowing on her cheeks; and hand-in-hand these two sat down, and hand-in-hand they quenched their thirst out of the same mug, the beverage tasting all the more like nectar for this sweet communion of lips.

Presently a pursy gentleman waddled into the garden, his respiration so laborious that you could hear him from afar, and dropped heavily down upon the same bench where Moida and Walburga were seated. To judge by his appearance you would have declared there was not a spark of sentiment in his whole composition; he looked to be a sheer mass of beer-drenched humanity. Yet this was wide, wide of the truth. Herr Wurst was organist of the cathedral, was passionately fond of poetry, and knew by heart every song of the Minnesingers. In short, he was a Bavarian every inch of him, and never was so much soul hidden in a sausage.

And thus on, on the people came, all jovial, all orderly, and to look at them you might have fancied they had not a care or trouble in the world. Then by and by the music commenced. ’Twas a waltz from Strauss, and the corpulent organist, who knew our young friends—for they both sang in his choir—danced thrice round the platform with each; and the baby in swaddling-clothes lay upon the bench like a little Stoic while its daddy and mammy whirled round too; and the buxom lass and the soldier likewise danced—danced so hard, threw such life into their motions, that when at length they paused to give their hearts a rest you might have thought they had been out in a shower of rain.

“How often dear Ulrich and I have enjoyed ourselves here!” spoke Moida, when she and Walburga were once more seated over their beer-mugs. “I do believe we once danced a whole hour without stopping. And oh! how sweet it was to coo and whisper our love to each other while we flew round. Why, I don’t think I knew what life was till I became his betrothed.”

“Well, I hope you each had a glass of your own to sip the beer from,” remarked Walburga, smiling.

“No indeed; we went halves in everything. And now—just think—we are soon going to be married! And you too. O Walburga! Walburga!”

The latter, who was still under the radiant influence of hope, and who seemed to feel anew the warm touch of Conrad’s lips, cried: “Yes, yes, my future is bright, and I will prove by my devotion to him how grateful I am; and there’ll be no happier husband than Conrad Seinsheim!”

Presently, however, her countenance fell, and in a low, grave tone she added: “But suppose all this were not to happen? Everything must remain in doubt and uncertainty till I meet him again, you know.”

“Oh! but he is so full of good sense, so unlike the rest of the world, that you may dispel all doubt. Conrad is sure to take you—sure,” answered Moida.

Cheered by these words, Walburga, who was not blest with the same even temperament as her friend, and who too easily flew from one extreme to the other, became once more blithe and cheerful, and she proceeded to speak of Conrad in a strain which their brief acquaintance hardly justified. But love engenders love; and excited by the thought that she was loved by him (Walburga had never had a lover before), a tender, responsive passion now inspired her tongue, and during the rest of the afternoon even Moida’s high spirits did not soar higher than her own.

“And now,” said Walburga, when the sun was verging near the horizon—“now let us seek the grove into which my dear nightingale flew; I long to hear him singing his song in liberty.”

“And making love to some other pretty bird,” returned Moida, as she rose from the table.

Accordingly, they wended their way back to the park; and in about half an hour Walburga came to a halt and said: “Here is the spot; just among these bushes he disappeared.” Then, after listening a moment, she added: “And that is his voice. Hark!”

“May it not be another nightingale?” observed Moida.

“Well, let us approach softly and try to get a peep at the one that is now singing; if ’tis mine I’ll know him by a bit of blue ribbon I tied about his neck.”

Presently they caught a glimpse of the little songster amid the green leaves, and, by the ribbon he wore, ’twas undoubtedly Walburga’s pet.

“Oh! how glad I am I set him free,” spoke the latter in an undertone, as if she feared to disturb his roundelay. Then, pointing towards a neighboring bush: “And look! look! Yonder is his mate.”

Walburga had scarcely breathed these words when the other bird took wing and perched itself close beside hers. And now the song waxed softer and more melodious, and a tear glistened in her eye as she gazed upon this happy scene of love-making.

Presently a rushing, swooping sound was heard; ’twas like a blast of wild wind, and the girl gave a start. Moida was startled, too, and wondered what it was. But before either of them could utter a cry or hasten one step to the rescue, a hawk had pounced upon Walburga’s sweet warbler and carried him away.

* * * * *

The next three days were anxious ones for Conrad and Walburga. The former endeavored to beguile his thoughts by watching the work which was going on at the castle, and spent as much time as possible beside Ulrich, under whose skilful hand the pristine beauty of the interior of the tower was fast returning.

Whenever the youth spoke of Moida, Conrad’s face would light up, and he would exclaim: “Yes, yes, a happy day is coming for her and you and all of us.” Yet down deep in his heart he felt a strange misgiving. He remembered the pensive look which more than once had shadowed Walburga’s countenance whilst they were conversing together; nor did Conrad forget the tear—the tear he had been so tempted to kiss away. “And there was a shyness, too, about her which I cannot understand,” he said to himself. “She seemed afraid to look at me. And when finally I proposed, instead of answering yes or no she put me off for three long days.”

Conrad’s own temperament, as Moida Hofer had discerned, was not unlike Walburga’s; and now the thought of waiting this space of time was very trying to him. At one moment he was full of hope; at another he was certain that he would be rejected, and then he was plunged in despair.

Yet, singular to relate, when at length the dawn of the third day did arrive, Conrad was seized with a mysterious impulse not to leave Loewenstein; and Ulrich, to whom he had opened his heart and confided all his thoughts, was unable to comfort him and give him courage to shake off the gloom which had come over his spirits.

“I had a dream last night,” spoke Conrad—“a dream that has wrought on me a most vivid, painful impression. I believe I shall never get over it—never!”

“Pray, what was the dream?” inquired Ulrich.

“I thought I was standing on the brink of a river, whose dark waters as they rolled by me gave forth a moaning, melancholy sound; and ever and anon along the surface of the flood there passed a human head; and every face of the many, of the thousands, I saw float by wore traces of pain and woe, while some were stamped with a sorrow perfectly indescribable. And, oh! one of these faces”—here Conrad shuddered—“was the face of Walburga. And she watched me and watched me until she disappeared in the distance with a mournfulness no human tongue can express. Then when she was gone I heard a voice cry out: ‘This stream hath its fountain in the heart of poor humanity; and these waters are all the tears which have been shed since Paradise was lost.’”

“What a curious dream!” said Ulrich. “But I beg you to forget it. ’Tis only a dream.”

Walburga, too, was impatient and anxious for the time to fly by. And now while she sat at her easel waiting for Conrad to appear—’twas the morning of the day she had named—her heart fluttered at every footstep that approached. Her countenance was paler than usual, and on it were marks of grief. Nor ought we to smile at the girl for feeling so acutely the death of her nightingale; it was such a cruel death, and she had loved the bird so much. Indeed, it was her very love for it that had prompted her to set it free. Only for this her pet would still have been warbling in its cage; now nothing remained of it save a few scattered feathers.

“Alas! will my heart, perhaps, be torn like his?” she sighed, as she waited and listened.

But hour after hour went by, and still Conrad did not come; nor did he show himself at all this day, nor the following day either.

And then Walburga murmured to herself: “Ah! I might have known it would be so. He has been told by somebody else what I should have let his own eyes discover. Now I shall see him no more.”

The evening of the sixth day, after having waited for him at the Pinakothek, but, as before, in vain, the poor girl went her way home, where she might bow her head on Moida’s breast and silently lament. But lo! on reaching her humble abode her friend was not to be found—Moida was gone! On the pin-cushion was found a slip of paper, whereon was written: “Stay calm, dear Walburga, and trust in me; I’ll be back to-morrow.” Moida did not reveal that she was gone to Loewenstein to learn what had become of Conrad Seinsheim.

* * * * *

As changeable in spirits as the one whom he so passionately loved, Conrad arrived in Munich, his heart ravished with joy at the prospect before him; for Moida had assured him beyond the shadow of a doubt that ere the clock struck noon Walburga would be his affianced bride.

“She has been expecting you day after day,” said Moida; “and I can hardly forgive you for putting her patience to such a trial.”

The day was anything but pleasant; the rain poured down like a deluge, and the streets were gloomy and deserted. But when there is blue sky in our heart all the clouds in the heavens cannot shut it out; and so Conrad did not heed the tempest in the least. At length he reached the Pinakothek; and when Walburga found him once more by her side, she had to call forth all her resolution, in order to preserve a mien of calm and dignity.

Only by a great effort she succeeded; at least her eyes did not stray from the canvas, and, except for a flush of color which came over the paleness of her cheek, one might have fancied she was not even aware of his presence.

“Gracious lady,” began Conrad in faltering accents, “I am come late—very late, I know. But I hope not too late?”

“Oh! no, sir. I forgive you,” answered Walburga, with a smile which at once doubly assured him that the happy moment was indeed close at hand. “But pray be patient yet a little while,” she added, “and watch well what I am about to do; ’tis the finishing touch to my picture.”

“Your beautiful picture!” ejaculated Conrad. “How I long to see it hanging in Loewenstein Castle.”

And now, while Walburga went on with her brush, he fell into attentive silence. But he said within himself: “Only for what Miss Hofer has told me of you, of your kind heart, I should set you down as the cruelest of mortals for keeping me in a fever of suspense during such an age as a single minute.”

Presently Conrad’s expression became one of amazement, and, quite unable to contain himself, he exclaimed, “Why, what are you doing?”

But without making any response the girl continued her work; and her hand was wonderfully steady, considering that Conrad’s trial, great as it was, was not greater than her own. Nay, the agony of waiting was tenfold more poignant for her than for him.

In a few minutes she had finished, and then again he cried out, this time loud enough to be heard in the main gallery: “Why, why do you disfigure your _chef d’œuvre_ by a hideous birthmark?”

With a tremor and cheek white as death Walburga here let her brush fall, then abruptly cut short Conrad’s exclamations of regret at what she had done by saying:

“Pray listen, sir; I am about to answer the solemn question you put to me a week ago.” But before going further she paused a moment, perhaps to smother a wail of anguish that was ready to burst from her lips; and while she paused Conrad leaned towards her to catch the coming words, and you might have heard the beating of his heart. Then Walburga spoke: “My response, sir, is—No!”

There are times in life when we scarce can put faith in what our ears plainly tell us; to Conrad Seinsheim this was such a time. His expression when these words reached him, it were impossible to describe; he stood like one petrified.

In another moment, with astonishment, and wrath, and grief struggling madly in his breast, he turned and hastened out of the Pinakothek; and as he went, oh! bitterly did he curse the hour, the fatal hour, when he first laid eyes on this beautiful but utterly heartless and deceiving woman.

O Conrad, Conrad, Conrad! why didst thou not stay thy rash flight an instant—only an instant—and give Walburga one other glance? Hadst thou done this, we verily believe, nay, we are certain, thy flashing eyes would have softened to tenderness and pity.

For at the sound of thy departing steps she turned round towards thee, and her face was as the face thou sawest in thy dream. But destiny shaped it otherwise: thou didst not pause, and Walburga floated down the dark stream, away from thee for ever and for ever.

* * * * *

Ulrich retired to rest, the night which closed the stormy day when Conrad went to Munich, in a very happy mood. Not only did he believe himself on the high-road to success, for Conrad had promised to find him steady employment, but the absence of his benefactor made the youth confident that Walburga had put an end to his suspense by giving him a favorable answer. “Yes, Conrad told me that if she accepted him I need not expect him back till to-morrow, or the day after at the very soonest.”

Nor even when five days elapsed, and the owner of the castle still remained absent, did Ulrich think it strange. “I am sure,” he said to himself, “I didn’t leave my Moida’s side for five days after we were betrothed—no indeed.”

But why none of them dropped him a line to impart the glad tidings did surprise him a little; Moida, at least, might have written two words. Finally, a letter did come from Moida, but it brought anything save good news; and when the poor fellow had read it through he sank down on the grass near the ancient tombstone and wept bitterly.

When this day closed Loewenstein was quite deserted, except by Caro, the aged poodle, who wandered all about the dusky ruin, whining and wondering what had become of his master. Yet, cheerless as Loewenstein was this evening and many an evening afterwards, ’twas less cheerless than the erewhile happy home in Fingergasse.

But Conrad Seinsheim knew naught of this; he believed all the grief, all the lamentations, to be his own. And, indeed, he suffered much. From hateful Munich he sped away he did not care whither: to Nuremberg, to Dresden, to Prague—on, on he travelled, half distracted; until by and by, after three weeks of aimless, feverish wandering—his heart spoke to him and said: “Thou hast been hasty; return to the Pinakothek and ask Walburga once more to be thy spouse.” And Conrad listened to the voice of his heart and went back.

* * * * *

Three weeks have passed away since Walburga pronounced that doomful No—only three weeks. Yet what changes may be wrought in this brief space of time! Is yonder haggard visage moving through the Pinakothek the visage of Conrad Seinsheim?

Yes, it is he; and how his deep-sunken eyes glow as he draws nigh to the spot where hangs Carlo Dolce’s picture of Innocence! Like sparks out of a tomb they seem.

But she whom Conrad is looking for is gone. “Pray tell me,” he said, addressing one of the _custodes_—“tell me where is the young lady who was copying this painting a few weeks since. Is she anywhere in the gallery?”

“She is dead, sir,” answered the other, quietly tapping a little black box with his knuckles and taking out a pinch of snuff; “and she is to be buried to-day.”

“Dead!” repeated Conrad, starting back. “Dead!”

In another moment he was hastening with winged feet to the God’s-acre. And as he sped along the streets, every merry laugh that reached his ears sounded like a dismal croak; and the sky overhead, albeit never so cloudless and bright, seemed to shadow every object like a vast funeral pall.

How bitterly did Conrad now reproach himself for the rash words he had uttered when he saw Walburga tracing the birthmark on her picture!

“Fool, fool, fool that I was! I should have divined in an instant what she thus meant to convey to me, and I should have answered: ‘Even so, dear girl, I will take thee and cherish thee!’”

When Conrad reached the Leichen-Haus[107] the funeral bell was already tolling—the Leichen-Haus, whose ghastliness cannot be dissipated by all the bright-burning tapers and garlands of sweet-scented flowers which surround the dead. Breathless he turned to the sheet of paper posted by the doorway, whereon are written the names and station in life of those who are to be buried; and breathless he read the names.

Walburga’s stood third on the list, and, as coffin number two was just passing out of the building, Conrad saw that he was not more than in time. He pushed his way through the crowd, and in another moment found himself beside Walburga. She was the only one of the departed who retained any look of life about her; you might almost have fancied she was blushing at the curious eyes which were staring upon her, as she lay still and motionless in the narrow box, and that she heard them whispering, “How handsome she would have been, except for that ugly birthmark!”

We need not tell what Conrad felt at this moment; those who noticed him nudged one another, and said in undertones:

“Her lover, perhaps. Poor fellow!”

Not many followed Walburga to her last resting-place; for she had been of a retiring nature, and had kept much to herself and her one devoted friend. There might have been five or six persons in all who saw her lowered into the grave; and among the few who sprinkled holy water upon her there was Conrad Seinsheim. As he did so an inner voice whispered to him and said: “Walburga is near thee; she sees thee; she is immortal and happy for ever.”

Then, when the last clod of earth had been well packed down by the grave-digger’s spade, Conrad turned away to seek Moida Hofer. Ulrich accompanied him, and when they gained the high-up chamber where Walburga had lived so many peaceful years, they found Moida standing beside a table on which lay _Master Eckart_ and Blessed Henry Suso’s _Little Book of Eternal Wisdom_, an empty bird-cage, and a tress of golden hair.

“She loved you truly,” spoke the girl, looking at Conrad through her tears. “She told me so; they were almost her last words to me.”

“Oh! I know it now, but, alas! too late. She is gone!” replied Conrad; and the word gone sounded through the room with long-drawn pathos. ’Twas as if his voice had passed the word on to other voices, who kept repeating: “Gone! gone! gone!”

Here Moida and Ulrich fell to weeping; and when by and by they uncovered their faces, they were surprised to find that Conrad had disappeared. He must indeed have glided away like a spirit, for neither of them had heard his footstep; and, to their further wonder, the sunshiny curl had vanished too.

* * * * *

“How strangely things turn out!” spoke Moida to her betrothed one evening, as they were seated side by side at the foot of Loewenstein tower, watching the sun go down.

“Strangely, strangely!” answered Ulrich.

“Poor Conrad!” went on Moida. “Had he come back only a few days sooner—and he came with the full intention of proposing again—if he had arrived even one day before the saddest of all the days I have known, Walburga might have lived.”

To this the youth made no response; he could not speak, and his tears set Moida weeping again; while old Caro, who perceived that his mistress was in sorrow, let droop his head, and his tail ceased to wag. Presently the sun disappeared. But still in the twilight the lovers remained thinking of the past.

By and by a voice was heard singing within the tower, and after listening a moment and sighing, “Poor, poor Conrad!” Moida rose up and peeped through the lowest of the grated windows. Ulrich did the same, and what did they behold? Wrapped in a long, flowing gown, and pacing round and round the room, was Conrad Seinsheim. Yet not everybody would have recognized him; for his hair, which now reached down to his shoulders, was turned quite gray, and so was his beard, and you might have taken him for an aged man.

The song he was singing was one full of tenderness and love; and ever and anon Conrad would pause and listen, and press to his lips a lock of sunny hair.

Then suddenly, like a person who hears an answering voice, his ghostlike visage would glow with rapture, and you might have fancied he had caught a vision of heaven.

“Really, I sometimes think Conrad is not mad at all,” observed Moida solemnly. “At this moment I do believe he sees dear Walburga. Look! look! He is beckoning!”

“It may be so,” returned Ulrich. “At any rate, he is infinitely happier, judging by his expression and his songs, than many a man who is not mad.”

“Well, I’ll not say ‘Poor Conrad!’ any more,” added Moida. “For I verily believe he knows Walburga is ever hovering near him; nay, that at times he actually sees her. There, look again! look! How he smiles! And his outstretched hands may indeed be clasping hers now, albeit they are invisible to you and me.”

Here there was a brief silence, after which Ulrich remarked, “I am very pleased, my love, that you keep the little lamp so nicely trimmed before the image of our Blessed Mother: for the image belonged to Walburga. See, now Conrad is praying before it.”

“Oh! ’tis not I who trims the light,” replied Moida. “Conrad takes entire charge of the shrine; I merely bring him oil and tapers.”

“But, darling,” continued Ulrich somewhat abruptly, and with a look of seriousness, “if Conrad’s mysterious condition last much longer ’twill plunge us into still greater difficulties; will it not? Why, already all your slender means have been swallowed up, as well as the few florins I had, in paying off the swarm of laborers who were employed upon this ruin. Now all work is stopped, and ’twill be a bitter cold place to spend the coming winter in. Yet what can we do? We must surely stay by Conrad, for he was extremely generous to you and me; and if we abandoned him in this dark hour ’twould be very cruel.”

“Ay, let us prove his stanch friends, now that he is unable to help himself,” answered the girl, brushing away a tear.

“Well, if he could only sleep he might grow better,” pursued Ulrich.

“Our kind friend hasn’t closed his eyes in ever so many nights,” said Moida. “Nor does he take enough nourishment to keep another person from starvation. In fact, his condition is exceedingly mysterious. An inward fire seems to be consuming him; you can see it shooting out of his eyes; but still on he lives—on and on; apparently happy, too, withered to a skeleton though he is.”

“Ay, what can keep good Conrad alive?” said Ulrich.

“Might it be that Walburga’s spirit feeds him?” spake Moida, in an awe-stricken whisper.

Here the subject of their remarks rose up from his knees and began again to sing:

“Und weil es nicht ist auszusagen, Weil’s Lieben ganz unendlich ist, So magst du meine Augen fragen, Wie lieb du mir in Herzen bist!”[108]

When the song, of which we have given but a stanza, was ended, Caro uttered a melancholy howl that awakened the echoes far up the mountain and set the owls in the ruin hooting; then following his mistress, who passed into the tower to make sure that Conrad’s door was properly fastened for the night, the old dog curled himself up on a rug and was soon asleep.

Moida, however, went out again to spend a half-hour more with her betrothed, watching the stars and wondering what fate was in store for herself and him.

“If these stones could only speak, what tales they’d tell!” observed Ulrich, after she had nestled down beside him and flung half her shawl about his shoulders, for the air was rather chilly.

“Yes, very interesting stories no doubt,” returned Moida. “They’d tell us of many a brave knight and fair lady, of many a pageant and tournament. But remember, dear boy, what I have often said to you: beware of dwelling on those dead and buried days. And I, too, must beware; for, do you know, since I am here I occasionally feel myself drifting into a dreamy state, and I might almost fancy this ruin is enchanted and that it has thrown a spell over me. But believe me, Ulrich, believe me, the past is past and can never, never come back. Whatever your forefathers were, however wealthy and noble and powerful—some of them even placed kings on the throne—you, at least, must toil to win your daily bread; and I mean to help you. Therefore be of stout heart and look only to the future. And even if we have to live like these owls we will marry some time or other; and happy days are in store for us yet.”

Moida had scarcely spoken these words when she and her betrothed were startled by a loud, wailful cry which seemed to proceed from Conrad’s chamber. Nor can we wonder that it made them both spring to their feet; for not once since poor Seinsheim had been confined had he wept a tear or uttered a single lamentation. Yet ’twas undoubtedly his voice they had just heard. But what could have wrought this sudden change in him?

In another moment they were within the tower. Then Moida with trembling hand turned the key of his door and entered, followed closely by Ulrich.

“O Moida! Moida!” cried Conrad, as she advanced toward him, “why did you wake me? Why did you not let me sleep on? ’Twas a celestial vision I had—oh! celestial. But, alas! now I am awake—stark awake; and now it all comes back to me—all, all. She is dead! dead! dead!”

Here he burst into a paroxysm of grief, and uttered anew the shriek of woe which had been heard a minute before.

“I do believe his reason is restored,” whispered the girl, turning to her betrothed.

“Oh! let us thank God,” answered Ulrich.

“Conrad, dear, good Conrad,” spoke Moida, now gently taking his hand in hers, “you have been living indeed in a vision for many days past; but now you appear to be yourself again. So do not mourn; rather kneel and pray, and I will pray with you, and so will Ulrich. Let us offer thanks to God for your happy recovery.”

“Well, yes, I will pray—pray to be taken where Walburga is,” answered Conrad, in a somewhat calmer tone, yet still weeping bitterly. “O Moida! if you only knew how happy I have been. Why, blessed Walburga was near me all the while; and every time I sang she responded in a strain such as only angel lips can breathe. But now—now her face has disappeared, her voice is silent—she is gone! O Moida! if my blissful vision was madness, then would to God I had stayed mad!”

“Well, dear friend, Walburga is no doubt in heaven, and I believe she does often hover round you; for she loves you, and knows that you love her; and I am confident nothing would so rejoice her soul as to have you pray—to see you back once more in the faith of your youth. On her dying bed this was her ardent hope. Oh! do, do.”

“I am what I used to be in my early years,” replied Conrad, a glad smile lighting up his wan face. “I am, indeed. Blessed Walburga led me back—and— But hark! She is calling me! Hark! Hark!”

Here Conrad sank slowly to his knees, while an expression came over him which filled the other two with alarm. Then Ulrich, without losing a moment, hastened with all speed to the monastery for a priest. The path down the mountain was a difficult one, especially at this hour. On the way back the good father and Ulrich might have gone astray and arrived too late, but for their meeting a man with a lantern, who offered to light them up the rugged ascent.

Nigh unto death as he was, Conrad’s soul lingered yet an hour in its mortal tenement—a long enough time for him to be shriven and to receive the last sacrament of the church; after which the man with the lantern—and who, by a happy providence, turned out to be the village notary—drew up in brief words Conrad’s will and testament, whereby Loewenstein Castle, and all his other property besides, was bequeathed to Ulrich.

“And now, ere I depart hence,” spoke Conrad in a voice barely loud enough to be heard, and placing Moida’s hand in the hand of her betrothed, “let me see you joined in matrimony. Ay, let the holy bond be made right here by my couch, and do thou, reverend father, pronounce them man and wife.”

Such a ceremony at such a time and place the latter had never yet performed. But so urgent was Conrad’s appeal to have it done on the spot, without an instant’s delay, that he overcame a little scruple.

Then, just as Conrad’s immortal part was winging its flight, Moida, the patient, faithful Moida, who had waited so long for this golden moment to arrive, found herself the bride of her own dear Ulrich; and like a bright rainbow illumining a rain-beaten landscape, a gleam of joy, great joy, shone through her tears, and never before was happiness so strangely blended with sorrow as here in this chamber of death.

Then, kneeling down side by side, Moida and Ulrich breathed a prayer for the repose of the soul of him who had been so very good to them. And may we not hope that near them at that solemn moment was the soul of Walburga, greeting the spirit of the one whom she loved, and ready to be his guide in the dark, dismal region which Conrad had still to pass through ere he came to the home of the blest?

END.

Footnote 107:

A building in the Munich cemetery to which all are taken immediately after death—no exception, save for the royal family.

Footnote 108:

Words by Jean Paul.

“And as ’tis not for tongue to tell, For love knows naught of time or space, So diving down my eyes’ deep well, Find graven on my heart thy face.”

DANTE’S PURGATORIO. TRANSLATED BY T. W. PARSONS. CANTO SEVENTEENTH.

Now, that thy mind with more expanded powers May conceive this, give _me_ thy mind, nor shun To reap some harvest from this halt of ours.

Bethink thee, reader, if thou e’er hast been Among the Alps o’ertaken by a cloud, Through which all objects were as blindly seen As moles behold things through their visual shroud; How, as the vapors dank and thick begin To thin themselves, the solar sphere’s faint ray Scarce pierces them,—and readily may’st thou Conceive (when first I saw it) in what way To me the sun looked that was setting now. From such a cloud, and following as I went My master’s faithful steps with even pace, I came to where the day’s last rays were spent On the low border of the mountain’s base.

O gift imaginative! that dost so Of ourselves rob us, that oft-times a man Heeds not though round him thousand trumpets blow! If thee sense move not, whence the power that can? A light moves thee, Heaven-kindled, that doth flow By will divine directed, or its own. My fancy with her fury was engrossed Who took the shape of that sweet bird[109] well known To be of his own song enamored most; And here my mind was in itself so chained That it received no object from outside. Then into my high fantasy there rained The image of a person crucified,[110] Fierce in his aspect, with a face of hate,— And in this look despitefully he died. Round him there stood Ahasuerus great, Esther, his spouse, and Mordecai the true, Of whose just word just action still was mate. And, as this image from my mind withdrew, Of itself breaking, as a bubble does, Failing the water under which it grew, A damsel[111] weeping on my vision rose, Moaning aloud and crying: “Why, O queen! Hast thou through anger wished thyself undone? Not to lose thy Lavinia, thou hast ta’en Thy life and lost me! Mother, I am one Doomed to mourn thee before a husband slain!”

Even as our slumber, when a flash of light A sleeper’s eyes doth suddenly confront, Is broken, quivering ere it dieth quite; So fell my vision, as a beam past wont In its excess of splendor smote my sight. I turned to see where ’twas I had been brought, When a voice called to me: “Climb here the hill!” This put all other purpose from my thought, And gave such eagerness unto my will Of him who counselled thus to mark the mien, As rests not wholly satisfied until Face unto face the speaker may be seen. And, as one sees not the sun’s figure clear, Through light’s great superflux that blinds our gaze, So was my visual virtue wanting here. “This is a heavenly spirit” (Virgil says), “That with his splendor veils him from thine eye, And guides us our way up, nor waits for prayer. He does by us as men _would_ be done by; For who sees need, and doth, till asked, forbear, Already seems ill-purposed to deny. Such invitation let our feet obey! Haste we to mount before the darkness grow, For then we could not till return of day.” So spake my leader: I beside him slow Pacing, we bended toward a stair our way; And, as my foot the first ascension pressed, I felt a movement near me as of wings Fanning my face, and then a voice said: “Blest Are the peacemakers! them no _bad_ wrath stings.” Already overhead the sun’s last rays Were so uplifted, followed by the night, That round us many a star began to blaze. And, as I felt my body’s waning might, “Why dost thou fail me, O my strength?” I said: But having come now where we climbed no more, On the stair’s brink we ceased our toilsome tread, Fixed as a vessel that arrives at shore. I stopped awhile, and waited as to hear In this new circle aught perchance of sound; Then thus addressed my lord: “My Father dear! Say, what offence is punished in this round? Stay not thy speech although thy feet are stayed.” “The love of good,” thus Virgil me bespoke, “Wherein deficient here is perfect made; Here the slow oar receives amending stroke. But that thy mind with more expanded powers May conceive this, give _me_ thy mind, nor shun To reap some harvest from this halt of ours.

“Never creator”[112] (he began), “my son, Was without love; nor anything create; Either love natural, or that nobler one Born of the mind; thou know’st the truth I state. Natural love ne’er takes erroneous course; Through ill-directed aim the other may, Or from excess, or from a want of force. While o’er its bent the Primal Good hath sway, While with due check it seeks the inferior good, It cannot be the source of wrong delight. But when it swerves to ill, or if it should Seek good with more or less zeal than is right, Against the maker doth his work rebel. Whence may’st thou[113] comprehend how love in you Must of all virtue be the seed, as well As of each action to which pain is due. Now since love must look ever towards its own Subjects’ well-being, things are from self-hate Saved; and since naught can be supposed alone To exist, from the First Being separate, Hatred of Him is also spared to men.[114] Remains (if rightly I divide, I say) The ill that’s loved must be a neighbor’s then, And in three modes this love springs in your clay. One, through the crushing of his fellow, fain Would come to eminence, with sole desire His greatness o’er that other’s to maintain. One at another’s rising feareth loss Of power, fame, favor, and his own good name; So sickens, joying in his neighbor’s cross. And there is one whom wrong so weighs with shame, That greed of vengeance doth his heart engross; And such must needs work evil for his brother. This threefold _bad_ love those mourn here below: Now I would have thee learn about another, Which runs to good but doth no measure know. All vaguely apprehend a good wherein The soul may rest itself; and all men woo This imaged good, and seek its peace to win. To look thereon if _languid_ love[115] draw you, Or ye be slow to seek it, such a sin, After meet penitence, on this round ye rue. There is another good,[116] but far from bliss! Nor makes man happy: it is not the true Essence, of all good fruit the root: To this The love which too much doth itself resign Is mourned for in three cornices above; But _how_ tripartite[117] I will not define; Thou shalt, by seeing, learn about _that_ love”.

Footnote 109:

“Who took the shape of that sweet bird.” Reference is here made to the story of Procne, wife of Tereus, King of Thrace, and sister of Philomela. To revenge herself on her husband, Procne murdered their child, Itys, cut him into pieces, and served up the flesh to the father. Tereus, discovering the truth, pursued and was on the point of overtaking her when, at her prayer, she was changed by the gods into a nightingale, and her sister Philomela into a swallow, according to Probus, Libanius, and Strabo.—_Purg._ ix. 15.

Footnote 110:

This is Haman, who was _hanged_ upon the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, as we read in the Book of Esther; but Dante’s word is _crocifisse_.

Footnote 111:

“A damsel,” etc. This was Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Amata. Lavinia had been secretly promised in marriage by her mother to Turnus, King of the Rutuli. The marriage was displeasing to the gods, and the oracles declared that Lavinia should marry a foreign prince. The foreign prince was Æneas, who, on his arrival in Italy, became the friend and ally of Latinus, and won his favor as suitor to Lavinia. Turnus thereupon declared war against both, and was killed in battle by Æneas. Amata, having been informed prematurely of the death of Turnus, and enraged at being unable to prevent the marriage of Lavinia with Æneas, hanged herself in despair.

Footnote 112:

“Never Creator ...” In this passage Virgil explains to Dante the nature of love according to the mediæval philosophy, viz., God is love. “_Deus caritas est_,” and so are all created things, as derived from him. Love in man is natural or rational—that is, of the mind. Natural love, or the love towards all things necessary to one’s preservation, cannot err. Rational love can err in three ways: first, when directed to a bad aim—that is, to evil; secondly, when directed excessively to earthly pleasures; thirdly, when directed feebly to those things truly worthy of love, the celestial. As long as love turns to the Primal Good, the celestial, or seeks with due check the inferior, or terrestrial, it cannot be the source of wrong, or sin. “But when it swerves to ill,” ... etc.

Footnote 113:

“Whence may’st thou ...” Love is the source of good works, as of bad ones; thus, according to St. Augustine, “_Boni aut mali mores sunt boni aut mali amores_.”

Footnote 114:

“Hatred of Him ...” Love cannot turn against its subjects (viz., men cannot hate themselves); and as these subjects cannot exist separate from their First Being, they cannot therefore hate God. (Men may deny or blaspheme, but not hate, God.) It follows, therefore, that, as no _bad_ love can be directed against one’s self or against God, that it can only be against one’s neighbor, and this can be in three forms: viz., by Pride, or the love of good to ourselves and of evil to others; by Envy, or the love of evil to others, without cause of good or evil to us; by Anger, or the love of evil to others on account of real or imaginary evil to us.

Footnote 115:

“... Languid love ...” Sloth; indolence to seek the true good, which is God.

Footnote 116:

“There is another good ...”—the love of this world and earthly pleasures.

Footnote 117:

“Tripartite ...”—three other _bad_ loves: Avarice, Gluttony, Lust.

THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT IN ITS RELATION TO THE CHURCH.

A generation has passed away since the beginning of that which is commonly known as the Tractarian movement in the Church of England; the early leaders of the little band whose influence has been and still is felt throughout the length and breadth of the land have, with two exceptions, gone from among us; the names of Father Newman and Doctor Pusey are known to all our readers, the one as that of a devoted son of Holy Church, the other as that of an Anglican still firmly attached to the cause which he espoused in early life.

Which of these eminent men is to be taken as a fair example of the results of the movement? What is the tendency of the High-Church party? Do its doctrines and practices lead people to the Catholic Church or keep them out of it? Questions like these can hardly fail to occur to the mind of any intelligent observer of the state of religion in England in the present day, and on them must chiefly centre the interest of Catholics in the subject.

The different parties contained in the Church of England give contrary answers to the questions we have proposed. Low-Church or Evangelical Anglicans are unanimous in their denunciations of “Puseyism” and “Ritualism” as the high-road to Rome; some of them even go so far as to say that the Jesuits are the hidden but real promoters of what they look upon as a return to the errors and evils swept away by the Reformation. The High-Church portion of the Church of England is equally earnest and positive in the assertion that what it calls the revival of Catholic teaching and Catholic practice does not lead men to Rome, but keeps them, to use its own language, true to the faith of their baptism.

In face of these conflicting statements we turn to the testimony of Catholic priests engaged in the work of conversion, and to the personal experience of converts. We believe that every priest who has experience in conversions will unhesitatingly endorse the statement that most of the converts received into the Catholic Church come from the ranks of the High-Church or Tractarian section of the Anglican communion. Many of these converts, especially of those who were formerly Anglican clergymen, have felt it right to lay before the public the motives which determined them to take a step so serious in its nature and consequences. We have therefore a considerable number of published documents to refer to, and the testimony that they bear is in perfect accordance with that of our priests. The question, however, is not so easily settled. If you lay these facts before a Ritualist he will at once assure you that those who have left the Church of England were weak, or unstable, or impatient, or that they were driven from their position by the imprudence or fault of others, most probably by the errors of their bishops. They will, in fact, deny that conversions are the natural and legitimate result of High-Church teaching, and will treat them as exceptional cases, to be blamed, indeed, and deplored, but not to be viewed as indicating a general tendency.

It will therefore be interesting to examine a little into the work of the High-Church movement, and to judge for ourselves how it bears on the interests of the church.

We begin at once by admitting that the High-Church party is opposed to the Catholic Church—deliberately and actively opposed. The language in which it condemns converts is at least as strong as that in use among Evangelicals. The principle of private judgment, which furnishes the convert with an argument unanswerable in the case of his Low-Church opponent, is not recognized by the High-Churchman, although we do him no injustice in saying that it underlies his whole course of action. The High-Churchman’s belief in Anglican orders, coupled with his ignorance as to the meaning of jurisdiction, enables him to suppose that the Catholic Church in England is schismatical, and to denounce those who submit to her authority as guilty of grave, if not of unpardonable, sin.

If, then, the High-Church or Tractarian party does in any sense or to any degree promote the cause of conversion, or prepare the way for souls to return to God’s church, we must say that such work is done unconsciously and involuntarily.

The original principle of the High-Church movement was reverence for antiquity; it was, in the intention of its leaders, a return to the old paths. The past has ever had a charm for minds of a certain order; to those who have not realized the supernatural character of the church, who have not grasped the great fact that, in virtue of the promise of her divine Lord and of the power of his Spirit, she is ever the same, ever preserved from error, ever guided unto all truth, antiquity is a matter of primary importance. Ignorant of the existing Divine authority, the Protestant who believes that our Lord founded a church upon earth goes back to the earliest days of its history; he traces the stream to its source; he thinks that there it must needs be purest. It may be that the labor is great, that the study required is beyond the reach of many, and that, after all, the materials at his command are too often insufficient, and that he is ultimately compelled to fall back on the exercise of his private judgment; but in the absence of a living authority there is nothing that he deems more likely to guide him aright. The view, we must admit, is from his position perfectly reasonable, and we may bless God that the reverent and conscientious study of the past has brought many of the best and most gifted of the Anglican body to bow their heads in allegiance to the Vicar of Christ; they have found that the truth they sought is, to use the words of Moses, not above them nor far off from them, but very nigh unto them.

But the influence of this awakening of reverence for the past has told upon many who have not joined the Catholic Church; it has even left its mark on material things. The old churches which our Catholic forefathers built, wherein they worshipped and beneath whose shadow they rest, have been restored; through the length and breadth of the country they stand in their venerable beauty, and seem at once to bear testimony to the piety of former ages and to await England’s return to the faith.

We believe the High-Church section of the Anglican communion to be promoting the cause of conversion in several ways.

First, by the valid administration of baptism. High-Church clergymen know what is essential to the validity of baptism; they believe baptism to be a sacrament and necessary to salvation, and consequently they are very careful in instructing their people as to its importance and in giving it properly. In former days, and in the case of ministers who did not believe that baptism really affected the eternal salvation of an infant, there is reason to fear that there was an immense amount of neglect. By baptism, as we know, the habit of faith is implanted in the soul, and accordingly in converts from Anglicanism we often find a wonderful power of grasping the truths of the Catholic religion; as soon as a doctrine is presented to them the mind seems at once to respond to it; faith is there, as it is in the soul of the baptized child.

Most of the doctrines of the Catholic Church are preached and taught by the High-Church clergy with more or less distinctness; and here we must observe that in speaking of the High-Church or ritualistic body we are compelled to use terms whose signification is somewhat vague. The Church of England may be said to contain three different schools of opinion, High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church; but no one of these has any definite standard. Among those who are called, and who would call themselves, High-Churchmen there are many varieties and shades of opinion; the writings or sermons of one High-Church clergyman may, of course, be disavowed by another. Up to the present time Dr. Pusey, who more than any other man might seem to have been a leader, does not feel it necessary to adopt the ritual for which some of his disciples are so earnestly contending. All that we can, therefore, hope to do is to give a general idea of High-Church and ritualistic teaching, premising that on most points there is more or less divergence amongst the teachers.

It is not surprising that many of those who look back to the past for guidance and instruction should have come to view the so-called Reformation with regret. The ordinary Protestant boldly declares it to have been a necessity, but many High-Churchmen openly deplore it; they repudiate the name of Protestant, and, in defiance at once of history and of etymology, call themselves Catholics. There is something, however, in a name, and we may fairly believe that the disavowal of the epithet Protestant tends to educate people out of the idea of protesting; it is certainly true that if the Church of England ceases to be Protestant, she cuts the very ground from under her feet, and abolishes her only plausible _raison d’être_; but the English mind, with all its good qualities, is not, generally speaking, logical, and words are too often used without a very accurate idea of their derivation or import.

Those Catholic doctrines which have been most fiercely opposed and most grossly misrepresented in England are now openly and earnestly inculcated. We may almost say that the conflict is gradually being narrowed to the one subject of the authority of the Holy See and the questions immediately depending on it. For the High-Church Anglican believes that our Lord founded a church; he professes to take that church as his guide, though he strangely persuades himself that its authority is at present in abeyance. He would obey the voice of a general council, but in order to have a general council it is absolutely necessary that his bishops should take part in the deliberations; in the expectation of an impossible conjuncture of circumstances he practically disobeys every one who in the meantime claims his allegiance.

But a vast amount of Catholic teaching is, as we have said, finding its way into the minds and hearts of Englishmen; Catholic practices and devotions are being revived, the way is being prepared for the church. There is a wonderful connection between the different doctrines of our holy faith; the soul that earnestly and devoutly believes one truth is, if we may so speak, predisposed to believe the next that may be presented to it, and this not only from a reasonable perception of the beauty, the fitness, and the mutual relations of the different truths, but from the habit of mind which is produced and cultivated by acts of faith. Each act of faith contains or implies an act of homage to the truth of God; the soul that worships is on the way to receive fuller light.

We have in a former paper[118] dwelt at some length on the subject of confession in the Church of England; we have shown that it is habitually practised by a considerable number of earnest Anglicans, and that it is publicly urged upon people by some of the clergy as the ordinary remedy for post-baptismal sin. It is quite certain that confession is believed in very much more widely than it is practised. The most extreme of Anglicans cannot possibly maintain that the Church of England requires it of every one; to the majority of people, especially if early habit has not facilitated the practice, there can be no doubt that it is painful and difficult. We therefore often find persons who thoroughly believe that the English clergy possess the power of the keys, and yet never themselves seek for the benefit of absolution. The matter is left quite optional, or rather the penitent is to be judge in his own case, and to decide whether he does or does not require this special means of grace. The scanty utterances of the _Book of Common Prayer_ seem to imply that peace of mind is the principal object to be attained by confession. If, therefore, an Anglican can “quiet his own conscience,” he is quite justified in doing so without any extraneous aid; and, indeed, in so doing he would seem to be carrying out the intention of the framers of the Prayer-Book.

The doctrine of the Real Presence is perhaps the one which has taken the deepest root in the mind of advanced Anglicans. We might multiply extracts from their books of devotion and instruction conveying the Catholic faith on this point in its completeness. Our prayer-books, especially the _Golden Manual_ and the _Garden of the Soul_, are largely used. Many Catholic books of devotion have been translated for Anglicans, and, although most of the translations are more or less spoiled by a process of adaptation, in many of them the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist is unimpaired. The _Lauda Sion_, the _Pange Lingua_, and the _Rythma_ of St. Thomas are preserved and faithfully translated. Nor is the teaching confined to words; the meaning of the ritual, of which we hear so much in the present day, is to be found in the belief in the Presence of our Lord which it expresses and inculcates. The so-called altars of many Anglican churches are decked with flowers; the crucifix stands upon them; lights are burned; the clergy wear vestments like those used in the church; celebrations of the communion are multiplied—it is made the central act of worship; fasting communion is insisted on; confession is recommended as the fitting preparation for communion. A confraternity has been founded with the name of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and with the object of promoting the devotion which naturally flows from a belief in the Real Presence of our Lord. Attendance of non-communicants at the communion service is in many churches recommended and encouraged, and devotions for such worshippers have been published. Incense and music are employed in the service; chancels are richly adorned. In some chapels communion is reserved, and a rite, evidently imitated from the Catholic Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, is practised.

Ritualists have also learned to invoke Our Lady and the saints. Fifty years ago Keble wrote:

“Ave Maria! Thou whose name All but adoring love may claim!”

and now the _Angelus_ and the _Memorare_, the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin and the Rosary, are in use in the English Church. The saints are honored and their intercession is sought. Extreme Unction is considered to be a lesser sacrament, and sick persons are anointed. The dead are prayed for in the touching and beautiful words which holy church puts into the mouths of her children.

It is needless to say that the doctrine of apostolic succession is most firmly maintained by High-Churchmen. Not only are the Catholic doctrines which have furnished the chief mark for Protestant hostility and the principal subjects of misrepresentation now maintained and inculcated, but others which, without being formally contradicted, have been obscured and neglected are now brought forward with a clearness which leaves little to be desired. The Catholic devotions to the Sacred Heart, to the Holy Child, to the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of our Lord, cannot fail to make those who use them enter more and more into the great mystery which lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

Moreover, the idea of duty, of conscience, of a work to be done in the sanctification of one’s own soul, is constantly kept before the mind. Daily self-examination is part of the rule of life. The fasts of the church are observed often, indeed, with a severity greater than that required by the church, but natural among those who have no guide save their own conscience for the details of their practice. Her sacred feasts are also kept, and thus our separated brethren have some share in the holy teaching which each season of the ecclesiastical year impresses on the heart. During the Holy Week which has just passed the _Tenebræ_ were sung in many ritualistic churches. On Good Friday the Three Hours’ Agony was preached in several places, the Reproaches were sung, and a devotion somewhat resembling that of the Stations of the Cross was practised. On Easter day the communion was celebrated as early as five o’clock and repeated several times. The histories of the saints are being made familiar to people’s minds. The literature of Ritualism might of itself furnish the subject of an interesting study. The _Imitation of Christ_ is one of the most familiar books of piety, and among the books adapted from Catholic sources are the _Spiritual Combat_, many of the works of Fénelon and Bossuet, Rodriguez, Courbon, Pinart, Avrillon, and other spiritual and ascetic writers. Faber’s hymns are constantly sung in churches. _The Catechism of Christian Doctrine_, with some variations, is in the hands of the children of Ritualists. The Catholic Breviary has furnished the material for the day and night Hours used in many of the religious houses, and the very prayers of the Mass have been interwoven in the Anglican Office for Communion. An ample supply of juvenile literature places the doctrines of which we have spoken in an attractive form before the minds of children. Catholic pictures are to be seen everywhere. Several newspapers and magazines are devoted to the publication and discussion of matters relating to the interests of the High-Church party.

A very important feature in the revival of the last thirty years is the foundation of religious houses in the Church of England. There are now upwards of thirty Anglican convents, in which women lead a life of seclusion and devote themselves to the practice of works of charity and piety; they are in many cases bound by vows and live in obedience to authority. A few communities of men also exist. These Anglican religious call themselves monks and nuns, and wear a dress unlike that of secular persons. They keep the canonical hours of prayer, they give up all earthly ties, and their rule is in some cases taken from one of those originally framed by a saint and sanctioned by the church.

Retreats and missions more or less resembling our own are given by some of the Anglican clergy. We have recently heard that in a place where the conversion of some of the clergy seemed likely to be followed by that of a considerable body of their congregation, a retreat has been given with the special object of settling the minds of the waverers in their allegiance to the Church of England.

After all that we have said it will not surprise our readers to hear that people are often received into the church who thoroughly believe every Catholic doctrine, and, on making their submission, have no difficulty to surmount and nothing new to learn.

Prejudices are being dispelled; an interest in that body which has ever held the doctrines now recovered by Anglicans has been awakened. On their own principles High-Church people who go abroad feel bound to attend Catholic churches; the Catholic religion is better understood than it used to be, our ceremonies are imitated, our works of charity and devotion appreciated.

A work, then, is being done by that party in the Church of England commonly known as the Tractarian or High-Church party. Its influence has reached many whom we could not have hoped to reach. It has put many in a position where they are accessible to conversion. It has taught many souls the need and the value of sacraments. It has awakened a hunger and thirst whose ultimate satisfaction is only to be found in the church. It has trained souls to habits of self-examination, of self-denial, of earnestness, of meditation, and of generosity. It has, we may trust, kept many from ever falling into grievous sin; and while we are of course unable to admit the validity of Anglican orders, and consequently of sacraments dependent on such orders, we rejoice to think that what the devout soul believes to be a sacramental communion may prove a spiritual communion and be a means of grace and blessing.

Can we, then, as Catholics hold out the right hand of fellowship to those Anglicans who believe so much of Catholic doctrine, and who would fain persuade us that they have a right to the name we bear? Can we bid them God-speed and wish them success? Alas! we cannot. Whilst we appreciate their self-denying labors, whilst we admire their devotion and believe that the grace of God is leading them on to better things, we are constantly and sadly reminded that as yet they are in schism, that they are defying or ignoring the authority which in the name of Christ claims their obedience.

The opposition to the church is a feature of the very advanced party which we cannot overlook; it is impossible to say how many souls its influence has kept out of God’s church. The means used to hinder the work of conversion are various and too often successful. We began by the statement that most of our converts come from the ranks of Ritualism, but we must in some degree qualify it by saying that to many it has only been the final stage; that they have passed through it on their way from dissent or Low-Church Protestantism into the church. Whether they would have come to their true home more speedily if they had not on the way been attracted by that which has so great a semblance of truth we cannot say. Conversion is of course a work of God’s grace; but we cannot help feeling that while High-Churchmen have got rid of many of the prejudices and misconceptions which keep other Protestants out of the church, they are themselves surrounded by influences hard to overcome. There is more to satisfy both taste and devotional feeling in Ritualism than in ordinary Protestantism; there is more to keep the mind back from honest inquiry. The ordinary Protestant is bound to “prove all things and hold fast that which is good.” If he has a doubt, on his own principles he ought to follow it up, to question, to examine, and reason till he arrives at conviction. The Ritualist is too often taught to put away a doubt or question as a sin. He is hedged in on every side. He is forbidden to inquire. If he be in perplexity he is recommended to devote himself to good works; he is told to avoid controversy.

The branch theory and the dream of corporate reunion are constantly brought forward to combat the convictions of those who are drawing near to the church, and to defend a position which is felt to be exceptional. The branch theory maintains that the church of Christ is divided into three distinct branches, the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican; each one of these, according to its adherents, has preserved all the essentials of a church, and each one claims with equal authority the obedience of the faithful over whom it reigns. The Catholic Church, accordingly, is the teacher appointed by God for Christians who live in Italy or Spain; the Greek Church is in the same manner the guide of the inhabitants of Russia, and the Anglican Church of those in England and her dependencies. The divergence or contradiction that may be observed in the teaching of these three bodies is ignored, or it is asserted that they are one on all essential points. The church, according to this view, is more or less a national institution. St. Paul, indeed, declared that there was neither barbarian nor Scythian; but this theory boldly asserts the distinction between Englishmen and Romans, and again between Englishmen and Russians. Perhaps national vanity may find some satisfaction in the idea of a branch church specially for British subjects. Some curious consequences follow from the view we have explained. In the first place, a man is bound to change his religion as often as he crosses the Channel. The Anglican would, he is told, be guilty of an act of schism by worshipping in a Catholic church in England; as soon as he arrives at Calais, however, it becomes his bounden duty to attend Mass on all Sundays and days of obligation, and if he were to be present at any Protestant worship, even though conducted by one of his own ministers, he would commit an act of schism. Church and schism, in fact, change places.

No Protestant is stronger in his condemnation of those who become Catholics than are many of the clergy who hold the branch theory. It might, indeed, appear that if each of the three branches has an equal claim to be called a church there could be little objection to the change; and yet these teachers declare it to be in England a sin even to enter a church belonging to the “Roman branch,” and to become a Catholic is said to be risking one’s salvation.

Closely connected with this theory is what we must call the _dream_ of corporate reunion. It is of course evident to all who have read our Lord’s words in his Gospel that all Christians ought to be _one_, and though people may persuade themselves of an invisible unity in essentials, few can feel that the present state of things is altogether as it should be.

The wish for union, coupled with an absolute confidence in the reality of Anglicanism, has led to the hope that terms may at some time be made with the Catholic Church. The duty of submission is thus evaded; people are told that they are bound to wait till common action can be taken. It is hoped that in some mysterious manner “Rome” will yet be induced to see her errors in regard to England. People who have a strong leading idea look at everything through a medium of their own. They grasp at straws; the kindly courtesy of some good priest, or the ignorant credulity of some poor peasant, is taken as a token of the coming amalgamation. The fact that the Catholic Church has in the strongest manner condemned the scheme of reunion is ignored, the insuperable obstacles which at once present themselves are unheeded, and for the sake of an unreal and unfounded dream those who would fain submit to God’s church are held back.

Besides the expression of these general principles there is a vast amount of special and personal action hostile to the church. It is not enough to assure the poor famishing soul that the Church of England supplies its every want, that it has never turned the graces already bestowed to sufficient account; it is also warned that it is a sin even to think of leaving its present position. The obedience claimed by and rendered to Anglican directors is such as would astonish Catholics. The Anglican director, generally speaking, has not learned to obey, and this may be the reason why his manner of ruling is so absolute. It is no uncommon thing to find people forbidden to enter a Catholic church, although the director himself believes our Lord to be present on its altar; conversation or correspondence with Catholic friends about the church is in some cases prohibited, as well as the reading of Catholic books. The director will sometimes promise to answer for the soul that blindly obeys him. Means such as these are used to bind the conscience, and it is probable that they keep back many who would bravely face persecution.

It is to be feared that the temper of mind prevalent among the ritualistic clergy is one little likely to lead to submission to the church; for we must receive the kingdom of God as little children, and nothing can seem less indicative of the childlike spirit than the tone of insubordination constantly to be met with. The authority of the crown is set at naught; that of their own bishops is defied; obedience is little known amongst them; nevertheless by God’s grace many a soul from among the clergy as well as from among the laity bursts the trammels that have bound it, and finds its true home and rest. It is said that the present year is bringing into the church a harvest greater than that of any year since the time of Father Newman’s conversion; and if it be so, we may well appeal to all Catholic hearts for the aid of their prayers.

We look towards these separated brethren with a longing sympathy. We feel that the grace of God is appealing to their hearts in a very special manner. We acknowledge that the difficulties which keep them back are of no common order. We admire their earnestness, their devotion and charity; we appreciate the courage and constancy with which they suffer for what they believe to be the truth; and if we are compelled at times to use language which has a tone of harshness or sternness, it is because we are solemnly bound to be faithful to God’s church, and because we know that we can do them no greater kindness than to convince them that they are spending their labor for that which cannot satisfy them, and to lead them on to the enjoyment of all the blessings which the Precious Blood has purchased for them.

We believe that the influence of the Tractarian movement has been felt even in America, and we hope that the sketch here given of its bearing on the great work of conversion may not be devoid of interest to those who would deem it a joy and a privilege to help a soul into God’s church—a work for which the power of sympathy and the intelligent comprehension of its position and difficulties are most important qualifications.

Footnote 118:

See THE CATHOLIC WORLD for February, 1878, “Confession in the Church of England,” by the Right Rev. Mgr. Capel, D.D.

THE NEWSPAPER PRESS OF NEW YORK.

One of the most remarkable features of this most remarkable century is the unparalleled growth of that branch of ephemeral literature known _par excellence_ as the press. This increase has not been confined to any particular nation or locality, but is as observable in conservative Europe as in expansive America. Still, in this country, and particularly in New York, newspapers have multiplied during the last fifty years with a rapidity that has astonished not only the public but even their projectors and proprietors. It is within the memory of many now living when our city knew not the luxury of a daily journal, and its most inquisitive and anxious inhabitants were obliged to wait a whole week for current news and editorial comments thereon. Now we are so imbued with a craving for early information that few persons in active life are satisfied with a morning paper, but must have likewise two or three evening editions. The last generation were content to wait for an indefinite period for intelligence of what was going on in the Old World; to-day we are sadly disappointed if we cannot read over our toast and coffee of what has happened a few hours previously at the principal points of interest throughout Christendom. Business enterprise, competition, steam power, and the telegraph have been mainly instrumental in changing the character of journalism and creating wants hitherto unfelt; increase of population and a love of superficial reading, which, like jealousy, makes the food it feeds on, have done the rest.

Before proceeding to point out some of what seem to us to be the grave defects of the secular press, we freely and thankfully admit that its tone as regards the Catholic Church has greatly improved within the last few years. Those who remember the scoffs and sneers, the outrageous calumnies and downright falsehoods, which were usually associated with everything Catholic in so many New York journals a quarter of a century ago, now look with more than complacency on the comparative fairness which at present characterizes their reports, correspondence, and editorials. The manner in which the life and death of the late Pope, the venerable Pius IX., was treated and commented upon is a notable example of this growing spirit of liberality and good sense alike gratifying to their Catholic readers and honorable to themselves. Now and then, of course, we found expressions and sentiments opposed to our sense of historical truth and moral rectitude; but as a whole the non-Catholic press have expressed very just and impartial views of the multifarious labors and shining virtues which distinguished the career of the wonderful man who was lately called to his reward. The same may be said of their allusions to his successor, Leo XIII. Abandoning the senseless and mischievous course of their European contemporaries previous to the meeting of the conclave, they gave us a truthful and succinct account of the meeting of that august body, the result of its solemn deliberations, and excellent sketches of the life and services of the illustrious prelate selected to bear the burden laid down by Pius IX. For all this, considering how Catholic questions were formerly treated, we ought to be, and are, thankful. Again, looking nearer home, the services and ceremonies of the church are described with much more regard to their sanctity and less to the gratification of idle curiosity and insensate popular prejudice than formerly. Some of the press accounts of the nature and reason of fasts and feasts, abstinence, prayer, and good works, which are especially enjoined at particular periods, have been so precise and discriminating that the conviction is forced upon us of their having been written, or at least dictated, by persons fully in accord with Catholic teachings.

Yet while we cannot but admit this salutary change and admire the variety, system, and attention to details exhibited in the mechanical arrangement of news, and the extraordinary industry displayed in the general manufacture of our modern newspapers, it must be confessed with regret that in elevation of tone and honesty of purpose there has been little or no improvement on the slower and less attractive productions of our ancestors. We may take as an example the metropolitan press of New York, which in point of ability, influence, and circulation far surpasses that of any other city on the continent. Let any impartial person, after the careful perusal of any one of our five or six prominent daily newspapers which are supposed to control and lead public opinion, ask himself what there is in its pages to command the attention of the moralist, or to move the sceptical or thoughtless to a sense of his duty to God and his neighbor: what stern rebuke has been administered to the growing spirit of peculation and heathenism which is constantly gnawing at the vitals of society. How seldom do we find in the labored essays, the disjointed platitudes, the pretentious diatribes, the ornate editorials, or the epigrams which distinguish our prominent journals a sentiment or an argument based on sound views of morality and religion! With a constituency at least professedly Christian, they bandy with words and phrases, opinions and speculations, essentially anti-Christian. One sneers at the Catholic Church and everything we hold sacred; another patronizes us in a manner more insulting than complimentary; while the others, when not openly misrepresenting and maligning us, allude to our faith in a manner even more objectionable. All without exception, possibly without knowing it, are the advocates of the secret societies abroad, which are endeavoring to undermine the fabric of social order and Christian civilization, and the apologists for those home fanatics who seek to excite public prejudice against us, and oppose class to class and creed to creed for their own selfish and diabolical ends.

Of course we do not expect secular newspapers to become active exponents of the great truths of religion, nor should it even be required of them to give undue prominence to the publication of matters of a religious character. That is not their province. But appearing as they do in a Christian community, and being supposed to reflect in a great measure the feelings, views, and moral status of the people who support them, we have a right to demand that they adhere to the teachings of that moral law which ought to govern us all, and that when they treat of sacred things, and deal with questions affecting faith and religion, it shall be done with that serious reverence which persons are bound to observe in social life. Neither do we ask that they advocate the superior claims of Catholics, nor even enter upon our defence against the many unscrupulous enemies who are constantly rising up against us; but we do insist that we shall not be insulted, that our opinions be respected, and that the code of morals which all who profess to be Christians acknowledge be not constantly and persistently outraged.

The secret of this apparently unanimous anti-Catholic feeling which we lament in the New York daily press is to be found in the mental, not to say moral, inferiority of the editorial fraternity as a class. Since the death of Greeley and Raymond and the practical retirement of Bryant we have had no really able journalist among us; while, unlike Paris, Berlin, London, and other European cities, where the foremost statesmen and most profound thinkers scorn not to take up the editorial pen occasionally, we have no voluntary contributors above the level of mediocrity. A New York editor is usually a man paid to write something or anything on certain subjects, whether he be familiar with them or not. He writes not to express his own well-considered convictions, or to give the public the benefit of his study and experience of a particular topic, but simply to meet a special emergency, and to embody, more or less lamely, the half-formed notions of his employer, who is as likely as not an uncultured man himself. Hence the greater number of what are called leading articles which appear in our daily papers, instead of presenting clear views, sound reasoning, and reliable information artistically epitomized, are seldom other than a mass of hasty, crude, and shallow speculations on topics of the greatest importance. With the mass of casual readers, who are too busy to look beneath the surface, such productions pass for gospel truths, and therefore are likely to do more harm than more elaborate articles; but to the intelligent reader it soon becomes obvious either that the heads of the writers are astray or that their hearts are not in their work. The latter surmise, we are inclined to believe, is more generally correct. How can a Hebrew, for instance, write a eulogium on the glories of the Catholic Church; a Catholic, no matter how lukewarm, praise the Communists and applaud the Carbonari; or a follower of the stern precepts of Calvin glorify free love and exalt the doctrines of universalism? Yet such anomalies are frequently found in New York journalism, where every man seems to be in the wrong place. The well-known fact that the editorial staff of all our large dailies is principally made up of persons of diverse nationalities, creeds, and opinions accounts for the discordance noticeable in every one of their pages. They have no fixed principles. No matter what political party journals may support, and how emphatic they may be in their advocacy of this or that public measure, when they come to treat a great social question, or one of vital importance to the honor and reputation of the republic, one column of the same paper is usually found to contradict the other, and the principles advanced to-day are in imminent danger of being condemned to-morrow.

To this rule, however, there is an exception. It seems to be a canon of the press of this city, and we might add of the entire country, that Catholics can be abused, scoffed at, and misrepresented with impunity. Their religion is unfashionable; their social, commercial, and political influence small in comparison with their numbers; the world is not their friend, nor the world’s law, and therefore the generous and large-minded editors of our newspapers, when at a loss for something else to say, have always an arrow in their quiver for the “tyranny of Rome,” and the dangers to which their beloved country is exposed from the “machinations and encroachments of Romanism.” Vulgar nicknames and insulting epithets applied to the church and the religious orders, which have long since been banished from the vocabularies of other countries, are freely used with a coolness and a facility which show that the writers are either too ignorant to know when they are vulgar, or so barren of ideas and expressions that they are compelled to borrow those which have done service in the days of a bigoted and fanatical generation.

But turning from the editorial page to what constitutes the bulk of our journals, we find their dangerous character revealed. What mainly fills their capacious pages and constitutes their principal attraction for the generality of purchasers? Extended reports of divorce cases, criminal trials, matrimonial escapades, and the minutiæ of executions; “spicy” paragraphs and indecent anecdotes to which the ordinary and instructive news of the day is only an adjunct. The sensational style of reporting, the dressing-up of disgusting topics in romantic phraseology, though unknown a few years ago, or confined to a few disreputable weekly papers, is fast becoming a distinctive feature in New York journalism. It is a growing evil, as well as a most insidious one, and the keen competition which exists between proprietors of daily journals for popular patronage has a direct tendency to develop it still further. So much, indeed, do our papers, big and little, vie with each other in catering to the depraved taste of a certain portion of the people that it has become a matter of serious consideration with many persons whether they can safely introduce into their families the papers they are obliged to take for business purposes.

It is very safe to assert that too many of those who collect the city and suburban news for the daily press are as devoid of conscience in their method of communicating as they are often shameless in their manner of procuring their information. They seem to think that a reporter, in his official capacity, has no moral responsibility, and act consistently with the supposition. They fairly revel in scandal; consider vice only something to be elaborately depicted in their respective newspapers, and crime, no matter how heinous, a fitting theme for their nimble and facile pens. Their excuse for all this prostitution of ability which might be turned to some good account is that the public demand this highly-seasoned style of reporting, forgetting that they themselves have excited this prurient taste, and that if, repenting of their past misdeeds, they were to return to the old-fashioned method their present admirers would soon follow them.

It is certain that the degeneracy of the newspaper press in this respect is fast sapping the morals of the community, particularly the younger portion of it. Once familiarized with crime of every sort and degree through the florid descriptions of the reporters, our young men and women must necessarily become mentally debased. Their thoughts, unbidden, will stray to matters of which they have lately read, a dangerous curiosity will be excited, and from constant reflection they will begin to lose that horror of sin which is one of the safeguards of virtue, which every pure-minded youth should keep constantly before his eyes. The mind once disturbed, the imagination led astray, every defaulter and swindler, if he be a criminal on a large scale, is apt to appear to them as “a smart fellow”; the betrayer of female innocence, the faithless husband or disloyal wife, as one more sinned against than sinning; and even the murderer, whose sayings and doings are faithfully chronicled, and whose solemn exit from the world is made the occasion of a grand dramatic scene, becomes in some degree a hero and a victim of revengeful law.

Of course it is easier to point out the evils which disgrace the editorial profession, and so materially impair the usefulness of the press, than to suggest an adequate remedy for them. It is useless to appeal to the conductors of newspapers; for as long as Catholics can be abused with impunity, and the moral sense of the community be shocked by vile and obscene descriptions of crime and criminals with profit to themselves, they will heed neither advice nor remonstrance. The cure rests with the public who purchase and support such journals. As far as Catholics are concerned, the true course would be to establish a daily paper of their own, which would reflect their sentiments and opinions, and furnish them with reliable foreign and domestic news collated in unobjectionable style; but this, it seems, is impossible at present. The embarrassed financial condition of the country is opposed to the initiation of such an enterprise. Our only present resource, as long as so many of us must read daily papers, is to concentrate our patronage on that journal which presents the least objectionable features, and, by encouraging it to do better things, prove to its contemporaries by the strongest of all arguments to them—their decreased circulation—that the Catholics of this city and vicinity will no longer pay to be abused and calumniated. But there are many among us who from habit take daily papers with which we can well dispense. We advise them to discontinue their misdirected patronage and bestow it on our struggling weekly Catholic journals. They will thus administer a wholesome lesson to bigotry and immorality, and at the same time give encouragement and life to Catholic serial literature.

There are, however, other and more cogent reasons why the reading of daily papers, now so prevalent, should be discouraged, or at least confined within reasonable limits. There can be little doubt that their constant and persistent perusal is apt to create a distaste for more profound and healthful reading. Drawing our opinions mainly from the hastily composed contributions of overworked correspondents and editors, we are pretty sure to fall into the habit of reaching conclusions and entertaining views of life neither logical nor well considered. Like those who feast overmuch on sweets, we conceive a dislike for solids and as the body suffers in the one case, the mind naturally is impaired by indulgence in the light and meretricious literature of which newspapers are, if not the worst, certainly the most widespread and exemplary, types.

Americans, to paraphrase a well-known expression, are a newspaper-ridden people. We must have some sort of paper at breakfast, dinner, and supper. We are not even satisfied with one each day, but require two or three more every twenty-four hours. The time that should be devoted to the study of good books, wherein can be found solid instruction and food for reflection, is thus too often wasted on the lucubrations and speculations of half-informed men who are as incapable of emitting sound ideas as they are of appreciating the immoral drift of much that daily falls from their own pens. Hence inordinate readers of newspapers necessarily become shallow-minded, superficial thinkers; their intellectual tastes are vitiated, and their judgment is weakened and perverted. Like a shattered mirror, their minds are incapable of reflecting one entire well-defined image, but present only fragments of thought in forms indefinite and distorted. The higher aspirations of our nature, those sublime conceptions which lift us above the grosser things of earth, and, even in this life, bring us nearer and nearer to our Creator, can never be generated by ephemeral newspaper literature. While we may feel compelled by business considerations or a natural political curiosity to glance over the columns of our daily journals, we should not forget that the intellect receives neither health nor strength from prolonged indulgence in such enervating pursuits. Newspapers undoubtedly have their use and mission; they have become an important factor in our present system of civilization, and are capable of accomplishing much good in their own sphere; but their effect and scope are limited, and should be circumscribed so that they be not permitted to interfere with the reading of solid history, the works of our best writers, and the essential duties of life, among which must be considered the pursuit of Christian knowledge and the elevation and purification of the immortal part of our being.

MY FRIEND MR. PRICE. A STORY OF NEWPORT.

The summer was upon me, and with it the yearning for the dulcet plash of the salt sea wave.

“Whither?” became the vexed question of the hour, and Newport made reply to it.

To Newport I accordingly transported myself. I shall not say whether it was last season, or the season before, or even the season before that again. The readers of this narrative must determine the exact date. I refuse point-blank to do so.

Newport was in the height of the season when I entered my humble name, John V. Crosse, Lexington Avenue, New York, on the leaf of the register at the Ocean House.

It was a lovely evening in August, and the piazza of the hotel was crowded with high, mighty, and fashionable humanity. Dinner was a thing of the past, and the drive was looming in the near future. Ladies were chatting in parti-colored groups, men smoking in acrobatic postures. A delicious stillness prevailed—a warm, life-caressing glow. A wooing message from the sea, laden, as it sped upon its errand inland, with the perfume of a myriad glowing flowers, fanned the cheek. The sun shot bars of molten gold between the trellised branches of the slumbering trees, and the indolence of waking repose descended upon everything like a rosy cloud.

I went on the piazza, and, selecting an able-bodied wooden chair, flung myself into it, placing my feet on the iron railing in front of me, ere proceeding to light a cigar. When I had succeeded in emitting half a dozen puffs of my most excellent weed I looked right and left of me.

On my right sat a man of about thirty, or perhaps more, apparently tall, and slender to leanness. He was dark as a gipsy, with coal-black hair waving naturally but sparse upon the temples—he had removed his hat—which had a craggy look. His large eyes were deep-set, while his mouth wore an expression of superb self-complacency. He was clean-shaved, except for a fringe of long, silky black whisker far back upon the cheek, but both moustache and beard were clearly marked by the blue-black shade on his lip and jaw. The man was not ugly—just escaping ugliness by a very narrow margin. He was well dressed in a suit of light Scotch tweed that fitted him like “the paper on the wall,” whilst a certain _je ne sais quoi_ bespoke the Englishman.

On my left lounged a handsome young fellow with clear blue eyes, a fair moustache, and one of the brightest smiles I have ever seen upon a human countenance. He twirled an unlighted cigar between his red lips, and as vehicle after vehicle dashed up to the “ladies’ entrance” fair dames and damosels gave him cheery and gracious salutation, cheerily and graciously responded to, accompanied by the flourish of a rakish little straw hat perched on the side of his superbly-set head.

With these two personages the narrative has much to do.

I sat smoking the one post-prandial cigar allowed me by my doctor, contemplating with indolent satisfaction the fragrant greenery in front of me, when my meditations _apropos_ of nothing were brought up with a sudden jerk by the young fellow on my left asking to be permitted to light his cigar from mine.

Now, as a matter of fact, I have a very decided and deep-rooted objection to surrendering my cigar to anybody, rich or poor, gentle or simple; I like no one to handle it but myself; and therefore, instead of transferring the glowing weed to his expectant fingers, I dived into the breast-pocket of my coat, and producing a tin box containing wax matches, placed it, together with its contents, at his disposal.

“You are an Englishman,” he gaily exclaimed, extracting a vesta as he spoke.

“No, but very English on the subject of the handling of my baccy,” I laughed.

“You are not far astray. You should have seen the tramp that deprived me of a genuine Lopez this morning. I couldn’t refuse him, so I left him the weed.”

“I consider that the——”

“_Per Bacco!_ there she goes,” he suddenly interposed, and, flinging my match-box into my lap, he vaulted over the railing into the carriage-drive beneath.

Two ladies seated in a pony-phaeton flashed past.

“I’m English,” exclaimed my right-hand man, tapping the ash from his cigar with a finger white and delicate as wax, “and I’m glad to find that _one_ American sees the abomination of handing every cad his cigar who chooses to ask for it.”

Being very Starry and Stripey, I was about to defend the practice in vogue amongst my countrymen, although thoroughly against my convictions, when he asked:

“Do you know who that fellow is?”

“What fellow?”

“That long-eared, long-legged jackass who took that railing as if he was at school.”

“I never saw him before.”

“You’ll see him again. I lay seven to two. And I’ll take the odds that he tells you that he’s Grey Seymour, whatever that may be; that he’s over his long ears in love with a Miss Hattie Finche, whom he followed here from Martha’s Vineyard; and that she has five hundred thousand dollars.”

“I suppose that one of the ladies in the pony-carriage was Miss Hattie Finche?”

“The whip—yaas.”

“I wonder can she be a daughter of Wilson Finche, of New York?”

“The tallow-man, Beaver Street and Fifth Avenue?”

“Ay, and Chicago and ’Frisco,” I added.

“That’s the identical geranium.”

“And is Wilson Finche in Newport?”

“He has taken a cottage on the Ocean Drive for the season.”

“I must look him up.”

“Are you acquainted with him?” the languor of manner disappearing, and a vivid interest rushing to the front.

“Very well indeed.”

“And with his daughter?”

“Why, certainly.”

“Stop a minute!” fumbling in his breast coat-pocket. “You’ll introduce me.”

The coolness of this proposition actually staggered me. Introduce a man of whose name even I was in total ignorance!

“I could not venture to do such a thing,” I responded somewhat gruffly. I did not relish the idea of being treated in this off-hand way—of being openly and deliberately made a cat’s-paw.

“Oh! yes, you will. Here’s my card. Let’s have one of yours,” thrusting his pasteboard almost into my reluctant hand.

With very considerable deliberation I searched for my double eye-glass hidden away somewhere in the depths of my capacious waistcoat—I was fat, and fair, and fifty-five at that date—and, carefully wiping it with a scarlet silk handkerchief, adjusted it to my eyes and read:

_Mr. Herbert Price, Temple, London, E. C._

“Let’s have your card,” said Mr. Price, as though I were a tradesman with whom it pleased his high mightiness to have dealings.

“I am not in the habit of”—

“There, now, you’re going to put me aside. Where’s the use? Why wouldn’t you help a poor hungry, briefless English barrister to this piece of gilded gingerbread? You’re not going for her yourself?”

Oho! I inwardly chuckled.

“Not much. I have seen too many of my peers wrecked upon the rock-bound coast of matrimony to permit my argosy within those shallow and treacherous waters.”

“I guessed you were a bachelor,” observed Price facetiously.

“And might I ask, sir, how you were led to imagine this?” I felt curious to hear what the fellow would say.

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Smith.”

“I am not Mr. Smith.”

“Well, Mr. Jones.”

“I am not Jones.”

“Robinson.”

“Your pertinacity, sir, ought to make your fortune at the Old Bailey.”

“Well said, Thompson. Now, you wish me to tell you how I guessed you were a bachelor. Firstly,” putting up his finger and tapping it with his cigar, “your general complacency; secondly, your linen—no married man ever commands the linen of a bachelor; thirdly, your gaiters—such fit, such polish!—fourthly, your isolation; and, fifthly, the methodical way in which you do everything, from lighting a cigar to playing a fantasia on your handkerchief with your nasal organ.”

“I am not aware that I am more methodical than other men of my age and habits.”

“Are’n’t you? Then just watch yourself.”

“You are a very peculiar specimen of your country, Mr. Price.”

“I can return you the compliment; and as one good turn deserves another, you’ll introduce me to Miss Finche.”

“You must excuse me, Mr. Price.”

“But I won’t.”

“I beg to differ from you.”

“We shall see.”

“We shall.”

Mr. Price rose and quitted the piazza, returning after a brief absence.

“Now, Mr. John V. Crosse, of Lexington Avenue, New York, as you say in this queer country, I have posted myself. You are confoundedly rich, living on your dollars, and are not a half-bad sort of elderly gentleman.”

“May I ask to whom I am indebted for this portrait, sir?”

Somehow or other I couldn’t get up a feeling of anger. I tried, but it wouldn’t come.

“The clerk inside. I know you now, and you know me. I am the son of Sir Harvey Price, of Holten Moat, Sevenoaks, in Kent. The Moat is about one of the last of the Tudor residences in England. We have been in that one corner since the battle of Hastings, and the Moat has never run dry since Queen Bess visited us, when the waters were turned off and red wine turned on. I am the sixth son, and poor as a sixth son ought to be. I was sent to the bar because I had an uncle on the bench. My uncle died while I was keeping my terms. I am an honor-man of Oxford, and last year my brief-book showed one hundred and fifty pounds. About ten weeks ago my godmother died; she left me five hundred pounds. I paid my tailor just enough to maintain a doubtful confidence in me, my boot-maker ditto. Like an able general, who always prepares beforehand for a retreat—although Wellington, our best man, failed to do this at Waterloo, having the forest of Soignies at his back—I have paid for the rent of my chambers in advance. I have come here just to ascertain for myself if red Indians are to be met with on Broadway, and buffalos to be potted on Fifth Avenue. This is the story, and here is the man. Will you introduce me to Miss Finche _now_?”

I must confess that the story, brief though it was, and told in a short, sharp, jerky way, somewhat interested me. I had no reason to doubt it, and yet I was too old in the devious paths of the world to accept either the narrative or the man at sight. Surely, if he were so well connected, he should be able to obtain letters of introduction to some persons in society, and then it would be plain sailing enough for him.

“You won’t take me on trust?” he exclaimed after I had said as much to him.

“I have arrived at that time of life, Mr. Price, when I take nothing on trust. I must know my butcher, my baker, my wine merchant, my boot-maker, _et hoc genus omne_.”

“Never mind,” he gaily cried. “You’ll be sorry by and by, when you see me engaged to Miss Finche.”

“You seem to have a tolerably strong belief in your powers of—”

“Audacity. You are right. _Toujours de l’audace._ I am a man of a single idea; the idea at present on my groove of thought is the gold Finche. The lion in my path is Grey Seymour. If he were poor I wouldn’t have a chance; but he has millions, and money doesn’t fall in love with money. Your heiress always spoons on a pauper, while your _aurati juvenes_ go in for penniless governesses. _Ne c’est pas, mon vieux?_ Give us a match. I’ll go and take a swim; and you go and call on Wilson Finche. His direction is—stay; I’ll write it down for you. There!” he exclaimed, handing me a card: “‘Wilson Finche, Esquire, Sea View Cottage, The Cliff.’ You’ll find him at home now, Crosse, and in that beatific condition which is the outcome of a Château Lafitte of the ’54 vintage. _Adios!_”

Obeying the mandate of this very peculiar young man, I strolled down to The Cliff.

The wide sea heaved and plashed beneath me with a dull, dulcet murmur. Away out on its unruffled bosom lay great patches of purple, denoting the passage of some fleecy cloud onwards, ever onwards. White sails dotted the deep green sea like daisies on a dappled field. The shingle caressed by the wooing wavelets was red and brown, while the wave-kissed pebbles flashed in the sunlight. Boats like specks were drawn up on the beach, and sailors were busy with sails and cordage and the impedimenta of their craft.

Finche’s marine residence stood boldly prominent, all corners and gables like an old cocked hat. It was new and pert-looking, and wore the air of a coquette in a brand-new toilette from Worth’s. A ribbon border of glowing scarlet geraniums led from the lich-gate to the Queen Anne porch, whereon sat, or lay, or reclined—it was all three—my old friend, his body in one of those chairs which invalid passengers on ocean steamers much affect, to the envy of all who do not possess the luxury, his feet on a camp-stool, beside him a small marble-topped table, whereon stood a bottle of claret, a crystal glass of wafer-like thinness, and a box of cigars. Price had spoken wisely.

After the usual exclamations of greeting had dried up I complimented Finche on the beauty of the location.

“Yes, sir; it costs money, but what’s money if you don’t get value for it? Thompson—you know Thompson, of Brand & Thompson—that man, sir, has four millions, sir, and what value does _he_ take out of it, sir? A back-room in Thirteenth Street; a breakfast at a foul-smelling restaurant, sir; a five-minute dinner at Cable’s; an unhealthy supper at another restaurant, and half a dozen of newspapers. _That’s_ what _he_ has for his four millions.”

“You are wiser in your generation, Finche.”

“I am wise in this way, sir”—Finche is very sententious, and his shirt-collar is always troubling him—“I must have value for my money. One hundred cents for my dollar is good enough for me. If, sir, I can get one hundred and fifty, so much the better; but, sir, I never take ninety, or ninety-five, sir, or ninety-and-nine, sir. Help yourself to that claret—it’s a Nat Johnson, sir; I paid twenty-five dollars a case for it in the year ’70. It’s value for the money, sir, _I_ tell _you_.”

“You are here with your _Lares_ and _Penates_,” I observed, after some further remarks upon the value of the surroundings.

“What do you mean, sir?” Finche is as ignorant as a chimpanzee.

“Your household gods.”

“Yes, sir. I am here with my daughter and my wife. My daughter gets value, sir, in the hops at the Ocean House, and the nice society she meets with—real bang-up swells, sir. My wife gets value out of the salt water, sir—health, sir, which improves her body and her temper, sir. She is a quick-tempered woman is Mrs. Finche, and when she’s ill, sir, she’s ugly.”

At this moment the pony phaeton which I had observed from the piazza of the hotel dashed up to the lich-gate.

“My daughter and her friend, Miss Neville, an English girl, sir, of a very high family, poor as cheap claret, sir, but proud as a coupon, sir. She’s on a visit to us, but we get value out of her. She sings lovely, sir; you shall hear her. It entertains our swell friends, and thus we strike a balance. The tall one is my daughter, sir.”

I saw a slim but well-proportioned figure, clad in a rich black silk dress, the cut of which, even to my masculine eyes, betrayed the hand of an artist; a face, though not beautiful by any means, earnest and interesting, surmounted by a profusion of little fair curls, arranged, as was the fashion, so as to conceal the forehead; a picturesque hat, a pair of diamond solitaire earrings, and upon the whole a person decidedly “fetching.” Her companion was _petite_, and constructed, as they say of saucy steamers, upon the most perfect lines. She was a clear brunette, and as she swept somewhat haughtily past the glowing ribbon borders I bethought me of Cleopatra, and the passage down the Cydnus of that boat which wrecked the fortunes of the luckless Antony.

Of course I gazed at the possessor of five hundred thousand dollars, as the “penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree” counted for nothing.

“Hattie, this is my old friend, Mr. Crosse, of Noo York, who has come to Newport to take some value out of the summer-time.”

Miss Finche was very gracious, presenting me with a hand encased in a glove of many buttons, and flashing a row of magnificent teeth between each smile.

“Are you a ‘cottager,’ Mr. Crosse?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Are you at the Ocean or the Acquednuk?”

“The Ocean.”

“The other is quieter.”

“There is better value at the Ocean, Hattie,” observed her father.

“One sees everybody worth seeing there. Isn’t the piazza charming, Mr. Crosse?”

“Of its kind, yes; but I would prefer a little of this,” sweeping the horizon with my hand.

“It is very beautiful,” said a sweet, low voice by my side, a voice that “chimed” into my ear—I can use no other word. It was Miss Neville who spoke.

“There is great value to be got out of that view at sunset, sir—yellows and reds, sir, that would set up a painter, if he could only fetch up to the right color and give good value to the buyer.”

Miss Neville imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders, while I winced at this commercial view of marine painting. I wondered what Mr. Hook, R.A., or my rising young friend Mr. Quartly would have said to the man of tallow.

“Hattie, another bottle of this wine, although it’s a pity to drink it on a hot day; one doesn’t get the value out of it. Get into the house, girls; I want to have a talk with my friend Crosse here. What is Bullandust going to do in Lake Shores?” addressing me.

I protested.

“Finche,” I said, “I’ve come down here for sea, and sky, and trees, and _dolce far niente_.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Well, loafing,” I laughed.

“There an’t no value to be got out of that.”

“Isn’t there, though? And I mean to drop Wall Street, and scrip, and shares, and every sort of business. I won’t even look at a newspaper till I choose to go back.”

“You an’t in earnest?” said my host, gazing at me in solemn astonishment.

“A fact, upon my honor.”

“Well, that—say, there’s some one saluting. It’s not me—I don’t know the man. It must be a friend of yours, sir.”

I adjusted my double glass and gazed towards the lich-gate.

A slight sense of shock vibrated through my system. Leaning upon the gate, and nodding at me like a Chinese mandarin, was Mr. Herbert Price, Temple, London, E. C.

“You seem to be having a good time there, my friend,” he gaily cried.

What could I say? What could I do?

“It’s awfully hot for walking.”

“Won’t you step in, sir?” said Finche.

I could not say, Don’t ask this man. Of course a gossip and a glass of wine, and a mere formal introduction to Finche, meant nothing.

“His name’s Price,” I hurriedly whispered—“stopping at Ocean House—London barrister—don’t know him.” Whether these last three words were lost upon Finche or not it is impossible to determine, inasmuch as he took no notice of them whatever.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Price. Any friend of my friend Mr. Crosse is welcome here, sir. Get a chair. Take that other one, sir, with the back to it; you’ll get more value out of it. That’s my principle—take value out of everything. A glass of wine, sir? It’s a Château Lafitte that cost me twenty-five dollars a case in ’70, sir. Touch that gong, sir!”

A servant appeared in obedience to the tocsin.

“Ask Miss Finche to send me another bottle of this wine, then take the empty bottle. Put it carefully by, Mary, as all the bottles have to go back after I have taken the value out of them, which I guess I do,” with a chuckle.

“Did you walk down, Mr. Crosse?” asked Price.

“Yes.” I was on the borderland of indignation. I felt foolish—checkmated.

“You had no difficulty in finding the place.”

“I can always find _my_ friend’s house, Mr. Price.”

“You were dull enough about it on the piazza when we were speaking about Mr. Finche. What a glorious spot you have here! It reminds me of Devonshire. Ah! you American millionaires know how to live.”

“We try to get value out of the world.”

“And you succeed. Your good health, Mr. Finche. Ah!” smacking his lips, “that _is_ wine. What a superb thing to sit beneath one’s vine or fig-tree, drink such nectar as this, and to be able to—pay for it!” with a light laugh.

“You are from London, sir, my friend Crosse tells me.”

I could have flung the contents of my glass into Finche’s face. Price would perhaps think I had been singing his praises.

“Yes, I hail from that little village on the Thames.”

“A lawyer?”

“One of the briefless. I did not choose the profession, I assure you. Like my first frock, it was chosen for me, and I was thrust into it _bon gré mal gré_. I’ll tell you who I am and what I am. I have told my friend Crosse already.” And he summed up the case, much in the same words as he had addressed to me.

Finche was impressed by the mention of the title, and deeply interested in a detailed description of the Moat.

“I am happy to meet you, sir, and should be glad to visit Sir Harvey Price at Holten Moat when I go to England next year, sir. Do you purpose taking much value out of this country, sir?”

Price actually winked at me, and that wink spoke the following words:

“I mean to take five hundred thousand dollars if I can.”

A bell sounded.

“Supper, gentlemen!” said Finche. “Let us get in. No ceremony here, Mr. Price. We have no Moats for three hundred years in our family, although we see them every day in our neighbor’s eye—ha! ha!”

It would never do to have this pickpocket, for aught I knew to the contrary, enter beneath my friend’s roof under the very peculiar circumstances of the case. Had he been an ordinary travelling acquaintance it would not have much mattered, but a penniless adventurer bent upon matrimonial designs—never!

“Mr. Price and I are going back to the Ocean House,” I said in my sternest tone, and in a manner so marked as to bear but the one interpretation.

“What do I hear, Mr. Crosse?” exclaimed Miss Finche, emerging from the interior, arrayed in a bewitching toilette of fleecy white and delicate lilac.

“My dear, this is—”

“I beg your pardon, Finche, but could I—” I burst in.

“This is Mr. Price, of London, a friend of—”

“Finche, I may as well”— But the pompous old ass would have his bray, and Price was conversing with Hattie Finche ere I could utter the words of explanation that were ready to spring from my lips.

“Gentlemen, you would like to wash your hands. Just step up to my _sanctum_. Tompkins” (to a servant), “show these gentlemen to my _sanctum_.”

When the door had closed upon us, “Mr. Price,” I said, “do you call this fair?”

“Everything is fair in love.”

“Bosh, sir! You find in me a man unwilling to wound the feelings of another. I have gained nothing by acting the part of a gentleman.”

“I deny that!” his coat off, his head deep in the marble basin. “You’ve made _me_ your friend for life.”

“And who might _you_ be?”

“I’ve told you. See, now,” his hands dripping, “here,” plunging one of them into the breast-pocket of his coat, which was lying on a bed—“here’s a ten-pound note; spend every shilling of it in cablegrams. You have my own, you have my father’s address. Wire him, wire anybody you like, you’ll have your reply to-morrow. My story will be corroborated in every particular. _That_ ought to satisfy you.”

I shook my head.

“Time with _me_ is money. This fellow, Grey Seymour, is to meet her to-morrow at a garden-party at Mrs. Dyke Howell’s. His millions will come into play, and such heavy artillery will sweep my rusty flint-locks into ash-barrels. A duel with artillery is all very well, but when the batteries are all on one side one side wins. My chances depend on what running I can make to-night. I can talk to women as few men can. It is my faculty. I know where to reach them, and how. It is _nascitur non fit_ with me. I don’t go on Doctor Johnson’s idea of making an idiot of a girl’s understanding by flattery. That is false in theory, false in practice. Now, you are not half bad. Stand by me,” placing his hand on my shoulder, “and, by George! I’ll do something for you yet.”

He was thoroughly in earnest, and hang me if I could refuse him. I suppose it was my bounden duty to have done so. Common sense and common prudence nudged me ere I took his proffered hand, but, heedless of the whisperings of still, small voices, I permitted myself to go with the tide. It was treating my friend Finche badly; it was placing myself in a false, if not a worse, position; and yet—I could not utter that absurdly small word “no.”

The morrow would tell its own tale, for I had resolved upon telegraphing without the assistance of Mr. Price’s ten-pound note, and a few hours could do no possible harm. If Miss Finche were to lose her heart in the space of an evening, she would prove a very noteworthy exception to the great sisterhood to which she belonged.

The addition to her dinner table did not seem to please Mrs. Finche, an emaciated, waspish, red-nosed lady, whose thin lips had an unpleasant twitch in them, and whose bright, beady black eyes darted angrily hither and thither like a pair of beetles in search of prey.

I sat next to her; opposite to me Miss Neville; Finche was at the foot of the table; on his right _my_ friend Price, on his left the heiress.

“What brings _you_ to this fashionable place, Mr. Crosse?” asked mine hostess, the inference being “plain to the naked eye.”

“Well, I thought I’d like to take a peep at the gay goings-on.”

“Ah!” an icy chill in the monosyllable.

Mrs. Finche being very silent, and, if not silent, snappish, I directed my conversation to Miss Neville, whom I found to be absolutely charming. I had travelled a good deal, and, from the loneliness of my life, read about as much as ordinary men, and I discovered, to my most intense pleasure, that there was at least _one_ young girl in the nineteenth century the possessor of ideas above the level of sweet things in sheathe-like costumes, or the latest methods for beautifying the human face divine.

Miss Neville was thoroughbred, and all unconsciously showed her lustrous lineage in every movement, every gesture, every word. Blood will tell, and it spoke its own emblazoned story in the winsome elegance of this “rare bit o’ womankind.”

Mr. Price laughed and talked, and narrated piquant anecdotes, and kept Miss Finche well in hand, causing the host “all the time” to indulge in a vast, expansive smile. Finche was getting the value of his mutton and his claret out of his friend’s friend. He was satisfied. After dinner the young ladies returned to the Queen Anne porch, while the waspish hostess proceeded to take forty wide-awake winks. We mankind talked generally, and, although pressed to remain at our wine, Price and I were glad to get from beyond the range of our host’s perpetual “values.”

As we were seated upon the wooden steps at the feet of the fair ones, gazing out across the wide, wide ocean, gilded with the expiring rays of the setting sun, and canopied by a sky of pale blue merging into delicate green, and again into white, the lich-gate swung back and Grey Seymour swung in.

“What a glorious evening! Are you for a walk on the cliff?” asked the new-comer, eyeing Price and myself as he spoke. “How do?” he added, addressing me.

“Mr. Seymour, Mr. Price,” said Miss Finche, while the two men nodded stiffly.

“A walk on the cliff, by all means; don’t you think so, Maude?” asked Miss Finche, addressing Miss Neville.

“_Comme vous voulez._”

“Let’s go as we are.”

We sallied forth.

“What a nuisance, this fellow’s turning up!” whispered Price angrily. “I shall have to fall back.”

Seymour and Miss Finche led the way. I did the elderly and protecting party.

“I place them in your charge,” were the parting words of mine host. “The youngsters will take value out of one another; _you_ take value out of the whole lot.”

I dropped behind, and proceeded to enjoy the glories of the night in my own way. Soon came that entrancing blue light which steals in between day and dark, and the stars began to throb in the great canopy, and that “hush” which Night sends as her envoy to earth was passing over hill and hollow, and land and sea.

I sat down in a little nook on the cliff—a corner that seemed almost clean out of the world, and as if the earth had suddenly ended there. I thought over many things, and in the _bizarre_ reflections consequent upon the adventures of the day came a dreamy sensation of admiration for the fair young girl whom destiny had thrown beneath the roof-tree of my friend Wilson Finche. I felt strangely interested in her already. Why, I did not ask myself. She was a blaze of intelligence, a mine of intellectual wealth. I do not mean for one second to say that she was a genius, but there was a tone of high culture about her that shed itself like a fragrant perfume.

Miss Finche appeared to me to be a very nice, ladylike, ordinary class of girl—one of those patent-mannered, warranted-to-go-well sort of young ladies who rove at their sweet wild will in the garden of society; but beside Miss Neville she was absolutely colorless.

I sat thinking over the strange freaks of fortune, that give thousands of dollars to some girls, leaving others without a dime, when the sound of approaching voices scattered my reverie to the night breeze that gently fanned my pepper and salt—too much salt—whiskers. I was in a hollow beneath the cliff. The speakers were Grey Seymour and Hattie Finche.

Miss Finche’s tone was cold and resolute.

“I do not love you, Mr. Seymour. I never could. I will not hold out a particle of hope.”

“Don’t say that, Hattie—anything but that. Hope is all I have to live for,” he cried in a quivering, agonized way that made me sad to hear.

“I tell you fairly I can give you no hope.”

“_Try_ and love me. I can make life a dream to you. Your every wish shall be gratified. My whole time shall be spent in anticipating your lightest fancy. O Hattie! do not drive me to despair, desperation.”

She was silent. They had stopped right opposite to where I sat concealed. I frankly confess I was too much interested to think of making my proximity known. It was a mean thing to remain where I was. I reproach myself while I write.

“I do not care for your money,” he raved on. “I have millions, ay, millions at my command, and those millions shall be spent to make your life an idyl.”

“Did I not tell you that I could not care for you last season? Did I not repeat it at Martha’s Vineyard two weeks ago? Now I repeat it again and for the last time. Let us be friends.”

“Friends!” he bitterly cried.

“Yes, friends, and good friends. Why not? In a short time you will wonder you ever were in love with me, and—”

“Never!” he burst in.

“Oh! yes, you will. And, what is more, you will fall in love with somebody else.”

“Do you wish to drive me mad?”

“On the contrary, I wish to bring you to your senses. Listen to me calmly.”

“I cannot.”

“But you must. This passion of yours is a boyish love.”

“It is my life.”

“Nothing of the kind. I don’t want your love. I could not return it.”

“But you won’t try.”

“I will not indeed. I am selfish enough to care for my own happiness, and my happiness—that is, the matrimonial part of it—does _not_ lie with you. You are very fond of me?”

“I—”

“Now, don’t rhapsodize. You would do a good deal to make me happy?”

“Anything.”

“Would you be willing to make a sacrifice for me, if I earnestly asked you?”

“Try me, Hattie!”

“Well, then, I’ll put you to the test.”

“Do,” firmly, resolutely.

“You know Maude Neville. She is young, beautiful, penniless. She hasn’t a friend in the world. Be her friend.”

“What am I to do?”

“Marry her.”

There was a sound as though he had sprung backwards.

“This is insolence, Hattie,” he exclaimed hotly.

“Don’t be silly,” coolly observed Miss Finche, and I heard no more, for they had moved onwards.

This was a strange experience—a woman refusing a man, and then asking him to make love to another. I had read much of the doings of the sex, but this situation beat anything I had ever seen on the stage. Miss Finche’s evident self-possession, not a ripple in her voice, told how truly she spoke when she told the luckless love-sick youth she did not care for him, while the coolness, not to say the audacity, of the proposition almost staggered me. And Miss Neville—was not she to be consulted in the business? I was very much mistaken in my estimate of that young lady if _she_ would haul down her colors at the bidding of any captain afloat, if she had not a mind so to do herself.

When I arrived, all alone, at the cottage, it was to find Miss Finche flirting heavily with Mr. Herbert Price, Miss Neville playing a brilliant fantasia of Chopin’s upon the piano, and, _mirabile dictu_, Mr. Grey Seymour, his face, his neck, his ears in a rosy glow, leaning over her and turning the leaves of the music. Could he have—pshaw! impossible.

“You know Mrs. Dyke Howell?” was Mr. Price’s observation, as we turned out of Sea View Cottage on our way to the Ocean House.

“Very slightly.”

“But you _do_ know her?”

“Well—yes.”

“You’ll get me a card for her garden party to-morrow?”

“Well, considering that I haven’t got one for myself, I—”

“That’s nothing to the point. A man can ask a favor for a friend he wouldn’t ask for himself, you know.”

“But you are _not_ my friend.”

“I mean to be, though. Friendship must begin somewhere, and ours flourishes like Jack’s bean-stalk.”

“’Pon my word, I—”

“There, now, you’ll write for the card to-night: ‘Mr. John V. Crosse presents his compliments to Mrs. Dyke Howell, and would feel much obliged for an invitation for an English friend’—it looks well to have an _English_ friend—‘for her garden party to-morrow,’ or words to that effect. We’ll send it off to-night, and you see, old man, it will get you an invitation as well.”

“You are the coolest hand I ever even read of.”

“Must be. My godmother’s legacy, like Bob Acre’s courage, is oozing out at my fingers’ ends, and I’ve nothing but my return ticket and my audacity to look to. Come, now, Crosse, don’t do things by halves. You’ve introduced me to a very nice family. Can’t say I admire my mother-in-law. What son-in-law does, though? The old boy is no end of a bore, but Hattie is all there.”

“I did not introduce you, Mr. Price; you introduced yourself.”

“Never could have done it but for you; _ergo_, logically, you introduced me.”

To my shame be it said, I wrote a note from the Ocean House to Mrs. Dyke Howell, a haughty lady of cadaverous aspect, and a nose resembling that of the late Duke of Wellington, who believed in that small monarchy called Knickerbockerdom, and in everything high, and mighty, and fashionable.

The cards came without note or comment, and _my friend Price_ and I started for Hawthorndale. He wore a frock-coat that, even irritated as I was, evoked admiring comment, and a tall hat so shiny that I felt I could have shaved by it.

Before starting I telegraphed to Sir Harvey Price, Bart., Holten Moat, Sevenoaks, Kent, England, in the following words:

“Is your son Herbert in America? Is he a barrister? Describe him. Of the utmost importance. Telegraph instantly to

“J. V. CROSSE, Ocean House, Newport, R. I., U. S. A.”

I chuckled as I handed over my greenbacks.

“He doesn’t think I’ve taken him at his word. A few hours will unriddle him,” were my thoughts as we emerged from the hotel. I had seen Grey Seymour that morning _en route_ to bathe. There were black shadows beneath his eyes, and the great brightness which I had so much admired the day before had faded out of his face. What was the issue of that most remarkable conversation?

He was the first person I encountered after passing through the icy fingers of Mrs. Dyke Howell, and much of the old look had returned.

“Have you seen the Finches?” he asked.

“No.”

“By the way, who is your friend Mr. Price?”

“He’s no particular _friend_ of mine—merely a travelling acquaintance. He’s a member of the English bar, and very clever.” This latter assertion I believed in my heart.

“Is he rich?”

“Oh! dear, no.”

“Unmarried?”

“Yes. That is, I believe so.”

“I see him here to-day. I suppose Mrs. Howell knows him.”

I was considerably relieved when young Roadwell, of the Coaching Club, cut in with a query as to a pair of roans which Seymour was about to put under the hammer, and left the pair diving “full fathom five” into the mysteries of horse-flesh.

The Finches arrived later on in full force—Mrs. Finche in yellow and green and red like a mayonnaise of lobster; Hattie in floating white; Maude Neville in black and orange. My friend Price clung to Miss Finche’s side like her breloquet, while Grey Seymour seemed to devote himself to the brunette.

“_Ma foi_,” thought I, “can the convocation of last night have so soon borne fruit? It would not be difficult to fall in love with Miss Neville, but the falling out of it first is the trouble.”

I did not see Price until eleven o’clock that night. He had gone home with the Finches—I was left out in the cold—and returned to the hotel in splendid spirits.

“Anybody there?” I asked with assumed carelessness.

“Nobody but Seymour.”

“Ah! Spooning over Miss Finche?”

“Not a bit of it; it’s over the other one. He was with her all day to-day, and by Jove! sir, to-night they were on the balcony doing moonlight like anything.”

“Where is he? Did you leave him behind you?”

“No; we left together, but he didn’t seem to want me, and—”

“And did _you_ see that?” I sneered.

“Why, of course I did. _I_ wasn’t going to do The Cliffs at this hour. I prefer my cigar on the piazza here.”

I did not see either of my gentlemen the following day, save in a casual way. Seymour appeared to be picking up his good looks, and as the table to which I was relegated was within range of his _quartier_, I could perceive, from the flotilla of plates and dishes around him at breakfast, that his rejection by Hattie Finche had in nowise impaired his appetite.

I was in love once, twenty-five years ago, and I lived on it. A sweet cake and a glass of champagne twice a day kept me in the flesh. I wouldn’t undertake to try that “little game” again. Judging from my own symptoms at that critical period of my existence, I fairly argued that Grey Seymour had either over-lived his passion for the heiress, that he was off with the old love and on to the new, or that his mistress and he had come to an understanding after they had passed beyond my coigne of vantage. I must own I was “sairly and fairly” puzzled. The reply to my cablegram was anxiously awaited. Properly speaking, it was due upon the evening of the day on which I set the wires in motion. Allowing for the difference in time between Newport and London, say six hours and a half, and having despatched it at 9 A.M., I might fairly have reckoned on a reply that night. The Moat, however, was some little distance from Sevenoaks, so I shouldn’t be utterly disappointed were forty-eight hours to elapse ere tidings would reach me. As it was, however, the appearance of every despatch boy sent a thrill of expectation through me, and a pang of corresponding disappointment when I sought the message on the rack under the letter C.

It was upon the second morning that Price came down to breakfast arrayed in nautical costume, deep, dark, desperate blue flannel, with a superb Maréchal Niel rosebud in his button-hole, and a genuine air of festivity in his whole appearance.

“What mischief are you up to to-day?” I asked.

“A sail with my friends the Finches.”

“_My_ friends, if _you_ please, Mr. Price.”

“To be sure; I quite forgot. Doosid nice people. I say, I _am_ making the running, and I mean to win, as we say in the race-course, ‘hands down.’”

“Ahem! It doesn’t follow that if you win the daughter you’ll get over the father,” I observed with a knowing air.

“Oh! I’m not going to trouble myself about _him_. _You’ll_ square him for me.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Price?” almost aghast at this cool impudence.

“I mean that old fogies understand one another. You’ll rub it into him that I am a man of considerable genius; of keen perception, calm deliberation; in the habit of hand-balancing conflicting propositions, a brilliant orator, and that I have tact, which is better than talent, and audacity, which is better than either or both.”

“If I were to speak about you at all to _my_ friend Mr. Finche, I should certainly pay a glowing tribute to this last quality,” sneeringly.

“That’s a good fellow. You’re a brick of the most adhesive quality. You go for Finche when I give you the word. I mean to pop for Hattie the first good chance.”

“Well, really, I—”

“I know what you’re going to say: ‘Man is man and master of his fate.’ Shakspere says ‘sometimes.’ I mean to play the waiting race. The man who can afford it gets three to one in his favor. I can only be beaten by a dash-horse now. Here comes the man whom I imagined was the favorite, and he is not entered for the race at all.”

Grey Seymour joined us, also arrayed in dark blue, a red rose in _his_ button-hole.

“These are our favors,” laughed Price: “Miss Finche yellow, Miss Neville red.

“‘Oh! my love is like a red, red rose that sweetly blows in June!’”

And gaily humming that song which Sims Reeves has made all his own, he lounged out of the immense _salle à manger_, casting criticising glances _en passant_.

I am fond of the sea. I never was sick in my life, and once upon a time thought of running a saucy schooner. Would I, like Paul Pry, drop into this party with an “I hope I don’t intrude”?

The hour was rapidly approaching when I must take action with reference to my friend Mr. Price. He had entered Finche’s house under my _ægis_, and I was bound in honor to protect Finche and Finche’s child. Yes, I would join the yachting excursion _bon gré mal gré_, and in a few straight words tell Wilson Finche exactly how the land lay.

I donned a blue flannel suit—no man goes to Newport without one—and taking an old-fashioned telescope under my arm, went upon the piazza to await the appearance of Grey Seymour, who was still occupied in going through the entire _menu_ for his matitudinal meal.

“A telegram for you, sir,” said the clerk, as I passed the desk.

“At last,” I muttered, as I tore it open.

It was from Lady Price, and dated Holten Moat:

“My son is in America. Barrister. Tall, thin, dark. Black mole under left ear. Scar on right wrist. Telegraph if in trouble.”

At that particular moment Mr. Price appeared on the corridor, engaged in chewing a tooth-pick.

I went to him, and, without a single word, seized his right hand, baring his wrist. The scar was there. I then wheeled him round, and took a rapid and searching look behind his left ear.

“Ah!” he laughed, “looking for the _macula materna_? So you’ve been telegraphing home, you incredulous old codger,” scanning the open telegram.

“Read it,” I said. I should mention that the black mole was in its place.

“Why, you’ll frighten the old lady into fits. Write her at once, Crosse, and tell her I’m as safe as the milk in a cocoanut. Don’t spare your dollars, old man!”

* * * * *

When I left Newport the Finches were still at Sea View Cottage, and my friend Mr. Price on a visit in the house. About six months later I received cards to attend at the nuptials of Miss Hattie Julia Maria Anne Finche to Herbert Price. An attack of the gout prevented my putting in an appearance, but I sent both bride and groom a little present. To the daughter of my old friend I gave a pearl necklace; to his son-in-law a diamond ring, with the words inscribed in raised letters, “_De l’audace. Toujours de l’audace._”

I may mention that Grey Seymour and his charming bride honored me with a visit some time, later on, _en route_ to Europe.

THE PRINCIPLE OF BEATITUDE IN HUMAN NATURE.

St. Thomas defines beatitude, in respect to man, to be “the perfect good in which the natural tendency of the human will to universal good attains complete rest.”[119] This is beatitude objectively considered. Subjectively, it is the actual fruition consequent upon attainment, and rest in the quiet possession, of the perfect good which is the object of volition. This fruition is an immanent act within the nature of the human subject, and must therefore proceed from a principle within the human nature. Nature denotes the same thing with essence, expressing only as a distinctive term its being a principle of activity. By reason of his essence, the human being has within him a principle by virtue of which he desires, seeks, and is impelled by the movement given him by his First and Final Cause toward the attainment of beatitude. As intelligent, universal truth is his object, to which his intellect is connatural; as volitive, universal good is his object, to which his will naturally corresponds.

The idea of universal good is obviously the one which lies at the foundation of this conception of beatitude. It is well known that the notion of good as a universal is one of the transcendental predicates; that is, of those which are outside of everything which does or can mark out any generic ratio, or diversity of kind between any existing or possible beings. Good is not a genus or kind, in opposition to some diverse genera or kinds which are not good; and, _à fortiori_, it is not a species, under which individuals are to be classed as specifically different, by the note of goodness, from other individuals who by their specific difference are something else than good. It is the species which completely determines the essence of every existing thing, and the specific difference which marks its essential unlikeness to other things whose essence is other than its own. Therefore no being can be essentially unlike any other by reason of one being good and the other somehow dissimilar to good. The predicate of good belongs to all genera, and, of course, to all species and individuals, as a universal notion transcending all their respective determining notes, and identifying itself, in the analogical sense proper to each of them, with all and singular of these notes.

Good is whatever is consonant to nature, whatever is a perfection, or subserves to the conservation and increase of a perfection. It is coextensive with being, and identical with it, as are all the transcendental notions, which merely present the same object of thought under various phases. Whatever is thinkable, as an object is an entity; as having its own entity undivided in itself and divided from every entity other than itself, is a unity; as an intelligible entity is a verity; as containing in itself reason for the volition that it should be what it is, it is a good. All these notions are contained in the notion of being, and are as universal as being, which has in opposition to it only nothing, that is, no-being, no-one-thing, no-true-thing, no-good, mere negation and nullity.

We are at present concerned only with actually existing rational nature, in its relation to universal being as the object of its volition, or movement towards the universal good in which it seeks for beatitude. Whatever is consonant to rational nature, gives it perfection or subserves to its perfection, is its good. Good is being regarded in its aspect as something desirable, in which the will can rest with complacency. Every actual, concrete essence is good, as such, because it has being, and in so far as it has being; and it presents, therefore, an object to the will which is desirable and in which it can have complacency. The rational nature is in itself a good as an actual being, and it is a good to itself, or, in other words, it is a good for it that it exists. The universe in which it exists is all good in essence and nature. Universal nature is in consonance with itself, and its laws tend to the perfection, conservation, and augmentation of being, throughout its whole extent. The movement of will in rational nature toward the universal good is only a higher kind and mode of an operation which is common to all nature. Things destitute of sense are put into operation toward the general end of the universe by blind and fatal laws, which receive their impulse and direction solely from the will and motive power of their creator. Those which have sense but not reason are incited to movement by a vital impulse and the excitement of their sensitive faculties by external objects. Rational nature moves itself by intelligence and will toward the good which is its object. Intellect has for its connatural object universal being as verity, and tends toward an adequation between itself and its object. So, likewise, the will in respect to the good of being. This adequation constitutes the beatitude of rational nature, and an approximation to it is an approach toward beatitude which constitutes a greater or lesser degree of imperfect felicity. The principle of beatitude has therefore been pointed out and proved to exist in human nature. The intense longing for it is matter of self-consciousness to every human being. The natural tendency and longing for beatitude cannot have been implanted by the Creator in order to be frustrated. There is no place in the nature of things for any other intention and end of creation, except to produce the good of being in all its grades and orders, according to the determinate measure prescribed by the divine intellect and the divine will. The good of inanimate nature necessarily falls short of any final and complete term in itself, because it does not contain any faculty of apprehension and complacency. Mere sensitive apprehension and complacency in living, irrational beings do not adequately supply this deficiency, because they attain only to the lowest and most imperfect good, in a partial and deficient mode. All nature below the rational, therefore, furnishes only an element, an inchoate and incomplete material substratum for the formal and complete good of created being, which can only possess a final actuality and become an end in itself in rational nature. Material beings have only their own essence and existence, which are exclusive and isolated, determined by necessary laws to merely extrinsic states and movements, in which they are totally inert. They have no return upon themselves and no capacity of receiving any other being into their own. Therefore they can have no self-consciousness or self-activity, no cognition or sentiment. Sensitive beings have a partial return upon themselves by sensation and sensitive cognition, and a limited self-activity. A spirit returns upon itself with a complete retroaction, and can receive other beings into itself according to the mode of the recipient, that is, ideally. It has therefore complete self-consciousness and self-activity, intelligence and volition, and in the human essence, by virtue of the union of the rational part with the animal, it has also a more perfect kind of sensitive life. It apprehends and possesses its own being, and universal being outside of itself, as a verity by intelligence, as a good by volition. When it is perfect and permanent in its natural good, the possession of this good is in itself beatitude. There is no other term or effect which can possibly have the ratio of an end to the intention of the Creator in the creative act, for it is the only complete and final good of being. Created being is nothing but a participation of the uncreated and necessary being, and an imitation of it in the finite order. Finite beatitude is, therefore, a participation of the infinite beatitude of the divine nature, and an imitation of it. God alone is THE BEING, who exists by his essence, and possesses being absolutely and in plenitude. In the same sense in which He alone is, whose Name is EGO SUM QUI SUM, He alone is _good_ and He alone is _blessed_. That is, He alone is good by his essence actually and in plenitude, and is alone by his essence possessed of the plenitude of blessedness.

Boethius defines the eternity of God as “the perfect possession, all at once, of boundless life.” This may answer as a definition of the beatitude of God. His being is living being, in all respects boundless, and so absolutely in act that it is incapable of any increase or diminution. The being of God is essentially good, and an object of complacency. The life of God consists in the act of intelligence and volition in which he knows and wills his own being, as infinitely intelligible and infinitely desirable. For God, to be and to live is to be blessed. The vision of his own essence presents to him an object of infinite complacency in which his will rests with a perfect and eternal quietude. What his essence is, and what that good is which constitutes the infinite beatitude of God, we cannot know except in an analogical manner. The universe of created being is an image and imitation of the divine essence. Whatever being and good we can perceive in the works of God we know must have its archetype in the essence of God, existing in a supereminent mode and an infinite plenitude. Created beauty is something which being seen pleases, in which the will reposes with complacency when it is apprehended by the intellect. Infinite, absolute, uncreated beauty must please infinitely the infinite intelligence which beholds it by a comprehensive vision. This is the nearest approach we can make to a conception of the beatitude of God.

The being of God is the archetype and source of all created being, and his infinite beatitude the archetype and source of all finite beatitude in created, intelligent beings. Creation proceeds not from want but from fulness of good in the infinite Being; not from necessity but from free volition. It is an overflow of power, intelligence, and love, diffusive of the good of being from the boundless sea of the divine essence into the streams which it fills. Its ideal possibility is in the divine essence as imitable, presenting to the divine intelligence innumerable terms of the divine omnipotence, and to the divine will innumerable objects of volition and complacency. The act which brings it out of nonexistence into existence proceeds from the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity equally and indivisibly. The origin of the creative act is in the Father, the medium in the Son, the consummation in the Holy Spirit. The almighty word of intelligence and volition calling the nonexistent universe into existence, proceeding from the Father as the origin of infinite and finite essence, in the Word is the creative ideal and measure of all the intelligible and intelligent creation, in the Spirit is the cause and principle of all created good. The formal principiation of the divine essence, proceeding from the Father and the Son as its active principle, whose term is the person of the Holy Spirit, is pure Love. Love is the consummation of the infinite being of God, and its eternal efflorescence is beatitude, the perfect possession of boundless life which is a boundless good, totally, existing in a present whose duration is without any before or after, without beginning or end or successive parts, and unchangeable by any increase or diminution. It is a maxim of philosophy that operation is in accordance with the nature of the operator. An artist produces a work corresponding to the nature of his art. The work of the Holy Spirit is like himself. The divine essence in his person being love, the consummation of the divine work in creation effected by him must be good; and that good in its last result is beatitude. He is “The Lord and Giver of life.” The life of the intelligent creature is like the life of God. He is finite, and therefore his duration is not eternity. It has a beginning, and a before and after, and its totality is not possessed all at once in one present, but its parts succeed each other without end. Although he cannot possess his past and future at one time, he possesses always his present, which glides with him through all time, and is an imitation of the eternal, ever-enduring present of eternity. The perfect possession of all that constitutes his life, without any fear of losing it, constitutes his beatitude. Divine love, diffusive of the good of being out of its own plenitude, can have no other end in creation, in so far as this end is contained within the creation itself, except the beatitude of intellectual creatures.

The idea from which creation receives its form is in the Word, and intellectual creatures are specially made in his image. In the Incarnation, the Word united to his divine nature a rational nature, consubstantial with that which is common to the whole human race, and allied generically to the highest as well as to the lowest orders of created beings, that is, both to the spiritual and the corporeal extremes of nature. The created nature thus assumed into personal unity with the divine nature in Immanuel, who is the only-begotten Son of God the Father from eternity, has become the nature of God, and as such entitled to receive from the divine nature the communication of its plenitude of being and of good, in so far as this is communicable in a finite mode and measure. The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Son, both in the eternal order of the Trinity and in the temporal order of creation, is communicated to the human nature of Immanuel as the principle of life and beatitude. The hypostatic union of created and uncreated nature in the person of Jesus Christ is the masterpiece of the Lord and Giver of life, the ultimate term of his creative act. The beatitude which he imparts to the human nature of Jesus Christ is the supreme participation of its rational intelligence and will in the divine act of comprehensive vision of the divine essence and infinite complacency in its absolute beauty, which constitutes divine beatitude. The angels were destined to the same beatitude, and, those excepted who forfeited their right by sinning, they have attained it. The human race was created for the same destination, and the elect will receive their perfect consummation in the same sempiternal glory and blessedness which belongs of right to the humanity of the Eternal Son, on the day of the universal resurrection.

It is evident that this supernatural beatitude in God completely fulfils the definition of beatitude given by St. Thomas as _bonum perfectum quod totaliter quietat appetitum_. The object of the rational human appetite, that is, of the will, is universal good, which is in God in the most absolute and perfect plenitude. But universal good is also in creatures by participation, and presents a proper object of complacency to the will in perfect harmony with its primary object of beatific love. Our Lord Jesus Christ in his human mind and human heart not only has the immediate intuition of God and of all things in God, together with the love which accompanies this highest mode of knowledge, but also the mode of knowledge and love which is strictly natural. He delights in the contemplation of the beauty of his own human nature, in the works which he performed through it, in its dignity and exaltation, in the splendor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the angels and the saints, in his entire and universal kingdom both of mind and matter. He delights in loving his companions in celestial glory, and in receiving their love, in radiating light and beauty and happiness all around himself through countless realms of space and numberless multitudes of beings. His human nature was not essentially changed at the resurrection, but only glorified. He has therefore that sublimated corporeal and sensitive life which is proper to the nature which he assumed, with the sensitive cognition and enjoyment resulting naturally from its attributes and faculties.

The kingdom of heaven has therefore its visible and natural as well as its divine aspect. Natural beatitude in the possession of universal created good, in the enjoyment of the works of God, in science, in the sentiment of the beautiful in created objects, in activity, in society and friendship, co-exists with the uninterrupted contemplation of the divine essence, and the perfect quietude of everlasting repose on the bosom of God. The quiet and repose of the spirit in beatitude by no means signifies inaction and the slumber of the faculties. God, who is immutable, is most perfect act, and the first mover of all things. The rest of beatitude is in opposition to the restless inquietude of a spirit which has not found its equilibrium, and is impelled by unsatisfied longings to seek for its perfect good. Its rest consists in its having found its equilibrium in the stable possession of the perfect good. But the presence of the due object to the intellect and the will calls forth their most perfect and intense activity, and the very qualities of the glorified bodies of the blessed saints in heaven prove that they also will be active, and not for ever standing still in one posture or reclining indolently on grassy meads, as some seem to imagine is the Christian belief. It is indeed most difficult to form any imaginary pictures of the future life which are in any way satisfactory to reason. But whatever we can represent to ourselves by such efforts which can give some idea of a glory and a beatitude worthy of rational beings in a perfect state, assuredly will be realized in a way far beyond our conceptions.

The aim of the foregoing exposition has been to prepare the way for presenting, in the natural element which exists in supernatural beatitude, that which is the purely natural good due to the intellectual nature left to itself in its own native sphere, the underworld below heaven. We call this sphere of pure nature native to the intellectual nature in general, because it belongs there by virtue of its essential being, prescinding from any higher destination given to it gratuitously, whether simultaneously with its original creation or subsequently to it. It is an underworld relatively to the supernatural order whose last complement is in the hypostatic union realized in the Incarnation. The state of pure nature in respect to the only species of simply intellectual or rational creatures known to us, is treated by Catholic theologians in a merely hypothetical manner; as a possible state, in which angels and men might have been constituted by the Creator, or in which he could, if he pleased, place other beings generically similar to angels or men, in other spheres of the universe which are distinct from our earth and the celestial abode of the angels. Whether there are now or ever will be such beings, inhabiting the numerous worlds with which the vast extent of real space is filled, can only be matter of conjecture. But the human species, and the hierarchy of pure spirits with which it is in present relation, were destined for the supernatural order immediately depending from the royal seat of Immanuel, the sovereign head of the host of deified intelligences, as its centre. In respect to the human race, therefore, the state of pure nature is presented under another aspect as a state of lapsed nature, and the sphere of the underworld is its native sphere actually and by virtue of natural generation, by reason of a fall and a sentence of deprivation. On this account, the permanent future state of all human beings who are finally excluded from heaven, in Christian eschatology is primarily considered as a state of loss. Whatever felicity is possible in this state appears as something remaining from the original destination of mankind, and not as the complete good of human beatitude. For this reason, we have presented first the total ratio of beatitude in respect to human destiny, before considering what remains after the sum of supernatural good has been deducted.

Substantially, the state of lapsed nature as denuded is the same with pure or nude nature. The question of the object and nature of pure natural beatitude is the one to be decided, in order to determine what amount of good in the endless life of human beings who lack the beatific vision of God is conceivable and possible. There is only one serious difficulty in this question. It arises from the consideration of the very essence of intelligence as related to the universal truth, and will as related to the universal good. The intellect, as such, by its very nature, seeks for the deepest cause, and for an adequation with the intelligible being of its universal object, and the appetite of the will follows it. How, then, can the intellect rest in any object except the absolute, necessary, infinite essence of God, apprehended by a clear and immediate intuition, or any other object but this perfectly quiet the appetite of the will? It is evident that if the intellectual nature, as such, has in it an exigency and a longing which cannot be satisfied with any good to which its faculties are commensurate, beatitude is something essentially supernatural. In this case, the natural order must be merely inchoate, potential, needing to be completed by the supernatural. Intellectual beings could not, then, be created for a purely natural end and destiny; the only end suitable and fit for them would be that which reaches its consummation in the beatific vision. Defrauded of this in any way, even without any voluntary fault of their own, they must be miserable during eternity through the suffering of the pain of loss, or at least continue for ever in a state of arrested and imperfect development, in which absence of suffering would be due only to insensibility, with an imperfect kind of felicity similar to that which men possess in this earthly condition, from the common enjoyments of human life.

We deny, however, that there is any exigency in created nature for the supernatural good. The difficulty above stated, that God is necessarily the supreme object of the created intellect and the created will, we answer as follows. Intellect, by nature, seeks God, according to its own mode and measure. The operation of the will is determined by the intellect. _Nil volitum nisi prius cognitum._ The divine intellect, which is the divine essence considered as intelligent subject, is in adequation with the divine essence considered as intelligible object. God has immediate, comprehensive cognition of himself by his essence. Every created essence is infinitely different from the divine, and therefore has an operation intrinsically unequal to the act in which the divine life consists. _Operatio sequitur esse._ The being of an intelligent creature is within the order of the finite, of the imitated, participated existence, activity, enjoyment, which is a diminished image of the archetypal reality in the Creator. All this is within the circle of nature, and when this circle is perfect, including whatever belongs to it, there is no exigency of anything beyond. The knowledge of God, not as he is in his essence, within his circle of immanent being, but as he is in the terms of his creative act, in the universe, in the intellectual light and intelligible essence of the created spirit itself, is within the circle of nature. As the Author of nature he is knowable and lovable, by perfect and well-ordered faculties of pure nature without grace and without defect. Natural beatitude does not require the immediate and intuitive, but only the mediate and abstractive cognition and contemplation of God, and does not exact any kind of union of the will to God as the sovereign good, except that which terminates by natural sequence its own rightly directed and completed spontaneous movement. Even now we can find God by reason, and take complacency in his perfections. Much more can beings of a higher perfection attain to the knowledge of God in a manner proportionate to their kind or degree of perfection, and with a complacency corresponding to their knowledge, if their intelligence and will are rightly co-ordinated, and directed toward their proper object. As respects the universal verity and good of being in the created universe, there is no difficulty whatever in supposing that it can be attained within any finite limits, in a state of pure nature.

This inferior sphere of natural beatitude being thus theoretically possible, it is most reasonable to suppose that all human beings who at the general resurrection are dispossessed of any right to the kingdom of heaven, and at the same time free from all actual sin, receive their ultimate destination in such a sphere. There is no reason in the order of justice why they should be deprived of any perfection or good of which they are naturally capable. In the “restitution of all things,” the ἀποκατάστασις, there will be no deordination left in the universe, and no imperfection of order belonging to an inchoate condition of nature. _Venit dies, dies tua, in quâ reflorent omnia._ Inanimate creation will become resplendent with the beauty which the last touches of the divine Artist have given to his consummate work. The influence of the life-giving Spirit will be poured in a full torrent through all parts of the universal realm of living being. In this general restitution we may be certain that the thousands of millions of human infants who have never attained to the use of reason in this world, and have never received the grace of regeneration, will be raised up, by the bounty of their Creator, in the full perfection of their human nature, both corporeal and intellectual, to live for ever in the enjoyment of all the good which is due to pure nature, participating in their own inferior degree in that excellence and felicity which in its highest perfection belongs to the blessed in heaven as an adjunct of their supernatural glory and beatitude. Moreover, it is altogether congruous to the order of redemption in Jesus Christ, and probable, that they will receive, in common with the whole creation, their own special benefit and increase of natural good, through the Incarnation. There is no obstacle in their nature to the reception of any good except that of the beatific vision. They may, therefore, enjoy the vision of the glorified humanity of the Lord, worship him and love him as their creator and benefactor, see and converse with the angels and saints, and in every respect enjoy a better and more desirable immortality than that which would be possible in another system of divine providence which did not contain a supernatural order.

Besides those who die in infancy, there are many adults who may be considered as on the same level with infants in respect to moral responsibility. Balmes proposes the opinion that a large proportion of the most ignorant and spiritually undeveloped part of mankind, especially those who are born and brought up in a low state of barbarism, never attain the rational level of a well-instructed Christian child of five or six years old, who, nevertheless, is regarded in Catholic theology as incapable of mortal sin.[120] Among the whole multitude of those who are destitute of the ordinary means of salvation, each and every individual either has the use of reason sufficiently for full moral responsibility, or he has not. If he has not, he is, in the moral relation, an infant, at most capable of venial sin; but if he has, either he has divine faith sufficient for obtaining salvation, or the sufficient grace and means for attaining the faith, or neither of these requisites for working out his salvation by his own voluntary efforts. In this last case his lack of faith is no sin, and he is only accountable for the observance of the natural law according to his own conscience. If he keeps this natural law, he is subject to no eternal penalty besides the privation of supernatural beatitude. All men, therefore, who really incur the responsibilities and the risks of a moral probation, have an opportunity of meriting heaven, or at least of attaining that natural felicity hereafter which is the lot of infants who die without baptism.

From all these premises we deduce one general conclusion, that the notion of a doom to everlasting infelicity and misery, which is a dire and inevitable calamity involving the great mass of mankind, by reason of the state in which they are born into this life, is a chimera of the imagination, and not any part of the Catholic faith or a just inference from any revealed doctrine. The sufferings of those who have not deserved punishment by their own voluntary transgressions of the divine law are temporary, disciplinary, intended for a final good, and in the end abundantly compensated. Many of the sufferings which have the nature of punishment are condoned altogether, and many others are temporary and in their last result beneficial to those who are subjected to their infliction. No rational and immortal being is permanently deprived of the proper perfection and good of his nature by fate or destiny, or by the arbitrary will of the Creator and sovereign Lord of the universe. The order of reason and justice of itself produces only universal good, and this universal good embraces the private and personal good of each individual being, except in so far as he has freely and wilfully made himself unfit and unworthy to participate in it. Eternal retribution is awarded solely to personal merit or demerit in proportion to its quantity. Outside of the order of just retribution, there is no action of God upon his creatures except that of pure goodness and love, bestowing gratuitously, unmitigated good without any mixture of evil. The desire for permanent beatitude in endless life, and the natural principle of beatitude implanted in every rational nature, are not frustrated and thwarted through any deficiency in nature, or failure of divine Providence to carry out his original design and intention to its complete and ultimate term. The only failure is in the free and concreative cause to which God has given dominion over itself and its acts and the effects of those acts, with power to produce in prescribed limits as much or as little good as it chooses. This free cause is free-will, which is the only cause, in every rational creature finally deprived of his original right to beatitude, of the state of irreparable privation in which he is placed by the “restitution of all things.” The restitution brings all nature into order and to perfection, in so far as each thing in nature is receptive of its proportionate good. Rational nature is receptive according to its rational appetite or the attitude of the will. Those rational beings who have determined themselves to a state of volition contrary to the order of reason and justice are, in so far as they are affected by this state, receptive only of a violent reaction of order against their will, repressing and confining their inclination to a perverse activity. The privation of beatitude is co-extensive with the contrariety between the will and the permanent, irreversible order of reason; and this contrariety is proportional to the misuse of freewill by sinning during the term of probation. Their evil is nothing but spoiled good, and they are themselves the spoilers. It is through no defect of goodness in God, or deficiency of good in the order of nature, that they are what they are. Every thing and every person in this order is in the right place and the due relation, according to the highest reason and the most perfect justice. God has made all things well, they are what they ought to be, and there is no flaw or defect in the _bonum honestum_ of the universe. God must take complacency in the fulfilment of his own wise and just will, and every rational being must concur with intellect and will in that which God wills. This is precisely what St. Thomas affirms when he says that the beatitude of the just will be increased by their knowledge of the eternal punishment of sinners, and there is no sense or reason in the diatribes of rationalists against him or any other theologian who does not overpass the limits of Catholic and rational doctrine on this head.

Another conclusion which may be reasonably deduced from sound theological principles and probable opinions is, that the majority of mankind, and of rational beings in general, are in a state of perpetual felicity in the world to come. There is no reason whatever for supposing that more than a third part of the angels fell with Lucifer. It is probable that the greater number of adults who live and die in the faith and communion of the church are finally admitted into heaven. We cannot deny that numbers of those who have lived under the natural law, without any explicit faith in Jesus Christ, have been also saved by extraordinary grace. Nor is it possible for us to determine what proportion of the great mass remaining may eventually attain some degree of inferior natural felicity similar to that which is the lot of infants dying in original sin. The number of infants who have received baptism and have died before the use of reason at least equals the number of the baptized who have attained adult age, and to these must be added all those who died in infancy before the sacrament of baptism was instituted, and had received remission of original sin under the ancient covenant of grace. The entire multitude of infants who have died since the beginning of the world at least equals the number of adults, and it is therefore certain that the majority of all human beings will possess in the future life either supernatural or natural beatitude. There is no reason, therefore, for the supposition that the Christian and Catholic doctrine represents the vast majority of human beings as destined to a state of everlasting misery. If any one is disposed to entertain the hypothesis that the universe is filled with a multitude of rational beings who are neither angels nor men, whose number bears a quantitative proportion to the physical magnitude of the vast cosmical system of the starry heavens, there is as much reason for supposing that they are all eternally good and happy as for supposing that they have existence. In respect to mere extensive and numerical quantity, the amount of good resulting from the creative act of God far surpasses the sum of that possible additional good which has been frustrated by the failure of free, concreative causes to co-operate with the first cause toward the great, final end of creation. In reality, the absolute, eternal decrees of God are not in any way frustrated by the failure of a certain number of creatures to attain the good for which they were destined. They leave no gap in the universal order which the foresight of God has not filled up. Their loss is exclusively their own, and their sins have only furnished an occasion for bringing out of the evil which they have attempted a far greater good than they could have effected by a faithful co-operation with the will of God, greater glory to the Creator and to the universe, more splendid merits in the just, a more magnificent exhibition of wisdom and love in the cross, through which the divine Redeemer of men triumphed over sin and death. “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and in hell; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.”[121] The perfection of the whole creation, in subordination to the sphere of supernatural glory inhabited by the sons of God, is also clearly declared by St. Paul to be a consequence of the exaltation of Jesus Christ through the cross. “For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groaneth, and is in labor even until now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.”[122]

Satan himself, with all those whom he has seduced into sin in the mad hope of thwarting the divine work of the Incarnation, has only contributed by his efforts to destroy the universal order, under the overmastering intelligence of God, to increase its splendor. In the end he will be found to have wound himself up by going around in his circuit. A few years ago there was a bear in the Central Park, who was permitted to live on a grass-plat, fastened by a long chain to a stake in the middle. By going continually round and round his post, he used to wind himself up so tightly that he could not stir. Satan is like this bear. His great achievement, and masterstroke of policy, was the crucifixion of the Son of God, by which he was exalted and obtained a name above every name, before which every knee _in hell_ shall bow and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. This is the one great example of the universal action of divine Providence in bringing out of all evil a greater good than that which the evil destroys or prevents.

St. Paul anticipates an objection, which is likely to occur to some minds, in respect to the justice of God in the unequal distribution of grace, and the withholding of mercy from those whom he permits to work out their own final perdition. “Thou wilt therefore say to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will?” The answer is a rebuke of the presumption of those who pretend to dispute the sovereign right and dominion of God over his creatures, and thus in reality make the divine Majesty subservient and responsible to his own subjects. “O man, _who art thou that repliest against God_? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor?”[123] The whole mass of mankind being destitute of any right to supernatural grace and beatitude, there can be no complaint against the sovereign will of God for conferring the grace of regeneration upon some and withholding it from others. None of those who have made themselves positively unworthy of everlasting glory by their sins are entitled to mercy. That God withheld all hope of pardon from the fallen angels and gave that hope to men, that to some sinful men he gives more grace than to others, and that he compels those who rebel against him to glorify him against their will in their own defeat and the overthrow of all their plans, is no ground of complaint against the divine justice. “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated”; that is, loved less, and excluded from certain special, gratuitous blessings bestowed on Jacob. “What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? _God forbid!_” No creature is made to suffer without sufficient reason or deprived of any natural or acquired right. But in respect to gratuitous gifts, and especially graces conferred upon the unworthy, God is absolute master. “For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It enters into the very notion of grace and mercy that they should be purely gratuitous. The whole order of grace in respect both to angels and men is purely gratuitous. It is therefore absurd to argue from the justice and goodness of God, and from the superabundant mercy which he shows toward sinners in this world, especially when they are within his special circle of grace, the Catholic Church, that he will give grace or show mercy after the day of judgment, in derogation of the order of justice. It was a purely gratuitous act of goodness in God to elevate human nature by the hypostatic union, and to give angels and men a share in the privileges of the sacred humanity. The rewards conferred on merit in this order are indeed rewards of justice, but the whole basis of the justice by which glory is proportioned to merit is laid in a gratuitous grant of the very conditions of merit, the grace which made it possible, and the promise of reward on which the title to the kingdom of heaven rests. Absolute, indefeasible, personal right to the glory of heaven does not exist except in Jesus Christ the Lord, who is a divine person, and whose merits are infinite and equal to all the benefits conferred by the Father upon creation. The rights of all those who share with him, the Blessed Virgin Mary included, have been conferred by him upon them. The beatific vision is a pure boon of goodness to every creature who attains its possession. All might have been left in their natural state without any possibility of attaining it, without any derogation of the order of eternal law in respect to intellectual nature. There is no reason, therefore, why the number of the elect, once completed, should ever be increased, or the gates of heaven reopened to admit new citizens and princes of the celestial Jerusalem. Those who have never forfeited a right to admission through their own fault have no reason to bewail their exclusion.

Those who have lost their right cannot possibly hope to recover it, because they are left in their despoiled nature, utterly impotent to turn back toward the supernatural good, deprived of all grace and beyond the reach of the economy of mercy, which has passed away for ever. In respect to supernatural life they are dead, and as incapable of resuscitation by any effort of their own as a corpse is incapable of repossessing itself of the soul which has departed from it. The ἀποκατάστασις is not a resurrection to spiritual life in grace, for this belongs to the preceding, initial order of regeneration which has terminated with the end of the present world. The bodily resurrection and restitution of nature gives only to human beings the complement of the life which they already possess, whether supernatural or merely natural, and to the physical universe its complement of perfection in the eternal order. The angels remain intrinsically unchanged in their spiritual, incorruptible nature, as God made them in the beginning. The holy angels continue in the possession of the supernatural mode of being which they acquired by their free and active co-operation with grace, before the probation of man commenced, without any increase of essential glory and beatitude. The fallen angels remain in the state into which they voluntarily precipitated themselves at the same time. The change which takes place at the end of human probation is, for the angels, only extrinsic. The holy angels cease to combat with the demons, and to minister in the economy of redemption. The demons are compelled to desist from their war against Immanuel and his kingdom, and are relegated to their destined abode. All human beings are placed in the state and condition in which they are to remain for ever, those who have followed the demons in their rebellion in a state similar to theirs, as those who have obeyed God are in a state similar to that of the holy angels. It is this part of the Christian doctrine which Origen wholly misunderstood. He may be excused from wilful and contumacious heresy, on account of the paucity of means at his command for learning the complete doctrine of the apostles, and the modest, hypothetical manner in which he proposed his erratic theories. We may also give him the benefit of the doubt respecting the entire purport of what he really and persistently did teach out of all that mass of wholly uncatholic and in a great measure absurd opinions, so justly condemned by the patriarchal synod at Constantinople in its fifteen anathematisms, and in a general way by several subsequent œcumenical councils. It is impossible to doubt, however, that one fundamentally erroneous conception was fixed in his mind, and gave occasion to the fanciful hypotheses of aeons and ages, and transitions of spirits up and down through the scale of being. This conception was an exaggeration of the freedom of will inherent in rational nature. Because no creature is either holy or wicked by his essence, but every one is capable of good or evil, he argued the perpetual flexibility and vertibility of free-will between good and evil. Permanence in good must therefore be attributed only to a habit of right determination, and permanence in sin to an opposite habit or obstinacy of purpose to do wrong. Perhaps his various and apparently conflicting statements can be reconciled, if we suppose that he admitted the actual perseverance of some in holiness through a kind of moral impeccability acquired by long and persistent efforts, with a consequent eternity of unchangeable beatitude; and an opposite state of irreclaimable perverseness in others with everlasting misery as its necessary penalty. Those who are in the middle between these two extremes are then variable, vacillating between the opposite poles of moral good and evil, happiness and infelicity, at least during indefinite periods of duration. Our modern rationalistic Christians to a certain extent are involved in the same imperfect philosophical notions which Origen, in the lack, of a Christian philosophy, borrowed from Neo-Platonism. They do not understand the nature of grace, which gives immutable holiness and impeccability as a perfection to a created essence which in itself is capable of defect. Hence, they cannot get a clear idea of a permanent state of indefectibility in good except as a moral habit resulting from a series of acts. Nor can they understand the opposite state of deficiency and privation as something permanent in itself, apart from the habit of sinning which has been contracted by acts of sin and may be removed by contrary acts under the influence of moral discipline. They choose to consider the state of those who become perfectly good, here or hereafter, and attain the felicity of heaven, as something fixed, because it is agreeable to the feelings to think so. They also strive to make the prospects of those who are not very good, and even of those who are very bad, as hopeful as possible, in view of a certain, or probable, or at least possible, future conversion at a more or less remote æonian period, because it is likewise agreeable to the feelings to anticipate this happy change. Moreover, they are very willing to accept the teaching of the Bible and the Christian tradition concerning the eternity of heaven, without seeking too anxiously for metaphysical or moral demonstration of its intrinsic credibility, because it satisfies the natural desire of the heart for perfect good. We do not deny that there is some truth in their reasonings concerning acquired habits of virtue and vice, but they are defective as an argument for the determination of the future destiny of souls. The certainty of a fixed and immutable state of sanctity and beatitude for the just in heaven does not depend either on these reasonings, or on an exegetical and critical interpretation of certain words in Holy Scripture. It has a deeper foundation. The human soul of Jesus Christ is impeccable because of its indissoluble union with the divine nature in his person. The angels and saints are impeccable because they also are united to God by an indissoluble union. The Holy Spirit is in them as the principle of their spiritual life. They love God above all things by a happy necessity, and their intuitive vision of his essence, the infinite good, with the perfect quietude of the will in the enjoyment of this good, raises them above all possibility of attraction toward any object which could allure them from their willing worship and allegiance to their sovereign Lord. Moreover, they actually possess the inferior good in the most perfect manner, with an unbounded liberty to follow all their inclinations, which are all innocent, in conformity to reason, and identical with the will of God. The indestructibility and immortality which belong to their essence as spirits, by nature, pervades their entire actual being with all its accidents, so that they are incapable of suffering any deterioration or injury.

In the natural order of beatitude, the perfect intellectual cognition of God accompanied by perfect natural love to him as the most perfect being, together with the complete possession of all connatural good, removes all tendency to evil. Nature seeks good by a necessary law, rational nature by its spontaneous, voluntary movement. No rational being seeks evil gratuitously or for the sake of evil, but only under the aspect of good, not _sub ratione mali_ but _sub ratione boni_. Where no illusion is possible, no sin is possible. Liberty of choice between the contraries of good and evil is not intrinsic to liberty of will, or a perfection of liberty, but a defect. It belongs to a defective order and to a defective subject, an order of probation and a subject placed under a trial of his obedience. The order and the subject are arranged to suit each other. The subject is required to move toward his end by using his reason and will rightly, and concurring with the Creator in bringing the inchoate order of creation to its due perfection. The order is such that it is not yet perfect, but capable of being made so by the operation of free, intelligent beings upon it. When the time of the end is reached, in the ἀποκατάστασις, this moral order is superseded; there is nothing which can be injured or abused or misdirected. Intelligent creatures which are made perfect have no more scope for election between contraries; their spontaneous and voluntary action is necessarily toward the true, universal good, and their liberty of choice has no possible terms which are not within the circle of order. They cannot think or will otherwise than right, because they are perfect and all things which come in contact with them are perfect. In this way they are brought into a similitude with God. He is what he is by necessity of nature, though he is most pure and simple act, wholly free from any extrinsic limitation or intrinsic contradiction to his will. He does what he will beyond his own being, but only that which is good. It is a perfection of his will that he cannot sin, as it is of his intellect that he cannot err or be ignorant. Falsehood and evil are nothing, and cannot terminate a divine act. _Bonum ex integrâ causâ, malum a quovis defectu_—Good is from complete cause, evil from any defect. God is absolute, infinite, first cause, and no defect in his causality is possible. Second causes, when they possess and exert their integral causality, are deficient in nothing which belongs to them. All those beings which are constituted in their ultimate perfection are in this integral state, and therefore are above all liability to evil throughout eternity.

This flexibility and vertibility in respect to good and evil, imagined by Origen as perpetually inherent in rational creatures, is a mere figment of his imperfect philosophy. He had scarcely any books to read which could help him to satisfy his unbounded curiosity to penetrate into the rational sense of the doctrines of revelation. Besides the Scriptures themselves, there was only pagan philosophy for him to study. Our modern philosophers have cast away the Catholic theology and philosophy, and strive to reconstruct the higher science for themselves, though with very poor success. The old Protestant theology was a doctrine of cruel, inexorable fate, which suppressed all freedom and justice in the moral order. The new theology which has subverted it restores the freedom of the will, and protests against the gloomy exaggerations and perversions of Christian dogmas which make them incredible and insupportable. But, in the effort to substitute more rational ideas, it overthrows or weakens the stability of the whole order of creation in its relation of dependence on the sovereign power and will of God. The wisest and most sober of those who are seeking for some stable and certain doctrine regarding the destiny of man and the final cause of creation, confess that they are in doubt and cannot solve the most momentous of the problems which force themselves on their attention. They never will find the light of truth until they return to the true church of Jesus Christ, and by her lamp recover the lost clew which guides the steps of the wayfarer through the labyrinth. The one dark mystery which like a cloud overshadows the bright disc of light “which enlighteneth every man coming into this world,” the mystery of moral evil and its punishment, cannot be ignored or reasoned away. Catholic theology does not create this mystery but finds it existing. It cannot remove it, but it, so to speak, absorbs it in another, the mystery of moral probation. And this mystery, awful as are the responsibilities and risks which it presents to view as environing those beings who are called to run and to contend for the supernal prize upon the arena, has in it more of light than of darkness. It throws new splendor upon the ἀποκατάστασις in which the order of reason and justice finally and universally triumphs. Its dark spot is reduced by the exposition of the Catholic doctrine as authoritatively taught by the church, in connection with certain or probable and permissible reasoning from revealed or rational premises, to its smallest limits. The gloom of doom and fate in the destiny of rational beings is scattered like an unwholesome mist from the swamps of error, in the light of this doctrine. The universality and perpetuity of the struggle and danger of probation are reduced to the limits of a relatively small number and brief period of duration. The numerical proportion of the losers to the winners in the strife is reduced to the lowest terms which are consistent with a fair and judicious estimate of the probabilities of the question. Moreover, the multitude of beings, whether greater or lesser, who suffer eternal loss as the penalty of their irreparable failure, are not losers through mischance or inferiority to competitors, as in a strife where one person wins at the expense of a less capable or less fortunate rival. Neglect or contempt of their own supreme good, deliberate and wilful wasting of their day of grace, are the sole causes of their failure. Their loss of beatitude is the penalty of their demerit. It is equally proportioned to their ill-desert, and this is limited to the sins committed during the time of probation which have never been remitted. The demerit of the angel which determines his eternal destiny is the demerit of one act only, the sin by which he fell from grace. The demerit of the man is confined to the sins of his mortal life unforgiven at the moment when this life ceases. The notion of an eternal increase of demerit, and a corresponding augmentation of torment without end, is a mere human invention without any foundation in Catholic doctrine. God has set bounds to the dangerous liberty of choice between good and evil, and to the evil as well as the good resulting from its exercise. Hell can become no worse than it is when the last sentence of the Judge has been pronounced, and the active hostility of the powers of hell against the kingdom of God is suppressed for ever when they are made to bend the knee before the name of Jesus, and to confess his glory. “Qui crucem sanctam subiit, _infernum confregit_.” The unending warfare between good and evil, the perpetual strife, the infinite series of changes, the eternal fluctuations and revolutions of Neo-Platonic philosophy, are a wild dream. The inventions and exaggerations and distortions produced by the working of the human intellect and imagination upon a mystery of God, have no value and are not to be confounded with the revealed truth made known through the teaching of the church. Clear and adequate knowledge of the future life is reserved for the future life. In the obscurity of this present state we not only have the veracity of God as the motive and ground of faith, but also the perfect, unerring intelligence of the human soul of Jesus Christ as the medium of transmitting to us the revelation of those things which are not seen but believed, and its pure love for humanity as the warrant of confidence in the divine goodness. Human reason and justice, impersonated in their ideal and integral perfection in union with the divine wisdom in Immanuel, will be the standard and measure of the final judgment by which the destiny of all men and all creatures will be determined for eternity. We need not have any misgivings, lest the ways of God should not be vindicated before the whole rational universe.

Footnote 119:

These are not the exact words, but they express the exact sense of St. Thomas in the following passage: Beatitudo est bonum perfectum quod totaliter quietat appetitum.... Objectum autem voluntatis, quæ est appetitus humanus, est universale bonum. _Summa Th._, 4, ii. q. 2. a. 5.

Footnote 120:

_Mélanges_, French translation, vol. i. Essay on the Maxim, No Salvation out of the Catholic Church.

Footnote 121:

Philipp, ii. 8-11.

Footnote 122:

Rom. viii. 19-23.

Footnote 123:

Rom. ix. 19-21.

ENGLISH STATESMEN IN UNDRESS. EARL DERBY, JOHN BRIGHT, AND MR. GLADSTONE.

The recent resignation of Earl Derby was an act entirely characteristic of the man. He is not at all like Mr. Gradgrind, but he reminds one very forcibly of that unamiable stickler for, and worshipper of, facts. Let one come to Earl Derby with a new fact, or, better still, with a new application of old facts, and he is sure of a patient, candid, and intelligent hearing; but if he approaches him with a theory, or a sentiment, or a hypothetical conclusion based upon “ifs,” Earl Derby will be as unresponsive and immovable as a statue. His ruling passion is to be, or at least to appear, positively practical; the phrase most often on his lips is “common sense.” His illustrious father was a writer of established fame; a gay man of the world; fond of society and proud of his popularity with “the sex”; a captivating orator and an extremely skilful Parliamentary debater; moreover, he did not disdain to stoop to tricky devices when sober argument and sound reason would not ensure success. The present Earl Derby is prosaic to an almost painful degree; he cares little for society, and has not even “a redeeming vice”; his political and personal honesty is unimpeachable; he is as incapable of wilfully deceiving or misleading a foreign diplomatist as he would be of cheating his butcher; his speeches, in and out of Parliament, are models of wise dulness and calm force; they may in vain be searched through and through for a flight of fancy or an extravagant expression; and as for a joke—his lordship, as seen and heard in public, is apparently incapable of either making or understanding one. Sometimes those listening to him are tempted to laugh at him; but he never invites them to laugh with him. To hear him discourse for forty minutes at a time upon the comparative advantages of closed and open sewers, or demonstrating, with mathematical exactness, the superiority of natural manure over artificial compounds, is instructive, but it is not exhilarating. Lord Derby, however, is not without ideas. It was he who furnished Mr. Disraeli with a popular cry in 1874, when, hard pressed for a policy, and finding that appeals concerning the Straits of Malacca failed to fire the popular heart, that versatile and humorous statesman startled the country by declaring that the most pressing, inspiriting, and noble duty of the government at that moment was to improve the drainage of the kingdom. This was Earl Derby’s happy thought, and Mr. Disraeli was enraptured when, on asking his lordship to put it in shape, the latter proposed the formula, “Sanitas sanitatum; omnia sanitas.” There is a belief entertained by some of Earl Derby’s more intimate friends that at heart he is a sentimental, romantic, susceptible person, and that he is so morbidly timid of being suspected of such amiable weaknesses that he has fabricated for himself an artificial disguise for public wear, in which he may appear as the hard, dry, prosy, unsentimental, matter-of-fact business man. It does not stand to reason, it is claimed, that any man, and above all an English nobleman with practically boundless wealth, in the enjoyment of vigorous health, and in the prime of his life (he is now only fifty-two years old), could possibly be so preternaturally dry and skilfully prosaic as is Lord Derby. “It must be put on,” they say, “to hide the natural romance and tenderness of his disposition”; and as one of the proofs of the correctness of this theory they relate the story of his first and only love; of its frustration by accidents not wholly beyond his control; of his long and patient, but not hopeless, waiting for the death of the rival who had carried off the prize; and of his calm confidence, fully justified by the result, that he in his turn would win the lady. The story is true; but it may bear a different moral than the one assigned to it by those who fancy that Earl Derby, reversing the plan adopted by Hamlet, has chosen to put a solemn disposition on to hide the antic joyousness of his real nature. A sufficient acquaintance with Earl Derby will establish the fact that, if he wears a disguise, it fits him so well that no one can detect the imposition. He always seems to be exactly the same; never hot, never cold, never excited, never listless, attentive to everything that is said to him, replying without hesitation but without haste, most often in words that might have been cut and dried six months before.

His resignation, as previously remarked, was entirely characteristic of the man. He will not be led along a tortuous path; and the policy of Lord Beaconsfield on the Eastern question has been very crooked. Its very success depended on its crookedness. The two earls are great friends; in fact, Lord Beaconsfield would be guilty of ingratitude if he should ever cease to regard Lord Derby with affection. Nor is it to be supposed that Lord Beaconsfield is a whit more patriotic than Derby, or that he has a keener sense of what is necessary for the safety of the empire. The difference between them is the difference between the daring yet keen speculator and the staid and methodical merchant. Lord Beaconsfield is sometimes willing to try the hazard of the die. Something may always turn up; there is the possibility of an alliance with Austria; there is the chance that Italy may be willing to repeat the part that Sardinia played in 1854; it is on the cards that the death of Bismarck or of the Emperor William may effect a radical change in Germany’s foreign policy; it is possible that France may be magnanimous enough to forget how England left her naked to her enemy in 1870, and that the allied French and English armies may again fight together in the Crimea. Lord Beaconsfield is popularly supposed to argue thus; but Lord Derby is subject to no such illusions. At least, he will take no chances. He has no sentimental horror of war, as John Bright has. He would fight soon enough if he saw his way clearly to a successful issue of the conflict; but he does not see his way. For England to enter single-handed into an armed struggle with Russia would in his opinion be madness; and he is convinced that she cannot count upon a single ally. It is true that some of the German people are not much in love with Russia; but the German government, Lord Derby affirms—and he ought to know—is altogether on the side of Russia, and an unkind neutrality is all that England can expect from that source. As for France, not a single French politician would advocate an English alliance for war; the Crimean War was never popular in France, and the 100,000 French lives lost in that struggle are still lamented. Sardinia joined England and France in the war of 1854 because she was in a position in which an adventurous policy was desirable; but now Sardinia is swallowed up in Italy, and Italy has all she can do to make both ends meet at home. The great hope lies in Austria; but Earl Derby knows that Francis Joseph, Alexander, and William are three sworn friends, and he sees, moreover, that one of these would not be likely to break with another of the triumvirate unless he were assured that the third would either aid him or remain neutral. Still more plain is it to Earl Derby’s cool perception that the internal divisions of Austria are so grave that she would be mad to engage in a war which, if unsuccessful, would split the empire in twain. The Magyars sympathize with Turkey, the Slavs with Russia, the Austro-Germans with neither; the army could not be trusted; and the finances of the empire are in such a condition that it was with the greatest difficulty that the government the other day raised a loan of twenty-five millions of dollars. It is clear enough to Lord Derby that England, without an ally, would be worsted; and it is equally clear that she cannot safely count upon an ally. Of course all things are possible. She may secure an ally; but it is only a chance, and Lord Derby will take no chances.

There is another fact that weighs upon him: the consideration that the war, if entered upon, has no definite, practical object. The cant is that it is necessary in order to regain for England influence in Europe; but this is a consideration that has no weight in Lord Derby’s mind. He sneers at it in his dry, prosaic manner as something that is ridiculous. In a certain sense he is a democrat. He recognizes fully the fact that England is practically a democracy, and on a memorable occasion he shocked the Lords by telling them that the people were their “employers.” But he is keenly alive to the fact that a government which shapes its course in accordance with the ever-shifting breeze of popular caprice cannot have an intelligible or consistent record; and the other day he took occasion to point out that the “employers” of the government, in regard to the Eastern question, had not been of the same mind for six months together. Two years ago it was as much as one’s life was worth to say a word in favor of the Turks or against the Russians; now it is all the other way. Turkey might have been saved, and not a voice was raised; now she is irretrievably lost, and every one is crying out that she must be saved. So Earl Derby refuses to help his “employers” to embark in a war without an object well defined, without reasonable hope of success, and without an ally. He does it without the passion that Mr. Gladstone displays; without the rhetoric John Bright uses, without a flourish, or a poetical quotation, or a sarcasm—simply as a dry, shrewd, cold-blooded, and clear-headed merchant would do when asked to imperil his fortune by wild investments on the Stock Exchange.

One of the writer’s most memorable conversations with Lord Derby was on a summer morning in 1872, when he was resting in the cool shade of the Opposition, and had plenty of time on his hands to devote to those subjects of social science and political economy in which one might imagine he takes more real personal interest than in adjusting the balance of power in Europe or in maintaining the prestige of England on the continent. The Stanleys for four centuries, and I know not how long before, have been large landholders. The first Earl Derby was created by King Henry VII. in 1485—seven years before Christopher Columbus discovered America—but the family had been a rich and powerful one long ere that. The Lord Stanley whose designed failure to bring up his contingent to the support of Richard III. at the battle of Bosworth Field had so much to do with the defeat of that resolute monarch was the father-in-law of his conqueror and successor, Henry VII.; and the young George Stanley whose head was so opportunely saved by the suggestion of the Duke of Norfolk, that there would be time enough to decapitate him “after the battle,” was the fifteenth predecessor of the present earl. I was accompanied in this visit by an English commoner, who was greatly interested at that time in certain projects for the systematic improvement of the dwellings of the working-classes—projects which Earl Derby also regarded as worthy of his attention. The large estates of the family in England and Ireland have always, or at least for a very long time, been well administered. Neither the former nor the present earl has been accused of being a bad landlord; they were not given to rack-renting, and their tenants did not fear to ask them for favors. The former earl was perhaps more quick to grant a request from a tenant than the present one; but if the plea be a good one the applicant will not go away denied. But it must be a good one; of all men in England Lord Derby is perhaps the least easily deceived. There is nothing imposing in his town-house. It is not a palace, like the magnificent mansion of the Marquis of Westminster; nor does it stand apart in dull and ugly grandeur, as does Devonshire House; nor bewilder and delight the visitor by the splendor of its saloons and the beauty of its grounds, as does Stafford House, the glories of which so dazzled the Shah of Persia that he asked the Prince of Wales, who had just entertained him in shabby Marlborough House, why he permitted the Duke of Sutherland, a subject, to dwell in a state so superior to that which royalty itself maintained. Earl Derby’s town residence is a plain building in Piccadilly, not far from the almost equally unostentatious house where the richest lady in England resides. There are houses on Park Avenue, New York, which are finer than the London residences of either Lord Derby or the Baroness Burdett-Coutts; and there is little in his lordship’s dwelling that is either rare or strange. The great historical and romantic heirlooms of the family are elsewhere—at Knowlsey Park, for instance. We held our conversation on the occasion referred to in a room looking out upon St. James’ Park and the Green Park. The windows were open; the sweet, fresh air of the morning came freely in. From the leather-cushioned chair in which I sat I could see a portion of the façade of Buckingham Palace, the west front of Westminster Abbey, and the towers of the Parliament House. The earl questioned me for some time concerning the actual condition of affairs as they then were in America; and his questions were sometimes hard to answer. One thing impressed me as rather remarkable: he made no mistakes in his questions; that is, he did not ask how far Chicago was from Illinois, or whether New York and Washington were under the same municipal government—interrogatories which another very studious and painstaking English nobleman once put to me. Had we yet made any satisfactory progress in solving the problem of the true relations between capital and labor? We had certain facilities at our command for working out that solution; would we work it out, and if so, how? Was there any common interest and common feeling between American workmen and American masters? The abolition of slavery was doubtless a fine thing; but had it not been accompanied with, or followed by, a long series of financial, industrial, and political mistakes? It was with a feeling of relief that I found my examination ended, and became a listener instead of a talker.

On the subject of improved dwellings for the working-classes he held very firm convictions. Unquestionably these were needed, but he did not wish to be a party to any scheme which proposed to build little palaces for working-men, and to rent them at one-tenth of their value, making up the deficiency by contributions from the rich. That was all nonsense. Nor was he very much enraptured with the Peabody buildings; they were well enough in their way, but they were not available for those who most needed them. The thing to be done was to make the workmen help themselves. How? Well, possibly by co-operation. The earl thought that much might be accomplished by an aggregation of sixpences. As for co-operation in distribution, that had already demonstrated its own usefulness; would it not be well to attempt the experiment of co-operation, strictly confined to the workmen themselves, in buying lands, erecting houses, and selling them, on long time, to themselves? He had in a drawer of his table an elaborate calculation of what might be accomplished in this way; but after producing it he suggested so many objections to its practicability that I soon regarded it with contempt. The agitation concerning the demands of the agricultural laborers was at this time just beginning to make itself felt; and the conversation drifted into a rather desultory discussion of that subject. The earl made two points very clear: in his opinion the extension of the suffrage to the agricultural laborers would greatly increase the strength of his own party, and if he cared only for that he would advocate it; but it would not advance the interests of the peasants nor promote the general welfare of the country. He made some very hard and dry statements on this point. I was rather taken aback by them, but did not attempt to controvert them. Subsequent events in the United States have shown that the earl had a prophetic ken. He disclaimed, with something like animation, the idea of comparing the liberated and enfranchised slaves of our Southern States with the English peasants; but he said that the party that had enfranchised the slaves would not retain their political allegiance, and would probably owe its ultimate overthrow to them. Men are not grateful beings, he said; it is a great mistake to count on their gratitude. Besides, the negroes will believe that they were enfranchised not so much for their own sakes as for the reason that they might aid in keeping their liberators in power. Unless negro human nature was unlike Anglo-Saxon human nature, the enfranchised negroes would say to themselves: “What has been given to us belonged to us; the men who gave it wished to buy us to serve them; but they have only given us what was rightfully our own, and they have nothing more to give us. A vote is nothing to us, save for the use we can make of it. We do not care whether this man or that man is President; but we do care whether our rent is lowered or raised, or whether we are on good or bad terms with our landlords.”

It was in this way that Earl Derby demonstrated to me that the negro vote in the South, so long as the rights of property were held sacred and order was preserved, would always be at the disposal of the land-owners of that region; and he drew the same conclusion as to the results of the enfranchisement of the English peasants. Affairs were bad enough as they were; despite all the new devices for securing the purity of elections, they were not pure, and he did not see how they were ever to be made pure. It was in 1849, if I remember correctly, that Earl Derby visited the United States and the West Indies. He was then a very young man. Mr. Fillmore was President. A very different political atmosphere prevailed at Washington and elsewhere from the present one. The young Lord Stanley observed affairs for himself and drew his own conclusions. At heart I think he was more pleased with the South than with the North or West; and, without saying so in words, he left upon me the impression that he did not entertain a very high opinion of our Republican statesmen.

It is more pleasant to hear him talk in private than to listen to him in public. But he is not a bad speaker, as English speakers go. He was better in the Commons when Lord Stanley than in the Lords as Earl Derby. But whenever he speaks he impresses you as being an earnest and sincere man—not earnest in the sense of enthusiastic, but sober, steady, and fully believing in the truth of what he is saying and of the necessity of his saying it. He is not what is called a popular man, but he is esteemed and respected by every one. His father died in the autumn of 1869; the nine years that have since passed have been eventful ones for the present earl, and his responsibilities have been heavy. But they have not dismayed or disheartened him, and when I last met him he was looking younger and rather less grave—more happy, I thought—than usually.

In certain respects Mr. John Bright resembles Earl Derby; in others he is the very contradiction of the earl. Physically the two men are not very unlike. Either of them would do very well for a model of the traditional John Bull; indeed, _Punch_ has often used both of them for this purpose. Mr. Bright is fifteen years the senior of Earl Derby, and two years younger than Mr. Gladstone. Earl Derby has been in active political life for twenty-six years; Mr. Bright for thirty-five years; and Mr. Gladstone for forty-six years, for he was returned as the Tory member for Newark in 1832, when Earl Derby was a child of six years; and he had sat in Parliament eleven years before Mr. Bright entered the House in 1843 as member for Durham. It is a curious fact, to which I have heard Mr. Bright refer with some mirthfulness, that he sat in the House for four years without opening his mouth. It was not until 1847 that he made his maiden speech in the House; it was a plea for extending the principles of free trade, and it gave him a national reputation. As between Derby, Bright, and Gladstone, the latter must be admitted to be the greatest man—greatest in his acquired knowledge, greatest in his natural genius, greatest even in his oratorical power. But there is at times a charm in the speeches of John Bright that the finest utterances of Mr. Gladstone never carry with them. Mr. Gladstone captivates the fancy, pleases the taste, convinces the judgment, for the time being at least; Mr. Bright touches the heart and subdues it. I am not certain but that his skill in this depends upon a trick. Mr. Bright in his life has been the doer of some heartless and cruel things; he has wrought more mischief than most men of his age; his idea of progress has been that of the _bourgeoisie_, not that of the workman; his beau ideal of a country is a republic where there is no titled aristocracy, but where the working-classes, having fair wages, are quite content with their station and have no inconvenient aspirations beyond it. The manufacturers and the traders are Mr. Bright’s “people”; he would like to see nothing above them; he thinks those below them should be content with the station wherein God has placed them. Mr. Bright has often fanned popular discontent, but it has been too often for the purpose simply of using the power thus evoked to pull down something that stood above him. The mercantile spirit is strong in him. Anything that was for the good of trade was good in his eyes; the trader was always his idol. But he had “a way with him” that enabled him to carry along the hearts of the workmen. His personal appearance and deportment had something to do with this: his round, florid, solid, “English” face, his almost magical voice, the ease and power of his delivery, his wonderful mastery of plain and forcible but really elegant English, the aptness with which he could introduce a quotation from Holy Writ or from some familiar English poet or rhymster. I find myself unconsciously writing of Mr. Bright in the past tense. It is only while revising these lines for publication that the sudden death of his wife occurs. That bereavement will be very hard for him to sustain; it is probable that his public career has ended. When the utter breaking down of his health compelled him to retire from Mr. Gladstone’s cabinet in December, 1870, he was in a deplorable condition. After many months of entire abstinence from mental excitement of any kind his mind began to resume its strength. But from that time there has always been danger of another collapse. An intimate friend of his family told me that Mr. Bright was in the condition of one whose arm had been broken and who had the bones reset. “So long as he does not use the arm, and allows it to rest in its sling, all will go well; but if he strikes a blow with it, it will fall shattered at his side.” It was during this period of convalescence and rest that I saw Mr. Bright most frequently. The attachment between his wife and himself was very evident. He petted her as if she had been a bride in her honeymoon. On one occasion, when breakfasting with them, the conversation turned chiefly on the then recent declarations of President Grant in his Des Moines speech concerning secular education and the rights of the Catholic Church in the United States. This must have been some time in December, 1875. I was grieved, although not surprised, to hear Mr. Bright express sentiments of very bitter hostility to the church, and a desire to see education wholly taken from her control. He confessed that he did not know anything about the merits of the question as it stood in the United States, but he applauded the President for his boldness in bringing the subject forward. Mrs. Bright, seeing that the topic was an agitating one to both of us, adroitly turned the conversation into another channel, and Mr. Bright was presently telling me stories of Mr. Cobden and of the early struggles for free trade. He said that one of the things he most prized was a copy of a resolution passed in 1862 by the New York Chamber of Commerce, expressing its sense of the devotion which he had manifested to the principles of international justice and peace.

Mr. Bright is a fascinating conversationalist, and it is a great pleasure to listen to him. Like most men who have not been born to high positions, but who have attained them by the force of their own genius, there is sometimes observable a little stiffness, or _mauvaise honte_, in his manner. There is some difficulty here in expressing one’s self clearly without seeming to be offensive. Mr. Bright has often expressed great contempt for the English hereditary nobility; and he is, or was, in the habit of regarding them as a pack of fools. The aristocracy of England have not failed to afford abundant instances of what Mr. Bright was fond of calling their “unwisdom.” More than this, the personal littleness, meanness, duplicity, and cruelty of some of these hereditary noblemen cannot be denied. But it would be impossible for one of them, if you were lunching with him, to tell you that the sherry you were drinking cost ninety shillings a dozen, and therefore must be good.

Mr. Bright has very frequently expressed an ardent admiration for American institutions, and he has often been accused of wishing to Americanize the British Constitution. Had Mr. Bright been born to an earldom, he would have been the greatest stickler for the rights of his class who has lived since the days of Louis XIV. A dozen English noblemen could be named who are more ardent republicans than is John Bright. He does not like to see men above him; but he is quite content to see any number below him, so long as they help him to lower those above him to his own level. Men speak of him as a radical; but he is nothing of the kind. Mr. Gladstone is tenfold more of a radical. If John Bright lived in the United States he would belong to the conservative party, whatever its name might be. Between him and such men as Auberon Herbert, Charles Bradlaugh, and the other republicans in England there is a great gulf fixed; and this not at all by reason of the irreligious opinions of these men. He would like a republic well enough, if he were always to be President, and if the rights of property were secure from all infringement. It is an utter misconception of Mr. Bright’s character to rank him among enthusiastic, unselfish, and theoretical reformers and philanthropists. His passions are strong, but his hate is far fiercer than his love is powerful; and he cares infinitely more for the “freedom of trade” than for the freedom of man. His opposition to the bill for preventing and punishing the adulteration of articles of food illustrates this curious trait in his character. He said, almost in so many words, that it were better that the people were half poisoned and wholly cheated than that the government should interfere between buyer and seller, to protect the former and lessen the gains of the latter. This is the true Manchester spirit—the spirit that has led the cotton-makers of Lancashire to load their fabrics for the Eastern markets with so much glue and chalk that a fabric which appeared of the best quality became a worthless rag as soon as it was wet—a deception, by the way, that has now cost England the loss of a very large share of her Chinese and Indian trade.

Mr. Bright is also violently inconsistent at times. We conversed once for a long time on the question of the extension of the suffrage to the agricultural laborers and to women. Some of his remarks reminded me of that shrewd American politician who was in favor of the Maine Liquor Law, but was opposed to its enforcement. Mr. Bright and his party had recently suffered some mortifying disillusions. The new voters, enfranchised by the Reform Bill, which Mr. Disraeli had taken up and passed after the Liberals had dallied with the question for years, began to manifest evidences of insubordination—not at all, however, in the right direction, from Mr. Bright’s point of view. It must be understood that a superstition had sprung up to the effect that all the new voters must necessarily be on the side of the Liberals; just as it was supposed that the enfranchised negroes in the United States must all vote the Republican ticket for ever and a day. There was this difference between the two cases: the Republicans had actually freed the negroes; the English Liberals, led by Bright and Gladstone, had talked about enfranchising the lower classes in England, but, while talking about it and disputing where the line should be drawn, the Tories, led by Disraeli, stepped in and accomplished the work by establishing what is virtually household suffrage. The former Earl Derby, led an unwilling captive by Disraeli, had reluctantly given his assent to this measure, which he called “a leap in the dark”; but at the time of which I speak it was becoming plain that this leap had landed the Conservative party upon very good ground. The new voters, instead of swelling the ranks of the Liberals, were to a great extent found in the train of the Tories, and Mr. Bright was disgusted with them. I have good reason to know that he disliked the idea of universal suffrage, and that he had quite as sincere a horror of the _residuum_ as that which Mr. Lowe expressed. The “conservative working-man” was beginning to show that he really existed and was not a myth. The voters of the kingdom had been vastly increased in numbers; but the new voters, when they came to the polls, were found to be quite as conservative, and in many cases more so than the old constituencies. This was a source of keen mortification and disappointment to Mr. Bright, and the first results of the Ballot Bill caused him no less chagrin. He had indulged in two illusions: let us have a general suffrage (not universal but general) and secret voting, and we shall carry every election district and be masters of the situation for ever more. Household suffrage and the ballot were provided, and from that day to this the Liberal party has grown weaker. Mr. Bright took no care to conceal from me the annoyance that these results gave him; and it was plain that his faith in the good sense and integrity of the masses was weakened. The impression he left on my mind in this conversation was that he would have preferred a much more limited suffrage; no one should vote, for instance, who did not pay a rental of perhaps six pounds a year. As for the future, there were two classes yet to be enfranchised—the agricultural laborers and the women. With regard to the latter Mr. Bright referred me to his brother Jacob. “He is the great man for the women,” said he. “He has that matter in charge; he can tell you more about the merits of their demands than I can. I am a little afraid of women as voters. Women are naturally easily led away by romance and glitter; and I suspect a showy ministry would always be more apt to secure their support than a sober and dull administration.” With regard to the claims of the agricultural laborers for the suffrage he was cold and guarded in his expressions. Theoretically they should have what they asked; but as a practical measure, and one of immediate action, it was plain that he preferred to allow affairs to rest as they were. He feared that the peasants with votes in their hands would be seduced by the Tories, as the new voters in the boroughs had been. “A little more education would be desirable before thus increasing the constituencies,” said he. “What kind of education, Mr. Bright?” “Well, certainly not that of the parish school, with the parson as the real teacher; and that, as affairs now are, is almost all they can have.”

The study of Mr. Bright’s course upon the great question of the present day in England—war with Russia or surrender to her—is full of interest to those who wish to closely analyze his character. Eighteen months ago Mr. Bright—Quaker as he is, apostle of peace as he is, trader and manufacturer as he is—was altogether in favor of war; that is, of a certain war—the war of the Russians against the Turks. In the Christmas-tide of 1876 Mr. Bright could say nothing too harsh in condemnation of those who were attempting to prevent Russia from entering into the war with Turkey. He spoke, he said, in the name of Christianity, but only to remind his hearers that the Russians were Christians and that the Turks were Mohammedans. Very curious language at that time came from the lips of this great peace advocate. In substance it was an appeal to Englishmen to encourage Russia in her attempt to drive the Turks from Europe, “bag and baggage,” as Mr. Gladstone has it. English Christians were bade remember by this Quaker peace-apostle that seven hundred years ago their ancestors fought to regain possession of Bethlehem and Calvary and the Mount of Olives; and that those sacred places now, as then, were in the possession of the infidels whom Russia, if not interfered with by England—would soon drive forth. England should stand by. If she interfered she would prevent the war; she must not lift a finger nor say a word save in approval of the Russians; and they must be left to wage war as they wished or as they could. Eighteen months have passed; the Russians have waged their war; it has been marked at every step with revolting horrors; half a million of Mohammedans and hundreds of thousands of Christians have perished in it; and Mr. Bright ought to feel satisfied. But now that England proposes to interfere and to fight a little on her own account, Mr. Bright boils over with rage, and calls all England to observe the unparalleled wickedness of the government in proposing to employ its Indian troops to sustain the empire. It is infamous to employ them, especially against “Christian Russia.” War conducted by Russia is not at all shocking; war waged against her is the unpardonable national sin. Russia might shed oceans of Christian blood in her wars, and Mr. Bright be content; but when England proposes to use Mohammedan soldiers in efforts to save English interests in the East from utter ruin, Mr. Bright raises his hands in horror and declaims against the wickedness of war. Radical inconsistencies like these are natural to Mr. Bright. They are observable in many of his acts; they crop out in his conversation. He has spoken eloquently against persecution for opinion’s sake; but, to judge him by his tone, he would burn Earl Beaconsfield at the stake to-morrow.

In all my conversations with Mr. Bright there were two things that impressed me: his indifference to, and want of sympathy with, the question of university education in any of its aspects, and his perfectly ignorant hostility to the Catholic religion. This hostility was not active, or it was rarely so; but it was implanted deep in his mind, and it colored to a great extent some of his most important actions. Without knowing anything at all about the church, and without, as I believe, having even so much as read a Catholic book, he had put it down among his self-evident truths that the church was the foe of what he most held dear, and he hated her accordingly. Mr. Bright’s instincts are clear, and they did not deceive him here. The church is the foe of what he most holds dear; for in the ideal society which John Bright would create, if he had his way, the temple would be a cotton-mill, the priests would be the manufacturers, and the people would have “free trade” for their god.[124]

Mr. Gladstone has within him the power of being as plodding and patient in his search for dry facts as Lord Derby is; he is as passionate in his hatreds and as inconsistent in his affections as is Mr. Bright; but he has what neither Derby nor Bright possesses—genius. He is a far more attractive man than either. It was my dear friend, the late John Francis Maguire, who first brought me into personal contact with Mr. Gladstone. We were talking together in the lobby of the House of Commons one summer evening in 1870, the year after the passage of the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, when Mr. Gladstone came by and stopped to speak to Maguire, to whom he was very much attached—as who was not that knew him? After a few moments Mr. Gladstone complained of the heat in the lobby. “Let us go out on the terrace,” said he. “But I must not leave my American friend; come along, ——. Mr. Gladstone, permit me to present my friend.” We moved along the long corridor to the terrace that overhangs the Thames; and here, while they continued their conversation, which was of no interest save to themselves, I had ample opportunity to regard at close range the then ruler of England. He was sixty-one years old; he is now sixty-nine. The disappointments, defeats, and ardent but unsuccessful conflicts he has fought during the last four years have aged him; but he is still hale and vigorous, and, for all that one can see, may count upon many years of active life, which indeed no man will begrudge him. He is not by any means an Adonis, and never has been; but as we sat together that evening on the stone bench of the terrace he seemed to me a fascinating man. His voice in conversation is melodious and pleasant, with an occasional touch of a strange, melancholy minor key. If he be interested in his subject and on good terms with the person to whom he is speaking, he is a most charming conversationalist. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford; he entered Parliament as the member for Newark in the Tory interest in 1832. He has had forty-six years of almost uninterrupted public life. He was under-secretary for the colonies in 1835 under Sir Robert Peel, and vice-president of the Board of Trade in 1841; he revised the tariff in 1842, and was president of the Board of Trade in 1843; he was returned for Oxford in 1847, and became a Liberal in 1851 on the questions of university reform and Jewish disabilities; he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Coalition Ministry of 1852, and was sent on a mission to the Ionian Islands by the then Lord Derby in 1858; he was Chancellor of the Exchequer again under Palmerston in 1859, and repealed the paper duty, making possible the establishment of the penny newspaper; he aided Cobden to accomplish his commercial treaty with France, and amused himself by interfering officiously with the domestic government of the kingdom of Naples; he was defeated for Oxford in 1865, but immediately returned for Lancashire, and after the death of Palmerston became leader of the House as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Russell. He brought in his Reform Bill in 1866, was defeated on it, and went into opposition; he brought in and succeeded in effecting the passage of his Irish Church resolutions in 1868; he was defeated for Lancashire at the general election of 1868, but returned for Greenwich, and took charge of the government as Prime Minister in that year. He disestablished the Irish Church in 1869; passed the Irish Land Bill in 1870; abolished purchase in the army in 1871 by the arbitrary exercise of the prerogative of the crown, and negotiated the Treaty of Washington. In 1874, anxious to finish his Irish work, he evolved from out of the depths of his own inner consciousness an Irish University Education Bill, and had the extreme mortification of seeing it not only rejected by the Catholics but violently opposed by the English and Scotch Liberals. He appealed to the country, not on that question but on a new project invented by himself for the abolition of the income tax; his majority of sixty members was turned into a minority of as many, and his old foe, Disraeli, came marching into power with drums beating and colors flying.

Since then Mr. Gladstone has conducted a species of independent opposition of his own; he has sought to punish the Catholics for their refusal to accept his University Bill by writing several venomous pamphlets to show that Catholics could not be loyal subjects; he has endeavored to upset the Disraeli administration on various occasions; he conducted the Bulgarian outrage excitement with great skill; and for the last few months he has been almost incessantly engaged in the most strenuous and violent efforts to prevent England from interfering in any way with Russia in the execution of her designs against Turkey. This was the extraordinary man with whom I was sitting on that summer evening. After a while he turned to me to ask me about some of his American friends, and thus I was drawn into the conversation. Mr. Maguire, for my benefit, I think, diverted it into the channel of the then remaining causes of Irish discontent; and the conversation became animated and ran on until the unlucky ringing of a division bell compelled both the premier and the Irish member to run off and leave me alone—not, however, before Mr. Gladstone had given me an invitation which I was not slow, in future days, to accept.

Thus it came about that many conversations were held between us, and the memory of them is for the most part extremely pleasant. We spoke generally on the immediate questions of the day, occasionally diverging into wider and more fragrant fields. He had at this time a very wide circle of Roman Catholic friends; and he was so fond of their society that Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Johnson, of Edinburgh (the secretary of the Anti-Papal League), got up the story that he was about to be received into the church. This rumor grew into the fact that he had been actually received; but to this there was the variation that he had become a communicant of the Greek Church! There never was any foundation for these stories; but it is probable that there was a period in Mr. Gladstone’s life when, had he not been Prime Minister of England, he would have become a Catholic. This reminds me of a story that Cardinal Manning once told me. He and Mr. Gladstone were very old and very dear friends; and this friendship continued unbroken until Mr. Gladstone’s assault upon the church in his “Vatican” pamphlets. I do not think the friendship thus sundered has ever been restored. But the story was this: One day the premier was talking with the archbishop, and after a little pause he said: “What a pity you ever left us, Manning! Had you remained with us you would have been Archbishop of Canterbury to-day, with £15,000 a year!” “I clasped my hands,” said his grace, “looked up to heaven, and exclaimed with all my heart, ‘Thank God for having saved my poor soul!’”

Mr. Gladstone’s town residence in Carlton House Terrace was pleasant to visit. He had enjoyed being a victim to the old-china and Wedgwood mania, and some of the rooms were crammed with his successes in the collection of “uniques” in this line. He—or some one in his confidence—had had good taste in pictures, and some excellent works of old and new masters hung upon his walls. It was wonderful to hear him talk about blue china, but I think his strong point in this line is Wedgwood. It was pleasanter, however, to draw him away from his china and lead him on to talk about men or books. He discussed both, on occasion, with a freedom and incisiveness that were somewhat startling. It was amusing to see the care with which he sometimes avoided speaking about Mr. Disraeli, and the latitude which he allowed himself on other occasions in denouncing and ridiculing him. He once complained bitterly that Disraeli was not an Englishman and had no English blood in him; and when I ventured to suggest that the wretched malefactor could scarcely be blamed for circumstances so wholly beyond his control, he looked very glum for some moments, and then turned the conversation aside, as if disinclined to accept even that apology for his foe.

It is that curious trait in Mr. Gladstone’s character which makes it so difficult for him in his public speeches to make a statement without qualifying it, or amplifying it, or stating several hypothetical cases with reference to it, that renders his conversation so charming. Beginning to tell you something about Pius IX., for instance, he will branch off into a story about Father Newman, an anecdote of Mazzini, a reminiscence of Orsini, Palmerston, or Louis Napoleon, an adventure that happened to himself in Naples, his feelings when he recognized an old college chum of his as a bare-footed friar in a monastery on the Alps, and so on. It is like the _Arabian Nights_, for one story grows out of the other, and all the time he does not forget the original subject, the Pope, but comes back to him, and winds up with the story about him, told with all due emphasis and action. There was a time when for Pius IX. Mr. Gladstone entertained what seemed to be a truly sincere admiration and respect; occasionally the feeling appeared to be even that of affection. As for the insensate hatred and dread of the church which fills the breasts of Messrs. Newdegate and Whalley, Mr. Gladstone never shared it. This, however, did not prevent him from making his outrageous attacks upon the church, in order to revenge himself upon the Irish and English bishops for refusing to support him in his University Bill. His passions are very strong. The difference between him and Mr. Disraeli is that the latter seems never wholly in earnest, while the former always is. Some of the language in which he has allowed himself to indulge in his recent speeches on the war question have been marked with a degree of passionate violence that would seem to indicate a mind overwrought. There used to be a cruel saying in the London clubs that “Mr. Gladstone would die either in a mad-house or a monastery.” I believe the credit of the _mal mot_ was given to Mr. Disraeli. There seems small hope left of the monastery, and there was probably never any danger of the mad-house. But Mr. Gladstone has now been out of power for four years; he reflects that his own imprudence thrust him out; he can see no prospect of a return to power; and he feels that under the guidance of Earl Beaconsfield England is being led into grave dangers. He chafes and frets, and the apparently unreasonable violence of his language is only the candid expression of his sincere wrath and fear.

Of these three statesmen, Earl Derby, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Bright, Mr. Bright is the dandy. The earl is negligent in his dress, and thrifty therein; but his valet, or some one else, manages to turn him out neatly every morning. Mr. Gladstone is positively careless as regards his attire, and one imagines that nobody but himself has anything to do with it. It has been whispered about that Mr. Gladstone’s tailor pays a large sum every year to have his identity concealed, for Mr. Gladstone’s clothes fit him so badly, or seem to do so, that the tailor’s business would be ruined if his name were known. The shocking bad hat of Mr. Gladstone, and his baggy “Sairey Gamp” of an umbrella, so often pictured in _Punch_, are no exaggerations; the last time I saw him he was sailing down Pall Mall under full steam for the Reform Club, with this identical hat and umbrella. There is a deep mystery connected with his legs, or with his trowsers, for they bag to an incredible extent at the knees, and are always too long at the lower extremities. I have said that he was not an Adonis, but when he is pleased and happy there is something winning in the expression of his mouth, and his eyes are wonderfully eloquent. Mr. Bright’s rich but plain costume is always faultlessly neat and clean; his linen spotless; his shoes have an almost unearthly lustre; his hat shines in rivalry with them. When, on the occasion of his taking office as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancashire, he went to Windsor “to kiss hands,” the queen, it is said, was enchanted with him, and the Princess Beatrice, who is much given to speaking out her mind, is reported to have exclaimed: “Ever since Louise married young Mr. Argyll, I have supposed that nothing was left for me but one of Marshal and Snelgrove’s young men. But if any one of those tradesmen were as handsome and good as this old tradesman, I’d take him in a moment.”

Mr. Bright’s handwriting is small, elegant, and beautifully distinct. Mr. Gladstone writes a rapid, bold, and running hand, at times rather illegible. He is somewhat too fond of his pen; of late he has written too much on unimportant subjects. Earl Derby has a happy dread of committing himself on paper, and writes but few letters. “Do not write to me,” he said one day; “come and talk with me; it will be better for each of us.” Mr. Gladstone once made a very happy retort to a question put to him in the House of Commons concerning one of his letters. Mr. Bouverie, with all due solemnity, and after having given a day’s notice of his question, asked the premier if his attention had been called to a letter published in the _Times_, purporting to have been addressed by him to the correspondent of a New York journal, and whether he had really written the letter. “It is quite true,” Mr. Gladstone replied. “Mr. —— addressed me a very proper and courteous letter, upon certain matters connected with the Treaty of Washington and the negotiations at Geneva, and I replied to it. He subsequently obtained my permission to make the letter public. And I have to add that I often have to write letters to much less important persons than the representative of an influential American journal.” As he had recently written a letter to Mr. Bouverie, the hit was thought to be a good one, and the House laughed.

Footnote 124:

The writer, for whose opinion we have all respect, has the advantage over us of a personal knowledge of Mr. Bright, and an acquaintance with his public career to which we cannot pretend. So far, however, as our knowledge goes, our estimate of Mr. Bright is far from agreeing altogether with that of the writer. We always believed Mr. Bright to be a man of large heart, of generous impulse, and of large mind, circumscribed by certain defects of education and inherited prejudice; but always a man wishing to see right done and to do right.—ED. C. W.

RELATIONS OF JUDAISM TO CHRISTIANITY. II. THE INFLUENCE OF JEWISH IDEAS ON HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY.

Strabo, after having mentioned the great number of Jews residing in Cyrene, a city celebrated for its schools of Greek literature, adds that “it would be difficult to show a spot upon earth where they were not found and where their influence was not felt.” The influence of which he speaks must not be restricted to that which they acquired everywhere by their remarkable industry, commercial capacity, and wealth; it was felt in the higher field of thought, and was brought to bear on heathen philosophy, in which it produced considerable modifications. We are chiefly concerned with the Greeks, whom all admit to be the representatives of philosophical speculations in the ages we are reviewing.

It is the opinion of Aristobulus, of Aristeas, and of Philo that the Greek philosophers were acquainted with the sacred books of the Hebrews, and that they derived from them those great truths relating to God, the soul, a future life which we find in their writings. We can easily understand this to have been the case when we reflect that the Hebrews were already in Egypt in great numbers, when the learned men of Greece repaired thither in search of knowledge; and in order to account for the opinion just mentioned it is by no means necessary to have recourse to the national pride with which its supporters are supposed by our rationalists to have been animated. Because Aristobulus, Aristeas, and Philo were Jews it does not follow that they should have been so blinded by the desire of glorifying their nation as to make them lose their well-known critical acuteness. Besides, they were not the only ones who perceived that the Greeks had borrowed from the Hebrews. Antiquity is at one in recognizing the fact. The Fathers of the primitive church who had occasion to touch upon the subject do not hesitate to affirm it from observations of their own. “Our sacred books,” says Tertullian, “are the treasure from which philosophers have drawn all their riches. Who is the poet, who is the sophist, that has not borrowed from the prophets? It is at those sacred sources that the philosophers have striven to quench their thirst. These men, impelled by their passion for glory, endeavored to reach the sublimity of our Holy Scriptures, and when they found in them anything that suited their views they made it their own. But as they did not consider them as divine, they made no scruple to alter them. And, moreover, they could not understand many a passage the sense of which was obscure even for the Hebrews, to whom the books belonged.” St. Justin equally affirms that “Plato took from Moses his doctrine of creation, as well as his notions on the Word, or _Logos_, and the Energy or Spirit of God, though all these truths appear strangely disfigured in the Athenian philosopher.” Again, Clement of Alexandria tells the Neo-Platonics that their master, Plato, had borrowed from the books of Moses his most sublime doctrines and purest moral precepts, and adds: “We state the fact that the Greeks, not satisfied with transferring to their writings the wonderful events related in our sacred books, have stolen from us our principal dogmas in altering them. They are caught in the very act of theft as to what regards faith, wisdom, knowledge and science, hope and charity, penance, chastity, and the fear of God, which virtues are the offspring of truth alone.” Eusebius tells us that Pythagoras had held communications with the prophets at the time when the Jews were exiles in Egypt and Babylonia. Hennippus, according to the testimony of Josephus, confirms that fact by saying that Pythagoras had embraced and professed a part of the doctrines of the Jews, and had transmitted their philosophy to the Gentiles. Clearchus affirms that Aristotle had spoken to him of his conversations with a Jew “from whom much was to be learnt.” Theodoret is not less positive. “Anaxagoras and Pythagoras,” he says, “in their travels in Egypt, had made the acquaintance of learned men of that country and of Judea. It is to the same source that Plato came later in search of knowledge, as we are informed by Plutarch and by Xenophon.” “What is Plato?” said the Pythagorean Numerius. “He is a certain Moses who speaks Attic.” The negations without proofs which men of rationalistic tendencies oppose to this view cannot stand before the overwhelming testimony of the Fathers, doctors, and historians of the primitive church, corroborated as it is by more than one pagan author. Our modern Catholic writers, without any exception that we know of, have recognized that influence of revelation on the heathen mind. “The laws which Solon gave to the Athenians,” remarks Fleury, “had a great analogy with those of Moses. The principles of Socrates are founded on those of the Hebrew legislator; his notions of the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, the distinction between good and evil, the merits and rewards of virtue, the chastisements of vice, are all derived from the sacred books. The political system exposed by Plato in his _Republic_, in which he enjoins that every one should live by his own labor, without luxury or ambition, without innovation or change, under the sway of justice the greatest of all goods, and the government of a wise ruler devoted to the happiness of his subjects, is nothing else but the theory of the constitution which governed Judea.” “Aristotle,” says M. de Maistre, alluding to a passage already quoted, “conversed with a Jew in comparison with whom the most distinguished philosophers of Greece seemed to him but barbarians. The translation of the sacred books into a language which had become that of the universe, the dispersion of the Jews over the whole world, and man’s natural curiosity for everything new and extraordinary had caused the Mosaic law to be known everywhere, which thus became an introduction to Christianity.” “The doctrine of the Hebrews,” writes M. de Bonald, “was spread with their writings in those parts of Asia and of Europe bordering on Palestine. It was not unknown to the Greeks, and undoubtedly gave to the philosophy of Plato that stamp of elevation and of truth by which it is characterized.”

But it is to Alexandria that we must turn in order to follow the developments and modifications of Greek thought in the three centuries which immediately preceded, and in the four centuries which followed, the coming of Christ. Ptolemy I., during his glorious reign, that lasted from 306-285 B.C., among other monuments with which he adorned the city of Alexander, established the famous Museum or University of Alexandria, with its vast library, which is said to have contained seven hundred thousand volumes. It soon became the centre of intellectual life. There the most renowned teachers in philosophy, poetry, mathematics, astronomy, and the arts lived and taught. Thither would resort the learned of many countries and religions. From the time of its foundation to that of Proclus, the most important of the Neo-Platonics, who died four hundred and eighty-five years after Christ, that school continued to flourish, but then began to decline until every trace of it disappeared before the invasions of the barbarian Mussulman. For a long time the philosophy of the Museum consisted in commentaries on Plato and Aristotle. But the Jews of the Greco-Egyptian city, which had become after Jerusalem the most important seat of their religion, were destined to give a new direction to these speculations; and from it arose that peculiar school of thought denominated Neo-Platonism. It was an effort made to reconcile together popular belief with philosophic thought, and was common both to the Jewish and to the Grecian schools. The first endeavored to blend Judaism with Hellenism, as the latter did to give a logical and doctrinal foundation to heathenism.

It is not easy to fix the date when the movement began. Some trace it back to Aristobulus. He lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, whose reign extended from 247-221 B.C., and had been the teacher of that illustrious prince, who, disdaining the coarse divinities of Egypt, addressed his homage to Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, and sacrificed in the Temple of Jerusalem, where he left marks of his munificence and of his piety. It is true that Aristobulus appealed to Orphic poems in which Jewish doctrines are found in support of the assertion that the Greek poets and philosophers had borrowed their wisdom from the Jews. But this opinion, which is shared by Aristeas and others in those ages, is not peculiar to Neo-Platonism, and is by no means one of its characteristics. Others pretend that the earliest traces of Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy are to be found in the Septuagint. According to them, the authors of this version of the Biblical writings into Greek, made by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), knew and approved the principal doctrines of this philosophy, and contrived to suggest them by apparently insignificant deviations from the original text. But the passages on which they rest their argument do not necessarily force us to admit this conclusion. We find that they avoid representing God under sensible forms; such ideas as God’s repenting, being angry, etc., are toned down in their expression; in the same way euphemisms are used when there is question of sensible manifestations of the Divinity; there are omissions and explanations in the translation which are not authorized by the original text. It is evident that the translators were influenced in their work by the dread they had lest Jehovah should be assimilated to the false divinities of pagan mythologies. All this competent critics concede, but fail to see in the Septuagint a union of Greek philosophemes with Jewish ideas. Be this as it may, it was at the dawn of Christianity, when the Ptolemies had gone and the Romans came in, that the Neo-Platonic movement was really inaugurated; and if it did not originate with Philo, it was in him, at any rate, that it first attained to importance. Philo belonged to a rich family of Alexandria, and was born about twenty-five years before our era. He lived long enough to be placed at the head of the legation to Caligula in favor of his people, and to write an account of it in the reign of Claudius. What gives a special interest to his writings is that they were composed at the very last period of the Jewish nation, before the appearance of Christianity. In religion a zealous Jew penetrated with the truth and goodness of the Hebrew revelation, and a Greek by education—a man, besides, of high intellectual gifts—it is no wonder that he should wish to blend in a harmonious whole the two elements of his own being, and to fuse the form of Greek thought with the substance of Jewish belief. In his endeavors to realize this object Philo falls into grievous errors, and on several points deflects from the Jewish faith into Greek views. “His love of Greek philosophy,” says Allies, “had led him, as it seems unconsciously, to desert the divine tradition of Moses and the orthodox Jewish belief.” Here, then, we are concerned with two questions: first, What did Philo contribute to Greek thought? and, secondly, How far his orthodoxy suffered by its contact with it.

Philo introduced into philosophy two principles the result of which can be traced throughout the whole subsequent periods of Neo-Platonism: the principle of faith, or the need of a revelation in order to acquire the knowledge of God and of the great problems relating to human life; and the principle of grace, or of a special assistance from heaven in order to make this knowledge practically available. Now, these principles had been either entirely ignored by the Greek philosophers or had remained without any significance to them down to Philo’s time. Reason was the only light by which they were guided, and scientific thought their only source of knowledge. We find in them no assumption of supernatural revelation, no requirement of contact with the divine other than what might be produced by the effect of thought itself. Greek philosophy in its whole tenor was rationalistic. “On the contrary,” observes Allies in his _Formation of Christendom_, “the religious and philosophical system of Philo is based upon the idea of a revelation made to man by God, and of holiness, the result of divine assistance. His conception of God is derived to him from the theology of the Old Testament; it comes to him as a gift from above, not as an elaboration of his own mind.” Hence it is that his notion of the Supreme Being is so much above that given us by Plato and Aristotle. The God of Plato is an ideal and metaphysical God, not absolutely personal, not free; the God of Aristotle, or his _Primum movens_, the first Motor, is mechanical, and holds in the universe the office of the spring in a watch, by which all its parts are moved; but the God of Philo is life, and, as he constantly calls him, “the living God.” “He is one, simple, eternal, unoriginated, and absolutely distinct from the world which is his work. His own being is incomprehensible. We can only predicate of him that he is ‘He who is.’ He is most pure and absolute mind, better than virtue and better than knowledge, better than the idea of goodness and the idea of beauty. He is his own place, and full of himself, and sufficient for himself, filling up and embracing all that is deficient or empty, but himself embraced by nothing, as being one person and yet everything” (_Legis Allegor._, l. xiv., quoted in Allies). His providence is fully recognized. “Those who would make the world to be unoriginated, cut away, without being aware of it, the most useful and necessary constituents of piety—that is, the belief in Providence. For reason proves that what has an origin is cared for by its father and maker. For a father is anxious for the life of his children, and a workman aims at the duration of his works, and employs every device imaginable to ward off everything that is pernicious or injurious, and is desirous by every means in his power to provide everything which is useful and profitable for them. But with regard to what has had no origin there is no feeling of interest, as if it were his own, in the breast of him who has not made it. It is a worthless and pernicious doctrine to establish in the world what would be anarchy in a city, to have no superintendent, regulator, or judge by whom everything must be distributed and governed” (_De Mundi Opificio_, apud Allies). In his work entitled _Quod Deus est Immutabilis_ Philo ascribed to God absolute knowledge. “To God,” he says, “as dwelling in pure light, all things are visible, for he, penetrating into the very recesses of the soul, is able to see transparently what is invisible to others, and by means of prescience and providence, his own peculiar excellences, allows nothing to abuse its liberty or exceed the range of his comprehension. For, indeed, there is with him no uncertainty even in the future; for there is nothing uncertain and nothing future to God. It is plain, then, that the producer must have knowledge of all that he has produced, the artificer of all that he had constructed, the governor of all that he governs. Now, Father, Artificer, and Governor he is in truth of all things in heaven and the world. And whereas future things are overshadowed by the succession of time, longer or shorter, God is the Maker of time also.... For the world by its motion has made time, but he made the world, and so with God there is nothing future, who has the very foundations of time subject to him. For their life is not time, but the archetype and model of time, eternity; and in eternity nothing is past and nothing is future, but there is the present only.” In his conceptions of the Godhead and of his attributes it is evident that Philo, as long as he follows the light of revelation and keeps clear of the false notions which he had drawn from Greek sources, rises far above the speculations of the Greek philosophers on the same subjects. Plato himself in his happiest moments never reached such heights. For Philo, God is goodness and sanctity itself. By this he does not mean only that he is the boundless ocean of all perfections, the archetype of all holiness and of everything that is good, but that he is the origin of all human virtue, which flows from him into his rational creatures as from its only source. “It is God,” he writes in his _Allegories of the Law_, “who sows and plants all virtue upon earth in the mortal race, being an imitation and image of the heavenly.” According to him, man, in order to reproduce in himself the divine resemblance in which holiness consists, must be freed from the influence of his sensuous nature, the source of his weakness and sinfulness. But in that nature no power is to be found to transform itself, as no nature has the power of changing itself into anything other than what it is. The consequence is that “he must betake himself to a higher power, and receive from it as a loan that strength which fails in himself.” The difference between this doctrine and that of the older philosophers is palpable. When Plato and Pythagoras recommend to their disciples the subduing of the senses as a condition to reaching truth, they suppose that man can do it by his own efforts and without any help from above; and this is precisely what Philo denies. Furthermore, the knowledge of God, in which man finds his perfection and supreme happiness, is not a mere ray of cold light, but it leads to an intimate union with him, which is the ultimate point of Philo’s system; and this union, as everything perfect in human nature, is an immediate gift of God. Thus Philo would reach knowledge and virtue by the gift of God, bestowed through his grace, whilst down to his time Greek philosophy, adhering to its own principle, scientific thought, would reach them by the exercise of reason alone.

It is impossible to overrate the influence which Philo, with his powerful genius and vast erudition, must have exercised not only among his co-religionists but among the Greek-speaking populations of Alexandria and other countries. The most authorized writers have at all times rendered justice to his great merits. Josephus says that he was “a man illustrious in all things”; Eusebius extols “the abundance, the richness, the sublimity of his style and the depth of his thoughts”; St. Jerome, speaking of his works, says that “they are most remarkable and innumerable”; St. Augustine praises him as “a philosopher of universal erudition, whose language the Greeks do not hesitate to compare to that of Plato.” Photius also testifies that “his writings gave him an immense reputation among the Greeks.” This truly admirable man went, as did all the great philosophers of antiquity, over the whole range of human knowledge: history, ethics, jurisprudence, politics, metaphysics, cosmogony, physics, mathematics—no department of learning did he leave unexplored. In morals he rises far above Stoicism, and approaches to the sublimity of the Gospel—a fact which probably was the origin of the opinion entertained by some that Philo had embraced Christianity. But the glaring errors which are found in his works on several important points show that he was rather the disciple of Plato than a follower of Christ.

No Christian would have held, as he did, the independent existence of matter, which is the subversion of the dogma of creation _ex nihilo_ taught us by revelation. For Philo God is not, strictly speaking, the Creator, but the _Demiurgos_, the Artificer and Arranger of the world. He admitted the Stoic doctrine of the human soul being a fragment or derivation of the divine Mind. He places the origin of evil in the conflict of matter and spirit. Accordingly, the body is an absolute contradiction to the mind, and, as such, the source of all evils. He thinks that the earthly shell is a prison out of which the soul longs to be set free. Thus it is not the abuse of free-will, but rather the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, which is made the source of evil. On these four points Philo’s ideas are identical with those of Plato and the Greek school. Philo is further notorious for his extravagant use of allegory in the interpretation of Scripture on the one side, and in giving a moral sense to the Greek myths on the other; besides, it is asserted that his doctrine on the _Logos_, or divine Word, is erroneous, and has thrown considerable obscurity over his otherwise elevated and exact conceptions of God.

According to the Alexandrian philosopher, the _Logos_, or the Word, would be “an intermediary being between God and the world,” “the first-born of God,” “the highest of all the divine forces or potencies,” “a creature whose instrumentality he used to give existence to all other creatures,” “a second God.” The _Logos_ is also the directing power of the world, the divine Providence that governs all things. “The divine Word,” he says, “flows down as from a fountain, like unto a stream of wisdom, to inundate souls enamored with heavenly things. It is by his Word that God gives to the children of the earth the knowledge of that which is.” Finally, the Word holds the office of mediator between man and God; in this regard it is “the Supreme Pontiff,” and may be called “the Paraclete, or Consoler.” If we take some of these expressions in their literal meaning—if the Logos is, properly speaking, a creature, and yet a second God endowed, as it appears from the passages which we have just quoted, with the attributes of the Divinity—there is no doubt that Philo is at variance with the orthodox teaching of the Jews, who were always averse to anything that would in the least go against their belief in the unity of God. Creation in the first book of Genesis is simply attributed to God: “At the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and in the Book of Wisdom and other passages of Biblical writings there is nothing to indicate that the Word, the Energy or the Virtue of God, by which he created all things, is not identical with God. In Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 14, Wisdom is said to have been created before the world. But there is no question here of any creative act, properly so-called. The meaning is that the Word, who is the Wisdom of the Father, was produced from eternity by an ineffable generation; for Wisdom is spoken of as existing before all time, and therefore is eternal and God himself. The notion of the _Logos_ which is attributed to Philo would likewise be at variance with that of his master, Plato. The doctrine of Plato on the subject is contained in his theory of ideas, the types, exemplars, or immutable reasons of things, present to the mind of the Creator, which determine in him the essence of each class of beings, and direct him in the production of his works. Did Plato make of those types or ideas separate existences and substantial beings distinct from God? Aristotle interpreted in this sense certain expressions of his teacher. But in antiquity as well as in our own days Plato found strenuous defenders who refused to admit that he ever intended such an absurdity. For our own part, we believe that the whole of his doctrine is faithfully exposed in the following passage of Atticus, apud Eusebius, one of his most illustrious disciples: “Plato,” he says, “had recognized God as the Father and Author, the Master and Administrator, of all things. Understanding, by the very nature of a work, that he who produces it must first of all conceive its plan in his mind to give it existence afterwards according to that type, he saw that the ideas of God were anterior to his works; that they were the immaterial, purely intelligible, eternal, immutable exemplars of everything that exists; that in them was the first being, the being _par excellence_ from which all things derive their being, since they are only in the measure in which they reproduce their types. Being fully aware that those truths are not easily understood, and that language is inadequate to formulate them in a clear manner, Plato discoursed of them as best he could, opening the way to those who would come after him; and absorbed in that consideration, making his whole philosophy converge towards that object, he declared that wisdom consisted in the knowledge of the divine exemplars, and that such was the science which would lead man to his end or beatitude.” Again, if it be true that Philo conceived the _Logos_ as a being distinct from God, his doctrine has nothing in common with the Christian dogma of the Word as exposed in the Gospel of St. John. The Word that was at the beginning, and by whom all things have been made, was with God, and the Word was God. But it would not be fair to condemn a man before having made honest endeavors to give to his words the most favorable interpretation of which they are susceptible. When Philo calls the Word “the first-born of God,” “the first creature,” nothing forces us to attach to these expressions any other meaning than that we give to similar locutions which we find in Scripture, and in some of the early Fathers; as, for instance, St. Paul, Coloss. i. 15, who, speaking of the Word, says that “he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature”; and Clement of Alexandria, who declares that the Word is “the first created wisdom.” Besides, it is probable that Philo had some idea of the personality of the Word. We must not forget that he based all his philosophical speculations upon revelation as found in the Old Testament, and that he could not have been wholly ignorant of the teachings of Christianity. When, therefore, he uses the expression “second God,” or “the other God”—_alter Deus_—it is possible that he intends to designate by it the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Be this as it may, certain it is that Philo’s ideas are found permeating Neo-Platonism in that phase of it into which it entered in his time, and which is also denominated Neo-Pythagoreanism, because in that school an attempt was made to revive the doctrines and method of Pythagoras, as well as his mode of life. It will be sufficient here to direct our attention to Apollonius of Tyana, the chief representative of the Neo-Pythagoreans of that period. He was a contemporary of Christ. His life, written by Philostratus in the third century, is a philosophico-religious romance in which the Neo-Pythagorean ideal is portrayed in the person of Apollonius. He had visited many countries and sojourned with the sages of India, whom he admired, and whose pantheistic notions he adopted. His doctrine is no more that of the old Greek philosophers, who considered reason as the only means of knowledge. He pretends to be in direct communication with the Deity, from which he derives light and strength; and in this immediate contact with Heaven his whole being is purified and elevated to a degree of power which gives him, as he pretends, the dominion over the forces of nature. And as the soul is, according to him, a portion of the divine intelligence, and the source of all good to man, so the body, which is regarded as the prison of his higher nature, must be the source of the disordered affections which gain mastery over his soul. All the ascetic life of Apollonius is therefore directed to subdue this tyranny of the body. This he must do first in himself and then in those around him.

There is no doubt that this tone of mind, which began to prevail at the very time Christianity made its appearance in the world, was favorable to it. Henceforth the several schools of philosophy shall be brought in contact with Christian dogma and the contest carried on in the same field. On the one hand, the Greek philosophers were in search of a light which they did not possess; they were forced to acknowledge in spite of themselves that the speculations and systems had failed to give a solution to the most important problems with which humanity is concerned; they had been made aware of the insufficiency of reason to effect this purpose; they felt the need of a special assistance from above as a check to the corruption of nature. And, on the other hand, the champions of a new religion saw the necessity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the ideas of their opponents, in order to meet them on their own ground and gain admittance into the very heart of pagan learning. “In the truest sense of the word,” says a writer in the _Dublin Review_, “Christianity is a philosophy, and, what is more to the purpose, in the sense of the philosophers of Alexandria it was a philosophy. The narrowed meaning that in our days is assigned to philosophy, as distinguished from religion, had no existence in those times. Wisdom was the wisdom by excellence, the highest, the ultimate wisdom. It meant the fruit of the highest speculation, and at the same time the necessary ground of all important practice. A system of philosophy was, therefore, at that period, tantamount to a religion. When the Christian teachers then told the philosophers of Alexandria that they could teach them true philosophy, they were saying not only what was perfectly true but what was perfectly understood by their hearers. The catechetical school was, and appeared to them, as truly a philosophical lecture-room as the halls of the museum.” It was in this light that the Neo-Platonics must have looked upon such men as Clement, Origen, and other writers of the Christian school. They listened with deep interest to the words of those teachers, who, with a clearness and authority which they had not known before, propounded doctrines that had already found an echo in their hearts. “Your masters in philosophy,” they were told, “are great and noble; but they did not go far enough, as you all acknowledge. Come to us, then, and we will show you what is wanting in them. Listen to these old Hebrews whose writings you have in your hands. They treated of all your problems, and had solved the deepest of them whilst your forefathers were groping in darkness. All their light, and much more, is our inheritance. The truth which you seek we possess. ‘What you worship without knowing it, that we preach to you.’ God’s Word has been made flesh, has lived on earth, the Perfect Man, the Absolute Man. Come to us, and we will show you how you may know God through him, and how through him God communicates himself to you. Asceticism and the subduing of the flesh by mortification are good and commendable, but the end of it all is God and the love of God, and this end can only be attained by a Christian.” Thus those very matters of intellect and high ethics in which they especially prided themselves were brought back to them with an intensity of light that made visible the darkness which surrounded the teachings of their old masters.

It does not matter that Christianity found its most bitter enemies in the ranks of Neo-Platonism. It was a great advantage for it to be brought hand-to-hand with all forms of error. The battle raged for three hundred years; but from the very first Christianity proved itself superior to its antagonist by the influence which it exerted even then on heathen philosophy, whose tone and temper were completely changed as early as the time of Plutarch—that is, about fifty years after Philo. That influence is unmistakable, as Champagny clearly shows in his _Antonines_. Philosophy has become more pious, more worshipful. The idea of one supreme God is more definite; God is spiritual, not material; he is the pattern of every virtue, and his providence extends over the world and man. The principles of morality are purer and in many cases recall the spirit of the Gospel. “In the time of Severus,” says Allies, “all the thinking minds have become ashamed of Olympus and its gods. The cross has wounded them to death.” It is in vain that the later Neo-Platonics and court philosophers strive to shelter retreating heathenism in a last fortress. They only prepare the way for the Christian faith, which they strenuously combat. When the Emperor Severus, regarding with the eye of a statesman and a soldier that faith, contemplates its grasp upon society, and decrees from the height of the throne a general assault upon it; when his wife encourages Philostratus to draw an ideal heathen portrait, that of Apollonius of Tyana, as a counterpart to the character of Christ, tacitly subtracting from the Gospels an imitation which is to supply the place of the reality, they confess by the very fact the weakness of heathenism and the ascendency which the religion of Christ had already obtained. Soon after Origen could discern and prophesy the complete triumph of that religion. To Celsus, who had objected that, were all to do as the Christians did, the emperor would be deserted and his power fall into the hands of the most savage and lawless barbarians, he replied: “If all did as I do, men would honor the emperor as a divine command, and the barbarians, drawing to the Word of God, would become most law-loving and most civilized; their worship would be dissolved, and that of the Christians alone prevail, as one day it will alone prevail, by means of that Word gathering to itself more and more souls” (Orig. contra Celsus, apud Allies).

Philo, therefore, in inaugurating the Neo-Platonic movement in philosophy, was only fulfilling the mandate delivered to his people, that of preparing the way of the Lord and disposing the nations for the acceptance of the Gospel. The church succeeds the synagogue as the divinely-accredited teacher of mankind; the long-cherished hope of the Hebrews is realized, and the true kingdom of David, is established upon earth to hold universal sway. The Gentile world, through the instrumentality of the chosen people, had been made to share in the great hope of a Redeemer, and within it aspirations had been developed and longings were felt which philosophy was unable to satisfy; and at the very time when its inanity appeared more manifest Christ reveals himself to that world as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and presented to it in his own person that form of virtue which Plato thirsted to see embodied. Under his influence the face of the earth is renewed; what human genius, with all its efforts, had failed to accomplish, what such men as Plato, Pythagoras, and others could not accomplish, even among a small number of adepts—this and infinitely more was realized, not merely within the narrow circle of a few privileged disciples, but among the masses, among the learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, the rulers and the ruled, the powerful and the weak; not in one corner of the globe, but all over the world, from north to south and from east to west; not only in countries favored by great intellectual aptitudes, where the arts and sciences flourished, where civilization with all its refinements had reached the highest degree of perfection, but in countries most abandoned, among savage tribes and barbarous nations plunged in utter darkness. Surely a new principle of life has taken possession of the earth—a divine principle which gives rise to those heroic virtues which we see displayed in every rank of society and in all climes, and by which the human race is transfigured. This result was foretold centuries before; it is the new creation spoken of by the Psalmist: “Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created; and thou shalt renew the face of the earth” (Ps. ciii. 30). It was preceded by a series of events so combined that it is impossible not to see in them the supernatural action of divine Providence and the profound wisdom of God, who makes use of apt means for the furtherance of his end. Besides, there is a wonderful unity of truth discernible from the very beginning, and which appears in an unbroken chain throughout the course of ages. It is the same Word, the same light, which was communicated to our first parents that we see increasing in intensity until it reaches in Christ the splendor of the full day. The first revelation of the Word to man is to be found in his natural reason, which is pervaded with primary truths that are axioms in the intelligence of mankind. “But on these,” says Cardinal Manning (_Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost_), “descended other truths from the Father of light, as he saw fit to reveal them in measure and in season, according to the successions of time ordained in the divine purpose. The revelations of the patriarchs elevated and enlarged the sphere of light in the intelligence of men by their deeper, purer, and clearer insight into the divine mind, character, and conduct in the world. The revelations to Moses and to the prophets raised still higher the fabric of light, which was always ascending towards the fuller revelation of God yet to come. But in all these accessions and unfoldings of the light of God truth remained still one, harmonious, indivisible; a structure in perfect symmetry, the finite but true reflex of truth as it reposes in the divine intelligence.” None of the much-boasted theories of our modern rationalists gives us that unity which is the test of truth. The restoration of our fallen race by the manifestation of the Word is the leading principle of Schlegel’s _Philosophy of History_; and the greatest minds, as St. Augustine and Bossuet, admitted no other in their immortal works. How puerile, in comparison with their grand and luminous conceptions, are all those systems which would fain explain the destinies of man without God! To the dreamers who have invented them can be applied the words of St. Paul: “They detain the truth of God in injustice. They have become vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart has been darkened” (Rom. i. 18-21).

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE DIVINE SANCTUARY. A series of Meditations upon the Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. By the Very Rev. Thomas S. Preston, V.G., Pastor of St. Ann’s Church, N. Y. New York: Robert Coddington. 1878.

We welcome most gratefully this new book for the month of June. We hope it will go a long way towards placing the observance of this month on a level with that of the month of May; for the more the devotion to the Sacred Heart increases among us the more abundant will be the graces it always brings.

The book, however, is not intended for the month of June alone, but can be used at any time, and particularly on the first Friday or Sunday of every month. The author’s idea, in choosing the Litany of the Sacred Heart and forming a meditation on each of the invocations to this “divine sanctuary,” is a very happy one. He has divided the whole into three parts, viz.: “The Glories of the Sacred Heart,” as shown in the first thirteen invocations; “The Sorrows of the Sacred Heart,” as contemplated in the next eight; and “The Offices of the Sacred Heart,” as appealed to in the remaining nine. At the head of each meditation is an appropriate passage of Holy Scripture.

As to the excellence of the meditations themselves, there is no need of our dwelling on it. It is enough to know, from his past efforts, what Father Preston is capable of in dealing with devotional subjects. This kind of book is his peculiar _forte_. We are sure the little volume will be highly prized by all lovers of the Sacred Heart, who will also find the Litany itself, together with a beautiful Act of Consecration, immediately following the list of contents.

GOOD THINGS FOR CATHOLIC READERS: A Miscellany of Catholic Biography, History, Travels, etc. Containing Pictures and Sketches of Eminent Persons, representing the Church and Cloister, State and Home, etc., etc. With over two hundred Illustrations. Second edition, with Additions. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Company. 1878.

This large and very handsome volume is in every way a gem. It contains more varied and interesting information—much of it of positive and immediate value—than any work we know. It is called “second edition,” but really it is a new volume, containing twice as much matter as the original. Its sketches of Catholic biography, with excellent portraits, are brought down to the present year. The last face that looks at us from the pages is the beautiful one of the Rt. Rev. M. M. de St. Palais, the lamented Bishop of Vincennes, who died in June, 1877. Near him is the noble countenance of Bishop Von Ketteler. Dear old Father McElroy looks out at us with his bright eyes, his head leaning against his hand. Archbishops Bayley and Connolly and Bishop Verot are there. There is also the leonine head of Dr. Brownson, and an excellent sketch of his life. But it is dangerous to begin the list of these Catholic heroes and holy men whose portraits and biographies are here given us. One lingers by each one, for each one is full of attraction. A good sketch and an excellent portrait of our late Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., catch the eye as we open the volume of 638 pages. Interspersed with these biographical sketches and portraits is every kind of interesting matter with pleasing illustrations. No book could make a more acceptable present; for it is indeed an exhaustless mine of “good things”—things, too, which young and old will find equally good.

* * * * *

We are in receipt of a number of volumes and pamphlets, many of which have been noticed and the notices are already in type, but owing to a variety of necessities have been regretfully held over from month to month. We trust to satisfy everybody in our next number. A word to publishers: They are very apt to send in what are called “seasonable” books on the eve of THE CATHOLIC WORLD’s going to press, and appear to be surprised at not seeing a notice duly appear “in season.” For instance, devotional works intended for the month of May come to us by the dozen when the May number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD is already passing through the press. If all publishers bore in mind, as some do, that the magazine is to all intents and purposes prepared a month ahead of date, there would be no surprise at the long delay which “seasonable” books that arrive out of season have to endure.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XXVII., No. 161.—AUGUST, 1878.

DR. EWER ON THE QUESTION, WHAT IS TRUTH?[125]

Ten years ago Dr. Ewer produced an argument proving the failure of Protestantism by some solid reasons, which he avers have been met “not by argument, but by a gale of holy malediction and impotent scorn,” on the part of those who were included in his indictment. Dr. Ewer being an accredited minister of a society whose official designation in its own ecclesiastical law and before the civil law of the land is “the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States,” it was a very natural inquiry whether he had not indicted his own church and himself as participants in this general failure or religious bankruptcy, and was not morally bound to abandon an institution denounced by himself as not only insolvent but fraudulent. The late illustrious Dr. Brownson did the reverend gentleman the great honor of reviewing the argument which he had put forth, in the pages of this magazine. Not with malediction and scorn, but with sober logic, he pointed out his inconsistent and self-contradictory position, as a Protestant minister denouncing Protestantism, and proved that the only possible logical alternative of Protestantism, for one who admits the divine origin of the Christian religion, is the genuine and pure Catholicism of the holy, Catholic, apostolic Roman Church. To the many failures of Protestantism, not only to construct any real form of Christian religion, but also to destroy the actual and historical Christianity which it has renounced, Dr. Ewer added another in his own person by failing to answer the arguments of Dr. Brownson. Although strongly urged to undertake the task, he absolutely declined to do so; and in presenting himself anew, after a lapse of ten years, with the proffer of something which he is pleased to call “Catholic Truth” as a substitute for Protestant error, he does so under the great disadvantage of having failed to vindicate himself from the charge of teaching what is only one of the Protean forms of the very error which he so solemnly denounces as subversive of all faith or even natural religion.

The present lecture, besides containing a renewal of the indictment of Protestantism, and a restatement of the assertion that the truth opposite to its errors is embodied in the infallible teaching of a Catholic Church existing in his own imagination, has also what purports to be a palmary refutation of the dogma of Catholic faith defined by the Council of the Vatican respecting the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Perhaps the lecturer considers that this is a sufficient though late rejoinder to the arguments of Dr. Brownson in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Not so. Dr. Ewer’s Catholic Church has been proved to be an _ens rationis_, an abstraction, and its imaginary infallibility to be mere moonshine of the fancy. The logical idea of organic unity, of corporate, Catholic, unerring teaching and legislating and grace-giving hierarchical authority, representing Christ on earth from his ascension to his second coming, has been demonstrated to have no counterpart and expression in the order of real and actual existence, except in the one church over which Peter presides in his successors. If it is proved that the successor of Peter, with the concurrence of the bishops, clergy, and faithful who obey his supreme authority, has committed an act of self-stultification, this lamentable catastrophe affords no more ground to Dr. Ewer and his little party to claim a gain of cause for their _petite église_ than it does to the Rev. John Jasper to maintain the triumph of his ancient and primitive doctrine that “the sun do move.” Let us suppose that the utter failure of Protestantism is demonstrated. Let us suppose, also, that the Church of Rome has erred. Does it follow by any logical reduction that the party of Dr. Ewer, however respectable in regard to learning and intellectual ability, morality and religious zeal, is not also in error? By no means. The only conclusion which does logically follow is that two-thirds of those who are called Christians are very seriously in error regarding the true and real nature of the Christian religion which they profess. It is possible that the remainder may also have erred. The Greek Church may have erred, the Church of England may have erred, the Oriental sects may have erred. Some of them must have erred, for they disagree among themselves in regard to two important matters, one as to what pertains to the essence and integrity of Catholic faith, the other as to what pertains to the essence and integrity of Catholic order. There is a general disagreement and disunion, without any external criterion or legitimate tribunal of judgment by which their differences can be adjudicated and terminated. The appeal which some of our Anglican friends are wont to make to an œcumenical council of Christendom is about as practical a method of constituting such a tribunal as an appeal would be to Moses, to the twelve apostles, to the Council of Nice, or to a special commission of archangels. Failing all possible recourse to an actually existing and infallible tribunal, we are thrown back upon the necessity of judging for ourselves between the various systems and forms of doctrine professedly Christian, on their intrinsic merits, and the rational evidence which each of them can adduce in its own behalf. Whoever thinks that we are really in this predicament will, if he holds firmly to Christianity and at the same time follows the dictates of reason, conclude that the various forms of Christianity are only differentiations of the same generic ratio, and will seek for some rationalistic or broad-church basis of reconciliation and union among Christians. If he does not hold by some kind of strong, and dominant conviction to the Christian religion, he will adopt the opinion of Mr. Froude and many other men of the nineteenth century, that it is a religion destined to become obsolete and be replaced by a new religion or by nihilism. So far from liberating those who are “breast-deep in torrents of scepticism,” Dr. Ewer plunges them with a stone to their feet to the bottom of the sea of scepticism. He loudly proclaims that there is no remedy for doubt, misery, and spiritual ruin except in the coming and the remaining upon earth, in visible, audible form and presence, of God made man, by his natural and mystical body, through whose organs of human speech the truths of salvation are infallibly declared to those men who are willing to hear. Yet he denies all the evidence there is that any such mystical body of Christ, possessing and exercising the requisite power of infallible speech, has continuously existed, and does now exist, on the earth, giving to men an unerring external criterion of judgment whereby they may discern Catholic truth from Protestant errors. Having first swept away rational theology and all certitude concerning revealed truth which can be gained from the private study of the Scriptures, he annihilates the living, teaching authority of the perennial church, and leaves nothing whatever which can furnish a refuge from the universal sea of doubt, not even a Noe’s ark. The land which he points out is a mirage, the ark of safety is a phantom-ship. Man is justified, according to the gospel of Dr. Ewer, not by faith alone, but by theory alone; not by the works of the law, but by the plays of the imagination. With very great pomp of language he exclaims: “In this God embodied in the one church, in this God continuously visible and audible, therefore, behold, gentlemen, the fountain of infallibility which you seek; for God himself cannot err nor falsify.” This is an encouraging and promising invitation. Surely, if we can find this divine oracle, this sacred tabernacle over which a pillar of fire reposes all through the hours of this present darkness as a token of the abiding of the Spirit of Truth within its sacred enclosure, we may be satisfied, and if this bright cloud precedes we may march with confidence through the desert toward the promised land.

Let us be sure that the Son of God has come into the world, that he has founded a church with sovereign and unerring authority to teach his truth and his law, that we know with certainty which is this church, and it is obvious that all reasonable cause for doubting in regard to things necessary to our interior peace of mind and our eternal salvation is removed. Dr. Ewer’s theory is right and consistent so far. But he fails to verify his own conditions, and does not designate any real and concrete body which fulfils the exigencies of his theory. He asserts that whoever holds his theory is a Catholic, and that there are three, and only three, churches which are parts of the one body that, according to the theory which he calls Catholic, must necessarily be identified and recognized as the mystical body of Christ. He exhorts his hearers to listen, “as the one Holy Catholic Church in all its parts, His own body, raises its voice,” which he says is “the voice of God on earth, chanting aloud that all the people in all time may hear, and be without excuse, the unaltering, irreformable truth.” What is the sum and substance of this truth? It is, he informs us, “the solemn, Catholic Creed of Nice, Constantinople, and Athanasius.” This creed, moreover, he asserts, has been chanted “in unison round and round the world in unbroken strain, following the tireless sun, through the centuries and the millenniums,” by his imaginary catholic church, a body existing in separate parts, without any head or unity of organization. Dr. Brownson has demonstrated that such a body cannot exist either in the realm of nature or in that of grace, and we need not repeat his arguments. We simply affirm, at present, that this unison of voices without discord or interruption, chanting continuously from the apostolic age the three creeds above mentioned, is a myth, and no historical fact. Dr. Ewer appears to rely on it as the external criterion of Catholic truth, and if it vanishes, as it must under the historical test, he is left to the mercy of the torrents of scepticism, along with the other Protestants. The creeds, in their external form, are a growth and a development from the germ which first existed under a simpler form. The slightest acquaintance with early church history suffices to show how long and violent a warfare was necessary in order to establish the Nicene Creed with its test-word of orthodoxy, “consubstantial with the Father,” as the permanent, universal, and unchangeable formula of faith, even among those who truly held and confessed the Catholic faith itself in regard to the true and proper divinity of the Son. The additions made by the First Council of Constantinople were not universally adopted, or the council itself completely ratified and recognized as œcumenical, until at least seventy years after its celebration.

If the doctrine contained in the creeds is regarded in itself, prescinding from its verbal expression, the case is much worse for Dr. Ewer’s theory. The Arian heretics were numerous and powerful, and they were able to persecute the Catholics and lay waste the church in a fearful manner. They were nevertheless Catholics, according to Dr. Ewer’s definition. They professed to have the genuine, apostolical, and primitive faith, and accused the Catholics of having altered and corrupted it. They recognized the visible church, the apostolic succession, the hierarchical order, the sacrifice and sacraments instituted by Christ, and continued the outward show and appearance of conformity to established Catholic usage, and even to the language of the Fathers respecting the mysteries of faith. They were intruded into the possession of the titles, churches, and other temporalities of many of the most important episcopal sees, and sustained in their usurpation by the civil power.

After the extermination of the Arian heresy came the Nestorians. They also professed to be orthodox and Catholic, anathematized the Arians and all the previous heretics, confessed the Nicene Creed, and, when they were condemned and cut off from the church, so far from ceasing to exist, they increased and flourished in a remarkable way for centuries, and still remain as a separate organization with their bishops, who have succeeded in an unbroken line from those of the fifth century.

The Eutychians or Monophysites received the decrees of the councils of Nice and Ephesus, anathematized the Nestorians, and denounced the Catholics as Nestorian heretics. After the Council of Chalcedon, which condemned them, they persisted in maintaining their position as being the genuine Catholics, and formed a new sect, which still subsists in Egypt and the East. A century after the Council of Chalcedon, out of six millions of Christians in the patriarchate of Alexandria, there were only three hundred thousand Catholics, and in Asia Minor the divisions and dissensions caused by the Monophysite and Nestorian heresies were so great that the peace and stability of the Eastern empire were seriously compromised. This was the occasion of an effort at reconciliation made by the Emperor Heraclius, in concert with Sergius of Constantinople and Cyrus of Alexandria, which brought in a new heresy, the Monothelite, with new disorders, new persecutions, and another violent struggle for life on the part of the Catholic faith, that resulted after fifty years in a sixth œcumenical council, where the Monothelite heresy was condemned. What reason has Dr. Ewer for excluding these heretical Eastern sects from his comprehensive Catholic Church? They have always received the creeds of Nice and Constantinople. They hold fewer heresies than those which are admitted by the Church of England, and, apart from their special heretical tenets, are in close conformity of doctrine and order with the Greek Church. They always protested that they held the primitive, Catholic faith, and that they were unjustly condemned because they resisted the effort to impose new dogmas and additions to the creed as terms of Catholic communion. The history of the whole period of the first six councils completely falsifies and nullifies Dr. Ewer’s theory, and shows his fanciful chant in unison to be as mythical a song as was ever sung in the brain of a woman with a bee in her bonnet. It has a very nice sound to appeal to the first six councils. Even the Presbyterian General Assembly could vindicate their orthodoxy before Pius IX. by loudly proclaiming their assent to all the dogmatic definitions of the first six councils. But what do the majority of men know about these councils? The same objections which Anglicans make against the seventh, and Greeks and Anglicans alike make against the councils of Lyons, Florence, Trent, and the Vatican, are of equal force against those of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. The number of bishops present in each of them varied from one hundred and fifty to six hundred and thirty, out of a whole number of prelates certainly much larger even in the beginning of the fourth century, and estimated by the emperors themselves, who must have had better means of information than any others at the time, as having increased in the fifth century to a total of five or six thousand. The church went on very well for three centuries without any œcumenical councils. When the necessity arose, each council was sufficient for the present emergency, but not sufficient for the new ones which arose and demanded new councils and new decisions, of equal authority with the preceding. Each one has met the violent opposition of the rebellious, the schismatical, and the heretical appellants from the present, actual authority of the church to some ideal tribunal of their own imagination, in the past or in the future, which they can call what they choose, the Catholic Church or the Word of God. Their word of God is their own private interpretation of Scripture, or of Scripture and tradition together; their Catholic Church is themselves and their particular party, pretending to speak in the name of the church and to be her interpreters. The whole is worth as much as the œcumenical council forged by Photius, acts, decrees, signatures, and all, and promulgated at large among the Eastern bishops, in support of his usurpation of the see of Constantinople. The council of Photius was Photius himself, and the Catholic Church of Dr. Ewer is Dr. Ewer and the other members of his party. There is no really existing and speaking society which says: “I am the church, composed of three parts, Roman, Greek, and Anglican.” This is the language of certain individuals put into the mouth of an imaginary society. The principle of individualism, which is the first principle of schism and heresy, is just as really at the bottom of Dr. Ewer’s theory as it is at the bottom of Chillingworth’s. It breeds the same discord and disunion, and leaves men exposed to the same inroad of scepticism. Controversies concerning what the church is, what her authority and infallibility are, which are the true councils, which is the true Catholic communion, who are the lawful pastors to whom obedience is due, confuse and disturb the mind and conscience as much as controversies concerning the true sense of Scripture, the true doctrine of the Person of Christ, or the conditions of salvation in general. There must have been an external criterion, a rule of determination, by which the orthodox faith and Catholic communion could be discerned from Arian, Nestorian, Monophysite, and Donatist counterfeits. That same rule must exist now; it must be an infallible test of every kind of spurious Christianity and spurious Catholicity. It is necessary that this rule, if it be really sufficient, should determine not only between Caiphas or Mohammed and Christ, between apocryphal and genuine Scriptures, between Arius and Athanasius, Macedonius and Basil, Nestorius and Cyril, Dioscorus and Leo, Pyrrhus and Maximus, but also between Calvin and Bellarmine, Elizabeth and Pius V., Nicholas and Pius IX., Döllinger and Cardinal Manning, Dr. Ewer and Dr. Brownson. It must determine not only between church and no-church, Bible alone and Bible with apostolic tradition, priest and preacher, but between bishop and bishop, the usurpation and the just right of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the pretence and the reality of infallible authority, the minimum and the maximum of doctrine which must be accepted as pertaining to Catholic faith. These are not non-essential matters or questions of debate between theological schools. They relate to obligations of conscience in which the salvation of the soul is involved, and are eminently practical. The Spanish prince Hermenegild had such a practical rule, and obeyed it by sacrificing his life rather than to receive communion from an Arian bishop. Marie Antoinette had the same, and died without the Viaticum rather than to receive it from a constitutional priest. An Anglican living in St. Petersburg, and in doubt whether he was bound to remain in his own sect, to join the Russian national church, or to become a Catholic, or was at liberty to choose between the three, would need the same rule. Who could decide the doubt for him? His own clergy? The Russian clergy? Catholic priests? The judgment of any of these, as private individuals, is not infallible. They can only help him to find some rule under which they are personally acting, and which proceeds from an authority superior to themselves. According to Dr. Ewer, neither of these authorities is supreme or infallible in itself; it is only in so far as they agree in transmitting the judgments of an authority in abeyance, that they can furnish an infallible rule. This is no rule which meets his case. They agree only in telling him that he must obey the rule recognized by the first six councils. Where is that voice of God which is audible to all men who will hear? Where is the embodied Christ who will take him by the hand? What has become of the chant in unison of the one, Catholic Church, musically uttering unalterable truth? Suppose that the Christians of the first seven centuries had been left without any better rule than this, what perplexity and unutterable confusion would have been the result—quite as bad if not worse than that which exists among our modern Protestant sects.

An extrinsic and infallible rule of faith must be one that in a self-evident manner manifests itself as really extrinsic to those who present it, and superior to their individual judgment, and it must be universal. The teacher and the judge must speak in the name of a really existing society which is actually one and universal, and in a manifest identity with itself in the past, by unbroken continuity of life and self-consciousness from the time of its origin in the divine institution of Christ. The instructor of the one who seeks the truth must teach him what the church thinks and commands, and give him a criterion of certainty that she does think and command what he ascribes to her, so that if he falsifies her teaching he will disclose and betray his own deception in the very act of deceiving, like one who hands over a package of money which had been entrusted to him with a letter containing a description of its contents. Such a rule of faith, with its criterion of certainty and of self-verification, without any doubt the Catholics of the first seven centuries possessed. Their living and immediate rule was a church really one and obviously one with itself in its present and in its past. It declared itself to have always held and meant just what it was now saying. The faithful believed and obeyed it, because its continuity and identity from St. Peter and the apostles were obvious by manifest signs and tokens which could not deceive them. Heretics and schismatics could not successfully mimic the voice of the true church. Their lack of continuity, _i.e._, apostolicity, of unity, of Catholicity, and of sanctity as well, was obvious. Their counterfeits were always put forth as the genuine coin of ancient stamp, but as coin which had been hidden or defaced until they had discovered it, or burnished it anew. The lawful issues of new coin from the old mint they denounced as counterfeit or adulterated. Their very pretence of returning to a kind of old Catholic doctrine more ancient and more Catholic than that of the present church, was a sure, detective test of their spuriousness. Continuity could not be in them, or universality, or unity; because their only claim to a hearing, and their only justification of their rebellion, implied that the church had not preserved these notes unimpaired. They were self-contradictory, and affirmed and denied the Catholic Church in the same breath. So likewise their successors. The so-called Greek Church is a contradiction to itself, in respect to its schismatical position, and a concrete absurdity. The Anglican sect is not on a par with the schismatical and heretical churches of the East in any way, and deserves no consideration in the treatment of the question of the actual extension of the Catholic Church. The theoretical church called Anglo-Catholic is an _ens rationis_. We give it only a hypothetical position in our discussion, as a possible society which might be organized in accordance with Dr. Ewer’s theory, if there were one real bishop to undertake the experiment. This hypothetical church is an hypothetical absurdity, as the Greek Church is a real one. The absurdity consists in the contradiction between the concrete and practical actuality of separate existence as a partial and incomplete church, and the confession of faith in one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church, having infallible authority in faith and morals. If the one church continues to exist as a complete, integral whole, there is no place for another partial and incomplete church, and any society which exists under that name is condemned by itself as an anomaly and a crime. If it does not exist, the church has failed. There being no whole, there can be no parts. There is no church at all of divine institution, no mystical body of Christ on earth. There are only human organizations, each of which is changeable and fallible. The profession of belief in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church is, therefore, a profession of belief in a falsehood. _Mentita est iniquitas sibi._

In that part of his theory which is Catholic Dr. Ewer affirms as a necessary consequence from the nature of God as a God of love, together with the method which he has chosen for manifesting his love through the Incarnation, that the Catholic Church must be really existing: “that God has still remained, and will to the end of time remain, in a one, undying, ever-fresh, amazing, organic, visible, audible, tangible, and recognizable body of human matter, known as the mystical body of God on earth.” Once more he says: “As Jesus Christ was the only being who dared to call himself God, so Catholicity is the only Christian body that dares to call itself infallible; that dares to begin its discourses, to give its truth, to pronounce its judgments, and to pardon sin, ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’” This is given as a token of the true church, the real possessor of infallible authority.

From this it follows that the church whose supreme ruler is the Roman Pontiff is the one, Catholic Church, complete and integral in itself, and in no sense a compart with the Greek and Anglican churches as other parts making up with it, as a composite totality, the Catholic Church. The members of this church are on the same footing with the Catholics of the earlier ages, and have the same rule. They recognize one church, distinct and separate from all others, as perfect and infallible, with its continuous series of œcumenical councils. This church, and this church alone, dares to assume the exclusive name and prerogatives of Catholicity, to proclaim itself infallible, and to command obedience to its decrees as the necessary condition of salvation. The Sovereign Pontiff of Rome, and he alone, dares to call himself the Vicar of Christ and the Head of his entire mystical body, the church. But that most illogical and inconsistent of men, Dr. Ewer, confronted by Pius IX. and the Œcumenical Council of the Vatican, and feeling himself and his pseudo-Catholicism smitten by their anathemas, suddenly drops his Catholic disguise, and, showing himself in his true character as a Protestant and a sceptic, cries out: “LET US EXAMINE.” We have no objection to an examination. For a Catholic, to examine the dogmatic decrees of an œcumenical council or of the pope in respect to matters of faith, with an examination of doubt and hesitancy, is _ipso facto_ a renunciation of his rule of faith and an act of apostasy. For one who is in inculpable ignorance or doubt concerning the criterion of truth and the proximate rule of faith, to examine with sincerity and honesty of purpose is a duty as well as a right. Dr. Ewer puts himself and his auditors into this position, as seekers, inquirers, who are invited to “go back and start all over again—without a Bible, without a church, without sacraments, without any religious notions—_and see where we shall come out_.” An interesting exploration, assuredly! Dr. Ewer, and those who follow his guidance, come out, by a tolerably short path, to a logical position, which is the next one to a final term of the process. Nothing remains to be determined, except the subject of the attribute of infallibility, in its specific and individual being as really existing, and representing the sovereign authority of Christ on earth. Even this is determined in respect to the past existence of the body which is recognized as the one, true church, and was assembled in the first six councils. The one point to be examined is whether the body assembled in the Council of the Vatican is identical with the one, true church assembled at Nice, Chalcedon, and Constantinople, in œcumenical council. If it is, the examination is terminated; the infallible church is found really existing in the present, with the same specific and individuating notes by which it is identified as existing in the past. If not, the examination is equally terminated, for there is no other body even ostensibly similar to this one which remains to be examined. Consequently, Dr. Ewer and his followers have come out into a _cul de sac_, or no thoroughfare.

Dr. Ewer, having examined the claim of the Vatican Council to be the _Ecclesia Docens_, defining the Catholic faith with infallible authority equal to that of the Council of Nice, does not merely dispute or deny it, but scouts and ridicules it with most contemptuous language, unsurpassed by any ever used by Arians or Eutychians against previous councils and definitions. Its great dogmatic decree defining the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff he vituperates as “this flagrant instance of the fallacy known as ‘begging the very question at issue’; an instance which is perhaps the sublimest in its presumption, and the most absurd in its simplicity, that the world ever stood amazed at.” This is a strong assertion and powerful rhetoric! But what we want is evidence and logic. Has Dr. Ewer furnished any? There is some pretence of an argument, and, such as it is, we will endeavor to sift its value. The argument is briefly this. The dogmatic decree is the product of two factors, the collective judgment of the bishops apart from that of the pope, and the judgment of the pope himself. The judgment of the bishops being confessedly not final and infallible in itself, it is the judgment of the pope which must make the decree defining his infallibility final and infallible. Therefore, he defines his own infallibility by the same infallibility. He declares himself to be infallible because he is; the reason why we are bound to believe is identical with the very object of belief, _idem per idem_.

We will first point out the consequences to Dr. Ewer’s own theory from the argument he has used against the infallibility of the pope, and show its thoroughly sceptical tendency, and afterwards refute it in a more direct manner. The infallibility of the church or of œcumenical councils has never been defined by any of the councils acknowledged by Dr. Ewer. It has always been taken for granted. Suppose that the Council of Nice had explicitly declared this doctrine as a dogma of Catholic faith. It would have affirmed the infallibility of a council as its own infallible judgment, and the infallibility of this judgment itself would rest on the infallibility of the church in council, the very thing defined, as much as the infallibility of the judgment of Pius IX. rested on his own declaration that he was infallible. It would be the same in the case of the imaginary future council gathered from the three parts of Dr. Ewer’s catholic church. The taking of infallibility for granted was just as much a begging of the question, on the part of the _Ecclesia Docens_, in her ordinary universal teaching and her solemn definitions, as if she had expressly defined it. According to the same logic, the affirmation of their infallibility and inspiration by the twelve apostles would have been a begging of the question. It would have been a demand for belief in their inspiration, because they declared that they were inspired. Even so with our Blessed Lord. He declared that he was the Son of God, and required absolute faith in his words because he was the Son of God, and the very reason for believing his declaration rested on his actually being the Son of God. It is exactly the same with the intellect and reason of man. The demonstrations of reason rest on first principles which are taken for granted. Why do you take them for granted, we may ask of the intellect. Because they are evident to me. What is the proof that what is evident to you is truth? I am intellect, and am made to see truth? By what authority do you affirm that? By my own, because I am intellect and reason. But I want an authority, extrinsic to you, as a warrant that you do not err when you say you are intellect and reason, and that what you call self-evident is really so, and not a mere hallucination. There is none.

Let us go back to God himself. We believe God on his veracity, _i.e._, because he is truth in his essence, his knowledge, and his manifestation of the same to us. This veracity of God, which is the reason for believing whatever he makes known to us by revelation, is made known to us by God himself, and we depend on his truth for the certainty that it is truth, that he exists, and that he has manifested to us the truth. If, therefore, the declaration of the infallibility of the pope by the pope himself is a logical fallacy because the infallibility of the person and the act declaring it is implied and presupposed, there is a logical fallacy at the bottom of all faith and all science, of the first acts of reason and intellect, of the very idea of being and reality. This is Kantian and transcendental scepticism and nihilism pure and simple. Being and nothing are identical. We are swallowed by the abyss of the unknowable, and the only fate possible or desirable for us, phantoms of a nightmare, is to be swallowed by the lower abyss of dreamless unconsciousness.

There is a real affinity between the pseudo-Catholicism of Oxford and scepticism. The former breeds the latter, and has actually been succeeded by it in the English universities and in many individual minds. Its sophistical methods pervert the reasoning faculties and undermine the basis of certitude. There is, moreover, a reaction caused by the refusal to draw from premises which can only find their just conclusions, their logical consequences, in genuine and complete Catholicity, which drives men back upon a rejection of all Christianity and all rational theology. As for the great mass of the present doubting generation, they are disgusted and repelled, if they are not rather moved to laughter and contempt, by the exhibition of such an illusory and fantastic claim of authority, before which they are exhorted to bow down. If Protestantism is a failure, and the authority of the Roman Pontiff and the great councils which have been celebrated under his presidency is futile, and the doctrine of the Greek Church is only Catholic in so far as the Church of England agrees with it, and this final measure of truth is only ascertained by taking the opinion of one small party of individuals, most men will conclude that Catholic authority is the most baseless of pretensions, and that Christianity itself is a failure. It is very unwise for any man to attempt to play the prophet, and assume to speak to men with a solemn air in the name of God, in these days, unless he has very authentic credentials. The pope can speak to the world as the Vicar of Christ, and receive some respectful attention. Any Catholic priest preaching Catholic doctrine has the pope, and the whole hierarchy, and many past centuries behind him, to overshadow him with their majesty. But the world cares nothing for what is said officially by the Patriarch of Constantinople or the Archbishop of Canterbury, much less for Dr. Ewer, and others like him who attempt to play the priest and imitate the Doctors of the church. In the great controversies of the age they count as a cipher. Whatever else the men of the coming age may do, they will not become Greco-Russian or Ritualistic. The issue is between Rome and anti-Christianity. Our only reason for noticing such a theory as that of Dr. Ewer is that numbers of individual members of his communion who are personally worthy of all respect are hindered by its speciousness from perceiving clearly the truth over which it casts a haze, and that others are likely to be prejudiced against the truth which it misrepresents and denies. It is a pseudo-Catholicism. Those who imbibe its Catholic ingredient are hindered from embracing the genuine Catholicity, toward which they have a tendency. Those who assimilate its uncatholic and sceptical element are hardened in their unbelief. We have said enough to show that it is no substitute for pure Catholicity and no antidote against scepticism. We drop this theory now out of sight, and during the remainder of this article we shall present to the candid inquirer for truth whose mind may have become confused by following the exposition of sophistry, a brief counter exposition of the integral Catholic truth in respect to that extrinsic, infallible criterion and rule by which it is ascertained with certitude, and all Protestant errors, or errors in faith or morals of any kind, are rejected.

In the first place, we repudiate utterly that extravagant _fideism_, if we may call it so, which makes an extrinsic rule, an authority exterior to the individual intellect and reason, and a faith or belief on testimony or authority, whether human or divine, the ultimate and only source and basis and rule of certitude in knowledge of the higher truths. We can never begin with any such source and criterion, and of course never progress and finish. Discursion of the reason, and faith as well, must have an intrinsic starting-point, which for man is in both the senses and the reason. We want no other light, and can have none, by which to see light itself, or rather to see illuminated objects in and by light. The intellect is a spiritual light. All men who have the use of their senses in a normal and healthy condition, and likewise their reason, see and feel and hear and understand and reason and know, without doubting; and when they reflect, they are certain that they do perceive sensible and intelligible objects. Each one knows this for himself, independently of the rest of mankind, as well as by the agreement and common sense of all. The intellect and reason of each one, and the intellect of mankind in general, is that to which we appeal, as containing the first principles and the intrinsic criterion of truth. Whoever pretends to doubt these first principles, or asks for somewhat above them and exterior to them, throws himself out of the rational sphere, and with him it is useless to argue. By intuition and discursion, by self-evident principles and demonstration, a great amount of certain science, even in natural theology, is attainable. Belief on testimony is rationally based on the evidence of the veracity of the witnesses, and furnishes another great amount of knowledge. Besides what is thus made metaphysically, or physically, or morally certain, there is a much larger quantity of that which is probable, in philosophy, physics, history, and all kinds of higher science. In respect to those things which are made known by divine testimony, that is, by divine revelation, the fact of the testimony is accredited, and made rationally credible, by the motives of credibility attesting and authenticating the revelation. The veracity of God is known by the light of reason. That which is really contained in the revelation, however it is transmitted, whether by books or by tradition, can be known in a great variety of ways, like other facts and ideas of the purely natural and human order. It is by no means absolutely necessary to prove the infallible authority of the church before we can refute scepticism, false philosophy, infidelity, or heresy. Christianity and Catholic theology rest on a sound rational basis and can be proved to the reason of one who is competent to understand the arguments. Revelation itself is absolutely necessary only for the disclosure of truths which are above reason. And these very truths can be demonstrated, not indeed by their intrinsic connection with truths of natural theology, but by their extrinsic connection with the veracity of God, through a logical syllogism. Whatever God testifies is true; but God has testified the mysteries contained in the Holy Scripture; therefore these mysteries are true. It is only necessary to prove the minor, and the demonstration is complete. The greatest part of the distinctively Catholic doctrines can be proved historically, critically, and logically, without resorting to the divine authority of the church. In great measure its human authority suffices, together with extrinsic sources of proof. In this way many Protestants have conclusively proved a great quantity of the truth contained in the Christian revelation. Even infidels are able to perceive and to prove that the religion established by Christ is the Catholic religion, and that whoever believes in the divine mission of Christ, or even in the existence of God, is logically bound to believe in the supremacy of the pope and in all the doctrines defined by the Roman Church.

What, then, is the necessity of revelation? It is absolutely necessary for the disclosure of truths above reason, and morally necessary for the instruction of the great mass of men in all religious and moral truth, in a perfect, certain, and easy way, adapted to their spiritual needs. What is the necessity of an infallible authority in the church? It is necessary as the ordinary means of applying this instruction efficaciously and unerringly, in respect to all the dogmatic and moral truths and precepts, with absolute and universal certainty, to the minds of all men, in a simple, easy, and unmistakable manner, and of determining finally controversies and condemning heresies.

A specious and fallacious objection is made on the very threshold of the argument on infallibility to show that there is necessarily a begging of the question from the start, and that some prior infallibility must be assumed as a reason for affirming any infallible extrinsic authority whatsoever. This is the very sophism we have previously brought to view, and which is the very essence of universal scepticism. It is objected that we cannot really identify and appropriate an infallible rule without a previous infallible criterion, and that we cannot apply it without the same criterion. The mind of man is fallible in determining that there is an infallible authority, what is that authority, what it teaches. But if I am fallible in the very judgment upon which rests the infallibility of the criterion which I assume as a safeguard against my own liability to error, I can never get beyond a fallible conclusion. This is the very argument of sceptics and probabilists against physical and metaphysical certitude. The senses are fallible, reason is fallible. Men are sometimes deceived by trusting to their senses, to their reason, to the testimony of others. Therefore we ought to doubt everything, or at least to rest satisfied with probability and a kind of blind, instinctive assent. We must substitute practical reason for pure reason. This is all sophistry and false philosophy. Fallibility is not essential but accidental in sensitive and intellectual cognition. It is a deficiency of nature, not a natural incapacity for certitude. Some would say that the intellect and reason are infallible within a certain sphere, so that by reason the mind infallibly joins itself to the higher infallibility of the church, and infallibly receives the truth from its teaching. We think it more accurate to restrict infallibility to that criterion which is absolutely and universally exempt from all liability to the accidental defect of error. In respect to the senses and to reason, we say they are fallible _per accidens_ and by a deficiency in their operation. Nevertheless, we can be certain, in many cases, that they do not and cannot fail to give us certitude through any such accidental failure and deficiency. We can test their accuracy, as in observing sensible phenomena, and in mathematical calculations. This is enough to overthrow scepticism and probabilism. There is such a thing as rational certitude, and this suffices for our purpose. By rational certitude human reason can obtain, without any fear of error, its infallible criterion. By the same it can receive and apply its infallible judgments without fear of error. We are not analyzing supernatural and divine faith, but the rational process which underlies, accompanies, and follows faith with more or less explicitness and completeness, and which is the preamble of faith for those who are not yet in possession of Catholic faith, but are sincere inquirers. No one is asked to grant any begging of the question of infallibility, or to accept any proof of _idem per idem_, or to give unqualified assent to a mere probability. The truth of Christianity, and the identity of Catholicity with it, are proved with conclusive certainty by the motives of credibility. The same proof which establishes the divinity of Jesus Christ establishes the divine authority of the Catholic Church. This authority is infallible because divine and supreme, and having the right to command the firm, undoubting assent of the intellect to its teaching, and the unconditional submission of the will to its precepts. The authority of the church once established, its testimony to its own character and prerogatives must be received as true. The divine mission of Jesus Christ was proved by his miracles, and his own affirmation of his divinity was thus made credible. The mission and authority of the apostles are authenticated by his commission, and the church founded by them is identified by the manifest notes of unity, sanctity, apostolicity, and catholicity. The hierarchical organization of the church, its principles of unity and government, the constitution of its tribunals, and the respective attributions of the ruling, teaching, and judging magistrates who preside over the whole or particular parts, must be determined by its own traditions, laws, usages, and declarations. In any matter of controversy respecting any of these things, the supreme authority must decide without appeal. Find the sovereign authority to which the whole church is subject by its organic law, and there can be no further question. In every perfect and unequal society there is a sovereignty which is considered as practically infallible, that is, as a tribunal of last resort, from which no appeal can be taken. In a society having divine authority to teach and judge in matters of faith and morals in the name of God, this practical infallibility must be a real infallibility in the strict sense of the term. From this principle springs the reason and obligation of the recognition of infallibility in œcumenical councils. They are supreme, because they contain all the authority which exists in the church. Although the entire episcopate numerically is not present in such a council, the authority which it possesses is equivalent to that of the whole episcopate. The accession of the suffrages of the bishops who are absent from the council supplies what is wanting in respect to numerical quantity in the representation of the whole body at the deliberations and decisions of the council. Their tacit assent, which in due time becomes the explicit and formal profession of complete concurrence, adds moral weight and invincible force to the authority of the conciliar decisions. This is augmented by the assent of the whole body of the clergy and laity. It is no matter how numerous dissidents and recusants may be among bishops, clergy, and people, or how long their protest and rebellion may continue. They separate themselves from the true body, and are legitimately excluded from it, and therefore their suffrages do not count. That unanimity which is a criterion of truth is not a unanimity of Catholics, heretics, and schismatics together, but of Catholics alone. There is requisite, therefore, some certain mark by which Catholics can be discerned. The Catholic episcopate, the Catholic priesthood, the Catholic people, Catholic councils, Catholic creeds and confessions, the Catholic communion, must be discriminated in some plain and obvious manner from all their counterfeits, however great the semblance of reality which these counterfeits bear on their surface. The test of separation from the true faith and the true church, and the authority which judges of the fact of separation, must be clear and indubitable. The œcumenical council must have its complete and legitimate authority, in which the authority of the whole church and the whole episcopate is concentrated and applied, independently of the assent or dissent of any number of individuals, even bishops or patriarchs, who are not actually concurring in its judgment. It must have power to command assent and to punish dissent, or its authority is nugatory. It is a plain, historical fact that the supremacy of the Apostolic See of St. Peter gave to the episcopate its unity, and to the episcopate assembled in general council its final authority, from the first age of the church, and from the beginning of its action through œcumenical councils. The councils were not complete without the pope, and it was his ratification which confirmed and made irreformable their judgments.

The Council of Nice and the Council of the Vatican are precisely alike in this respect. The bishops possess now, as they have always possessed, conjudicial authority in deciding matters of faith with the pope, whether in or out of council, as they are, in all other respects, _jure divino_ co-regents with him of the universal church. But they do not share in his supremacy and sovereignty, even though they may be bishops of apostolic sees and have patriarchal jurisdiction. He is the supreme judge, as he is the supreme ruler. As such, his right to judge in matters of faith, without the aid of a general council, as well as to make laws and exercise all the plenitude of jurisdiction, has been acknowledged by all the œcumenical councils and by the whole church in every age. It is false to say that the dogmatic decree of the Council of the Vatican made any change in doctrine or law respecting the authority of the pope over the episcopate, whether assembled or dispersed, and over the universal church. The Council of Florence, to go no higher, defined the plenitude of his power. The Creed of Pius IV., to which every bishop, and every particular council since Trent, has been obliged to swear assent, proclaims the Roman Church “The Mother and Mistress of Churches,” denoting by the words “Magistra Ecclesiarum” not supremacy in government but in defining and teaching doctrine. The undoubted authority of the pope to teach and define doctrine by his apostolic authority, to condemn heresies and errors, and to command not only exterior but interior obedience and assent even from bishops, was universally recognized before the Council of the Vatican assembled. Appeals from his judgments to an œcumenical council have been forbidden for centuries past, under pain of excommunication. The infallibility of the pope in his decisions _ex cathedra_ is a necessary logical deduction from his supreme authority in teaching and judging. It is false to say that it was doubtful before the Council of the Vatican defined it. It has been implied and acted on, as a fundamental principle of the Catholic Church, from the beginning. Some Catholics doubted or denied it, and the church wisely tolerated their error for a time, as she tolerated the Semi-Arians, awaiting the opportune occasion of destroying the error without damaging the cause of truth and the salvation of her children. That some few bishops at the Council of the Vatican still held to the Gallican error, that it was taught by a few professors and learned writers, that it was held by a small minority of the clergy and educated laity, and that a still greater number were not clearly aware of the true and Catholic doctrine, does not prejudice the case in the slightest degree. All these were bound as Catholics to recognize the infallibility of the definition solemnly promulgated by the pope with the assent of a majority of the bishops. Those who refused were excommunicated as heretics. The pope, together with all the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Catholic Church, are united in the profession of the faith as defined in the Vatican Council, precisely as they were united in the profession of the dogmas defined at Nice, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople, at Florence and at Trent. It is absurd to deny to a tribunal competent to define with metaphysical accuracy the most abstruse truths concerning the trinity of persons in the Godhead, and the divinity and humanity of the Incarnate Word, an equal ability to determine the attributions of the distinct parts of the Catholic hierarchy, and to define clearly how the infallible church is constituted in respect to the relations between her head and members. It is absurd to recognize the Council of Nice as infallible, and to deny the infallibility of the Council of the Vatican. They rest upon the same basis, the divine constitution of the Catholic Church in the episcopate as the _Eccelesia Docens_, with authority to teach and to command assent, under the supremacy of the successor of St. Peter in the Roman See. This is not an arbitrary authority to impose any opinion which may happen to command a majority of suffrages and receive the sanction of the pope. Neither is it an original authority, founded on inspiration, to propose truth immediately revealed. It is authority, in the first place, to deliver authentic testimony of the faith handed down by tradition from the beginning and continually preserved in the church, but especially in the Roman Church. It is authority, in the second place, to interpret and declare the true sense of all past decrees and decisions, of the general teaching of the church in past ages, of the doctrine of the Fathers and Doctors of the church, and of all records in which evidence is found of the traditional doctrine derived originally from the apostles. In the third place, to interpret and judge of the true sense of the Holy Scriptures, the principal source from which knowledge of revealed truth is derived. Finally, to declare the revealed dogmas contained in the Written and Unwritten Word, in Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, in clear and precise terms which are fit and proper to express them intelligibly, that is, to define dogmas of faith, and to require universal assent to these definitions under pain of anathema. The inerrancy, or infallibility, is a security from the accident of error in these dogmatic definitions, which results from a supernatural and divine assistance, overruling the conclusions of the human judgment which have been reached by a human and rational process, so far as needful, in order that they may not be faulty either by excess or defect as an exact expression of the revealed truth. This divine assistance is not given exclusively to the pope as an individual, to regulate the acts of his own mind, in thought or investigation regarding the revealed truths. It extends itself over the church universally, and over all the processes and methods by which the doctrines of revelation are preserved and developed in her living consciousness, and proclaimed through her organs to the world in their integrity. In the councils of the church it is by the assistance of the Holy Spirit to the deliberations of the bishops and theologians, as well as by his overruling direction of the exercise of his office of supreme judge by the pope, that the result is reached in the solemn and final decisions. This result is not a blind determination, a passive reception of an impulse superseding reason. It is a rational certitude, an enlightened judgment based on motives which are convincing and conclusive. It has the highest human authority, apart from the divine sanction which confirms it. When the prelates of the Vatican Council presented the dogmatic decree defining the infallibility of the pope, to Pius IX. for his sanction, history, theology, the consent of Fathers, Doctors, councils, and Catholic Christendom, and the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by a series of the most learned and holy men who have adorned the annals of the church, demanded through them the solemn confirmation of this decree. Pius IX. was called upon to declare the tradition of the Roman Church, the doctrine of his predecessors, the principle upon which the Holy See had always acted in defining faith and condemning heresy. He was asked to complete and confirm by his supreme authority the explicit or implicit judgment of nine-tenths of the Catholic episcopate. The absolute finality and divine authority of his judgment was not dependent upon his personal assertion of his own belief in his infallibility, as its support. His right and power to determine that the decree of the council should be final and irrevocable were beyond question or controversy. The fact that, by virtue of his right as Vicar of Christ, he defined something respecting the nature and extent of that right is irrelevant as an objection, and to make use of it as one is a sophistical artifice. If Almighty God is credible when he declares his own veracity, if Jesus Christ is credible when he declares his own divinity, the Vicar of Christ is credible when he declares his own infallibility. If God is God, he must be veracious; if Christ is Christ, he must be God; if the Vicar of Christ is his Vicar, he must be infallible. God does not command our belief without giving us evidence that he is God; Jesus Christ does not require our submission to his divine authority without giving us evidence that he is the Son of God; the pope does not exact our obedience to his infallible judgments without giving us evidence that he is the Vicar of Christ and the Vicegerent of God on earth. The Catholic religion makes no demand for irrational assent to anything. It is not mere logic and philosophy, but it contains both in their ultimate perfection, and will bear the most rigorous rational examination. It is logically consistent and consequent throughout, from its first principles to its last conclusions. There is no other religion or philosophy which is so, and the most illogical of all is pseudo-Catholicism.

Footnote 125:

A lecture by the Rev. Dr. F. C. Ewer, “Catholic Truth and Protestant Error,” reported in the New York _Tribune_ of May 11, 1878.

CHILD-WISDOM.

A little maiden, dear through kindred blood And loving from her very birth begun, Stood at my side one summer afternoon And hearkened quiet stories: bits of verse That told of shipwreck and of strong sea-birds That rode on sunny waves or beat their wings, Storm-driven, ’gainst the sea-washed beacon-light. Delighting in sad tales, wide-eyed she gazed, Yet fearing, half, their ends might be too sad; Still, bidding e’er, with doubtful joy in grief, The repetition of each dolorous strain. Then, choosing ’mong my books some pictured page, She took my Roman missal on her knee, Turned o’er its many pages one by one, Seeking the prints that there lay interleaved, Still patient turning as with conjurer’s touch To win a richer harvest than she found. From these oft-questioning, full-budded lips No _ave_ e’er had dropt in that sweet faith That holdeth brotherhood with Bethlehem’s Babe Blessing from Mary’s knees—true, guileless faith That, suing so God’s Mother, dares to share With Him dear claim unto her mother-love. The thoughtful maiden’s little, childish life Had grown ’mid alien faith where men half feared To honor her whom God hath honored most, Even while cherished they as solace sweet Through sorrow’s hours, and sickness’ length of days, Some picture of the Maid Immaculate With heaven-bent eyes and meekly-folded hands, ’Mid luminous clouds, the cherubs at her feet— The sinless Maiden dowered with quenchless grace, Filling earth-weary hearts with rest and trust By the mute strength of her soul’s purity. And knew the little child of Jesus’ name— By reverent mother and much-loving aunt Told the sad story of Jerusalem’s loss. So, still with constant question turning o’er My pictured hoard, she begged that of its wealth Some might to her be given, choosing first What brightest shone with color deep and rich, And, though, because to each least line there clung Some precious thought, her question oft denied, Persisting ever; till at length were found Some little prints, less treasured, at her will. One, holy Joseph, with enraptured gaze, The blossoming palm of justice at his side, The Sun of Justice shining on his arm; Another, our dear Mother Undefiled Clasping in loving arms her Child Divine; This favor found, but gave not perfect joy, Since all uncolored, and so lacking worth In ever-longing gaze of wide gray eyes That pleaded softly, while the small child-lips Begged that at least the little plain black print Might have some color sweetness on it set, Winning so heightened beauty as complete As the bright pictures that she might not have. The missal’s store no longer coveted, It was laid by; the fairy colors brought That should with simple touch the magic work That might for all that wealth denied atone. Expectant stood the little maid demure, The round cheeks bent intently o’er the work, The eyes drawn very near to closely watch Each line of added joy the swift brush gave. Clothed was the Mother in her cloak of blue, And crowned the Child Divine with halo wide That in its golden light still sadly bore The shadow of his cross. With lesser glow Was drawn the shining ring that loving wreathed The Queen of Grace, crowned fairest in her Son. Not so the little maid would have it done: Just such bright halo cruciform must shine Round Mary’s head, and spreading, too, more wide Than his, her Child’s—his Mother, was she not? More near the round cheeks drew: protesting lips Would have the Mother with His glory crowned. Telling the little one how God alone The nimbus wears wherein is lined the cross, I traced along the Mother’s simpler ring, With gilded brush, a circle of fair stars That in the asking eyes by far outshone The shadowy cross’s sorrow-dimmed halo. And so the maiden was well comforted, And bore in triumph her much-prized spoils Of that still, sunny afternoon’s calm talk And pictured pages of my holy books. And I a fine-wrought, warm-hued picture kept That looked from innocent eyes of truthful soul With child-wise lips and pure, unconscious heart, Sweet witness bearing to our Mother’s state— God’s stainless Mother with his glory crowned, And in his sorrow sharing for our sake.

PARISIAN CONTRASTS. THE PARIS OF 1871 AND THE PARIS OF 1878.

PARIS, May 22, 1878.

Scenes and sensations there are in life which seem to cut themselves into the soul as diamond cuts into glass, and on May 22, 1871, occurred one of this kind. On the afternoon of that day I was sitting on the balcony of a house in London with a large and merry party watching the “return from the Derby” up Grosvenor Place, every house and balcony in which was similarly draped in red and filled with bright faces and brighter dresses, with youth, beauty, and fashion, when a friend appeared amongst us, sad and solemn, come from his club in breathless haste, evidently burdened with some important news. In a few seconds a thrill of horror ran through the lively circle, for he had announced that the “Tuileries was burning! Paris was in flames!” Never shall I forget the sensation. All at once the countless carriages below, full of ladies and children, ranged in a line along the street; the four-in-hands coming back from Epsom, driven by, and filled with, the reigning “hopefuls” of the “Upper Ten,” whose faces as they passed betrayed the varied effect of the race on purse and betting-book; the dust-stained inmates and blue-veiled coachmen of the open landaus and hansoms, with their emptied picnic-baskets slung behind; the serious countenances of some, the smiling features of others; the thousand-and-one comic-tragic incidents of the motley multitude which make the return from this annual British Olympic game so celebrated—all suddenly faded from our view, for the eyes of the soul became transfixed on the appalling scenes then occurring in Paris, and their possible consequences caused all hearts to feel sick with anxiety and dismay. _L’imagination travaille_, it is true, at such moments, and is prone to exaggerate; but had not the Versailles troops succeeded in entering the city, our fancy would in no way have outstepped the reality. Until that day all had believed themselves prepared for the worst. The murder of the archbishop and his martyred companions had sorely grieved mankind, and a repetition of the guillotine scenes of the Reign of Terror we felt might any day occur; the idea was not unfamiliar, but so wholesale an instrument of destruction as petroleum, such demons has _les Pétroleuses_, had never entered into our wildest calculations. “The terrible year,” as the French have since so aptly named it, 1871 most truly was, not only for them but for the thinking world at large, who, from the universal confusion, the ungoverned passions, the fast-increasing atheism, had need of a confidence in Providence, supernatural in the highest degree, not to lie down and die of sheer despair.

Eighteen months later I passed through Paris on my way home from Switzerland, but so dolorous was the impression that I had fain leave it in a couple of days. Ruin, desolation stared one in the face at every step, and the smell of petroleum seemed to haunt one at every turn. The blackened shells of the historic Tuileries, of the beautiful Hôtel de Ville, the Conseil d’Etat, the Ministry of Finance, the Gobelin tapestry manufactory with its art treasures accumulated there during the last three hundred years, the blank in the Place Vendôme caused by the destruction of its splendid column, the felled trees in the Bois de Boulogne, and the complete annihilation of St. Cloud, town and palace, were sights which deprived us of all happiness during the day and of peaceful rest at night. Not less melancholy was the effect of the sad countenances of the inhabitants. The elasticity and cheerfulness which had formerly seemed to be a component part of Paris air was gone, and in its place one only heard tales of their sufferings in those days of anarchy, of the Pétroleuses seen gliding stealthily through the streets, of the petroleum strewn round St. Roch and the chairs piled up in the nave of Notre Dame, so that both churches might be set on fire, when the troops providentially entered just in time to prevent this and many other wicked designs being carried out. Instead of the brightness one remembered of yore, people seemed to have a suspicious dread of their neighbors, and veiled communism undoubtedly still lurked even in the best _quartiers_. One notable instance of the kind will never be effaced from my memory, and even now, though mayhap unjustly, makes me view Parisian cabmen with anything but affection.

My friend and I, feeling dejected and oppressed by sad thoughts, one morning determined to indulge our feelings by a kind of pilgrimage to the scene of the massacres, especially as we had known and revered the sainted archbishop at the time of the Vatican Council in Rome. Calling a cab, therefore, on the Boulevard des Capucines, we quietly desired the grinning coachman to drive us to the Rue Haxo. In an instant his expression changed to one of sturdy anger. He knew no such street; had never heard of it before; could not possibly take us there. Perceiving at once the spirit we had to deal with, and that he had divined our object, no other cab, moreover, being within view, we insisted no further on the point, but tranquilly told him to drive instead to La Roquette—the prison where the unfortunate victims had been confined. Knowledge of so large a place we knew he could not deny, and, trusting to our own general idea of its position, we felt satisfied when he apparently started in that direction. However, on and on we went, in and out of lane and street, without seeming to approach the object of our search, but as we proceeded soon found ourselves amongst a most forbidding population, men and women looking stern and sulky as we passed, and exchanging glances with our driver, who appeared known to many, while on more than one window were the ominous words, “Ici on vend le pétrole!” An involuntary shudder seized us, not diminished on reaching an open height whence we beheld La Roquette in a distant part of the town, and our horse’s head turned exactly the opposite way. The truth suddenly flashed upon us. Our Communist driver, possibly one of the undetected incendiaries or murderers himself, calculating on our ignorance, while unable to plead such on his own part, had cunningly outwitted us by driving in and out toward a different point, whither doubtless he would have gone on indefinitely but for our unexpected discovery. It was too dangerous a neighborhood in which to quarrel with him, even though but mid-day; therefore, merely telling him that we had altered our intentions, we tranquilly desired him to return to our original starting-point on the Boulevard des Capucines. Most curious was it then to note the same instantaneous change of countenance as before, but this time to an exultant expression as undisguised as the sulky mood of the previous hour. And how could we wonder at it? For had he not succeeded in defeating the object we had in view, and, moreover, inspired us with so much fear that we sighed to get away from such a population and never breathed freely again until safely back in the more civilized quarters? Our courage, however, then revived, and, determined not to be altogether conquered, we bade him turn aside and stop at the _ci-devant_ Hôtel de Ville. Incredible as it now sounds, again he feigned ignorance, then pretended to have lost his way, and at length, when we forced him to “land” us there, the scowl and growl he honored us with made us realize, more than any description ever could, what such a being might be if uncontrolled, above all if multiplied indefinitely.

* * * * *

To-day, the 22d of May, 1878, as I stand in the new building on the Trocadéro and behold the scene before me, thinking of this recent past, I am tempted to doubt my own identity. Paris—the same Paris that was in flames on this day seven short years since—now lies, like a vision of beauty, outstretched around; the pretty Seine winds beneath its beautiful bridges, the countless boulevards are thick in shade and perfumed blossoms, the then unfinished streets finished, the scars and wounds well-nigh (though not completely) removed, all faces bright and people civil, and the whole city still hung with the thousand flags spontaneously hoisted on the opening day of the Exhibition, when England and America were everywhere given the posts of honor beside the tricolor. Opposite, the huge main building of this same Exhibition, standing on the Champ de Mars, is crowded with its fifty and sixty thousand daily visitors;[126] the gardens between it and this Trocadéro, connected by the bridge of Jéna, are covered with a moving mass of all nationalities, while the Spanish restaurant, Turkish kiosk, Chinese “summer palace,” English buffet, Hungarian cafe, dotted with others around the grounds, tell of peace, and of a national revival unparalleled for its rapidity in the history of the world.

And what subjects for deep thought, what food for philosophic meditation, as one gazes at this glorious landscape, and from the hidden recesses of one’s memory spring forth recollections of the past few years!

My own acquaintance with this Champ de Mars dates from 1865, when in the August of that year I here witnessed a review of fifty thousand men in honor of Don François d’Assise, King Consort of Spain. On this last 1st of May, 1878, the same royal personage, long since classed amongst the _ex’s_ residing in this capital, walked beside the Marshal-President, MacMahon, and the Prince of Wales in the procession which opened the Exhibition, and it were but natural to presume that thoughts of his previous visit must now and then have flitted across his royal brain. On that former occasion military of all arms lined the sides of the then arid square, while the imperial party advanced from the Porte de Jéna up its centre to a tribune in the Ecole Militaire. First came the empress, beautiful and popular, loudly cheered as, in her open carriage, she passed along the lines; next appeared the little Prince Imperial, not more than nine years old, riding far in front quite alone on his tiny pony, followed by his father, the emperor, and his royal guest, Don François d’Assise, escorted by an apparently brilliant gathering of distinguished military men. No prophetic eye was there to point out those who in brief time were to court the national defeat, or whose names would soon become bywords for corruption and incapacity.

Nor in the large mass of soldiery who required two hours and a half to march past, albeit in quick time, could any one discern the possibility of coming gigantic disasters. Alas! alas! what reputations have since then been blown into thin air, what calculations dashed to the ground, what history “acted out,” fearful suffering endured, theories exploded! Such thoughts are overpowering—sufficient to make the giddiest spirits ponder. And such, in truth, has been their effect of recent years in France; for, side by side with the marvellous material resurrection of this energetic nation, its religious revival has grown to astounding proportions. Not that we ever can admit with many passing observers that the French people were so completely devoid of religion as it has been somewhat the fashion to affirm—and on this point we thoroughly agree with the article by an eloquent Protestant writer in the _Blackwood_ of last December—but the terrible events of 1871 have made the most frivolous more sober-minded, forced many an indolent mind to reflect, and from thoughts have made them now proceed to acts, to good works and alms-deeds. Above all they seem to have learnt the necessity of expiation and of prayer, and the whole Catholic portion of the French community since then have fallen upon their knees and endeavored to pray. Their pride, it is true, has been humbled, but they have taken the lesson properly to heart, and appear to have realized the truth that in all things, human as well as divine, “in order to live we first must die,” and that without supernatural aid even humility itself cannot be acquired.

And here it must be noted that mortifying as the defeat by the Prussians has been to French pride, it never could have produced the permanent effect on their characters which has been achieved by the frantic outbreak of the Commune. This it is which has so thoroughly sobered the entire nation and made them feel that every one must combine as against a common enemy. The republic, too, whether destined to last or not, has been productive of one incalculable service in depriving all its citizens of the possibility of shirking individual responsibility by throwing the blame, as heretofore, of every failure on some supposed or real despot; so that, while they have arisen from this death-struggle wiser and better men, Frenchmen now see the necessity, almost for the first time in their history, of taking an active part in public affairs and putting their own shoulders to the wheel.

But leaving these reflections, let us turn to the Champs Elysées and take a seat beneath its trees. What a contrast between the May of ’71 and this one of ’78! That all terror and woe, this one all joy and contentment. French mothers with their _bonnes_ and babies are in groups around far and near, mingled with foreigners of all sorts and nationalities. Faultless carriages pass by, drawn by magnificent, high-stepping horses, of a size and breed formerly unknown in France, and which make many an Englishman exclaim with wrath: “This is the way in which all our horses are taken out of our country!” Doubtless he is right, though only to a certain degree; for the perfection to which horses now attain in France is said to be mainly due to the climate, which has been found to suit equine nature in a way undreamt of some few years since. Thus the breed, when once imported, is improved on French soil, and easily accounts for the multitude of fine horses at present met with all over Paris. This fact, however—together with the taste for horses, driving, and every other thing connected with the existing Anglomania, so foreign to the Parisian natures of forty years ago—owes its discovery to the late emperor, little as any Frenchman now likes to admit its possibility. Before his day no one ever thought of holding the reins, and almost as little of riding, not only in France but on the Continent, leaving such matters to grooms, as Easterns leave dancing to hired performers. But if these tastes were fostered by him before the war, the extraordinary development they have since acquired is one of the remarkable changes in modern Paris, and denotes both greater wealth—despite the Prussian indemnity—and more manly habits than in the “good old days long, long ago.” Louis Napoleon no doubt laid the foundation, but during the republic the edifice has been raised. He it was who inspired the tastes, prepared the ways and means, laid out the roads and drives—the marshal-president and his “subjects” who now profit by them. Perhaps one of the prettiest and most interesting sights nowadays in this beautiful city is the daily Parisian overflow of riders to the Bois de Boulogne between the hours of eight and ten, not only of men but of ladies, whose wildest dreams in former times never aspired to such an expensive pleasure. On a fine May morning “Rotten Row” has here a formidable rival both in numbers and in the steeds, with the difference, too, that instead of riding up and down a monotonous, straight road, the happy-looking parties of equestrians in Paris, almost invariably numbering many ladies, turn off into the fifteen small and large roads that surround the lake in the Bois, and there for a couple of hours enjoy a genuine country canter or a walk beneath pleasant shade. And mingled with these are pony-phaetons well driven by ladies, returning later laden with ferns, wild flowers, and greenery of various kinds. There is true enjoyment in sitting on a bench in the Avenue de Boulogne (once de _l’Impératrice_) and watching the well-shaped horses, their healthy looks and glossy coats, which would awake the envy of many a London groom, and are not more striking than the good seats of the fair riders and the vast improvement in those of the younger men. Of the number in the early morn the soldier-like President may here be seen, accompanied more than once during this month of May by the Prince of Wales or some other royal visitor.

But this is the afternoon, and, though our thoughts have flown back to the morning, we are sitting in the Champs Elysées and the hour for driving has arrived. Here comes a four-in-hand, driven, though somewhat badly, by the young Marquis de Château Grand—strictly _à l’Anglaise_, as he fondly hopes—closely pursued by the Duc de Grignon in his pretty dog-cart, attended by his English groom. “Victorias” with duchesses and countesses—the bluest blood of the blue faubourgs—follow in countless numbers. But whose is this open landau with its four black horses and gay postilions, containing two ladies in close converse as they pass along? The stout one is Isabella, ex-Queen of Spain—what memories her name evokes!—the younger “La Reine Marguerite,” as her intimates love to call her; in other words, the wife of Don Carlos, now the inseparable companion of Isabella, with that remarkable disregard to conventionality, considering the remonstrances of her son’s government, which has always been as strong an element in her character as the _bonhomie_ that has led her into this intimacy, and also makes her love her present Parisian life almost as much as she ever did her throne. A few seconds later a handsome man rides slowly by, attended only by his groom, his sad, pensive countenance amidst this gay throng telling a tale of care and inward sorrow. It is Amadeus, son of Victor Emmanuel, but unlike him in most respects, now Duke of Aosta, once too “King of Spain,” and still grieving for his lost wife. Then, turning round to look again at the mass of children, _voué_ to the Blessed Virgin, driving up and down in their blue and white perambulators, and which thus silently bear witness to wide-spread French devotion amid all the seeming worldliness, the eye falls on General de Charette as he walks by with some old friend, and whom we last saw commanding the Papal Zouaves in Rome during that eventful winter of 1870. Since then he has seen fire and fought valiantly for his own native land, he and his corps, as in the ages of faith, first making a public act of consecration to the Sacred Heart, the scapular being emblazoned on their regimental colors. Trial and suffering, however, have rather improved than injured him, for he has grown in size and freshness, mayhap owing somewhat to present happiness and the fair American who has lately brought him both wealth and beauty. Looking towards the road again, the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark are seen driving past, but only to make us miss the sweet, smiling face of the Princess of Wales and the pleasant manners of the Prince, seen here on their road to the Exhibition every afternoon until last week, but now returned to England, not, however, until they had become such universal favorites and so completely won French hearts that if this were 1880 and not 1878, universal suffrage, it is said, if Paris were a criterion, would be very likely to offer Queen Victoria’s heir the doubtful honor of MacMahon’s place.

Nor does this in any way complete the list of royal representatives during this month of May in Paris. Archdukes of Austria, princes of Belgium and Holland, with Orleans princes and princesses, old and young, and, neither last nor least, the blind King of Hanover, Bismarck’s victim, and now permanently settled in the gay capital, may be here discerned by those who care to penetrate their _incognito_.

And not only during the day but at night is the city gay and full of life, for balls and _fêtes_ are going forward, where twelve and fourteen royalties may often be seen at a time; nay more, unlike as in imperial days, _the_ faubourg has come forth from its retreat, and legitimacy has opened its doors with hospitality, oftentimes with regal splendor.

Where, then, are the signs of poverty and depression which the enormous indemnity paid to Prussia and the sad events of recent years might lead a foreigner to expect? Naught but wealth and comfort is apparent; money and money’s worth; the rich showing every outward mark of luxury, the people well clad and housed; that squalor which makes itself so painfully visible by the side of London riches here entirely absent, life bright and cheerful as far as casual observers can perceive.

But beneath all this enjoyment, the flutter of flags on the “opening day,” the gathering of foreign princes as in the palmiest period of imperialism, and the evident revival of trade, in no other country is there so great a dread of impending evil, such a vague, undefined fear, baseless it may possibly be, but which it were folly to ignore. 1880 and the termination of the Septennate are ever before French minds, and the dreaded lack of durability, of a firm basis to their edifice, and the possible renewal of the Commune horrors seem nowadays always uppermost in their thoughts. Despite the outward symptoms of brightness, perhaps even frivolity, no change is more impressive to any one formerly acquainted with France than the grave and sobered character of the nation; the reflection which misfortune seems to have evoked, and the subdued tone their crushing defeat has stamped upon the entire people. The old crowing of the Gallic cock, so Napoleonic and offensive to strangers of yore, has, at least for the present, entirely disappeared and been exchanged for a tranquil manner, a greater civility in answering questions, and a total absence of the “swagger” so universal in the ante-war period. Hence, too, springs a sudden awakening to the possibility of other nations having special merits unnoticed formerly, with a studying of their minds and habits as compared with their own both in the press and private circles, which unconsciously betrays how terrible an ordeal the French have been passing through and how little they count upon its being as yet fully past.

Nothing, therefore, is so interesting and at the same time touching to any one who has not been in Paris since 1867 as to note the signs of change in these respects which meet us at every turn. One time it is the eloquent tribute of the _Figaro_ to the reign and subjects of Queen Victoria on the birthday of that constitutional monarch; at another, the strict neutrality, so foreign to their natures, which this excitable people are maintaining in the present turmoil of the Eastern question; yesterday I noticed it at a dinner, when a heedless remark about the ruined Conseil d’Etat caused all the party to shudder and to exclaim, one after the other, that hard as it had been to eat horses—nay, dogs, and even _cats_, as many of them had had to do during the siege—the suffering was as naught compared to the terror of those fearful Commune days. One who had lived near the Palais Royal had seen the Tuileries burning from the end of her own street, another had been roused from her work by a shell throwing the opposite chimney down into her court-yard—and now that it is rebuilt an inscription records the fact—while a third had slept for the two worst nights, if sleep it could be called, in the cellar of her house, amongst the odds and ends of a band-box maker’s stock, who occupied the place. But the most singular experience of all, perhaps, was that of a family who then lived at their villa twelve miles outside of Paris, and became aware of the Conseil d’Etat being in flames from a shower of burnt paper falling on their lawn on that May evening of the 22d, 1871, of which some scraps showed the government stamp and belonged to documents of the state. And, perhaps, of all the Commune misdeeds the burning of this building and the Hôtel de Ville was the most malicious, for in both places marriage contracts and family deeds were kept or registered, and the loss and confusion which have hence ensued in families can never properly be estimated.

But it is especially in the churches, just where passing travellers have neither the time nor opportunity for observation, that the strides in religious fervor become most apparent. Above all in the Faubourg St. Germain is one at once conscious of breathing a different atmosphere. There the bells, as in old Catholic Swiss and German towns, wake one at five or half-past five o’clock of a summer morning, and keep up a constant call to Mass thenceforward until a late hour. There, too, should one turn in to a church on coming home from the Exhibition, he is certain to find devout women, and men also, lost in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament. “Kneeling-work” (as a late writer names this _œuvre_) and “reparation” are the practice of the day in the orthodox quarter. But especially before the Grotto of Lourdes in the Jesuits’ Church, Rue de Sèvres, is the crowd of ardent petitioners never ceasing and intensely fervent. I have watched them with admiration the many times I have been there myself, and the thousand ex-votos, many from military men, prove that their prayers have not been made in vain. The faubourg is also like a network of “Mother Honors,” second only to Rome itself in their number and variety. Sisters of Charity especially flit about it in every direction, and are even to be met with in the omnibuses or shopping with the utmost simplicity amidst the vast crowds of the Bon Marché. The devotions of the “Mois de Marie,” moreover, lend the district at this moment an additional source of ardor.

May, too, has ever been the month of First Communions, and those who know French life understand what this implies. The whole winter, nay, for many previous years, the catechism has been leading up to this point, and now since Easter Sunday the examinations have been constant and severe. Each parish has a day set apart in May for this great event, preceded by a short retreat, attended many times a day by all the children. Then on the happy morning the whole church is given up to the ceremony. All is arranged most systematically: the nave set apart for the two hundred or three hundred young communicants—rich and poor mixed together—the boys in front with white rosettes in their new jackets, the girls in rows behind enveloped in long white veils. Beautiful hymns are sung by the whole congregation, led by one of the priests; a touching sermon is preached by the curé; the parents are in the aisles, and many follow their children to the holy table. In the afternoon the little ones again meet to renew their baptismal vows in presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and the day closes by Vespers and Benediction. On that day week, before they lose their first fervor, in the same church the same children receive confirmation. These have been _fête_ days for the whole family, nay, parish; and as parishes and churches are numberless in Paris, tiny brides and white-rosetted boys are met in all quarters during the whole of this beautiful month. If any of these children have the misfortune in after-years to lose their faith, their parents and the clergy at least have faithfully and zealously fulfilled their share of duty, while, on the other hand, it is a certain fact that in most cases this care lays the foundation of the solid virtues and tender piety, of that religious element in French life so well described by Mme. Craven and others, and which, side by side with the frivolity, is now making such sure and steady progress in every part of France.

The month of May, too, is here, as in England, the period of charitable bazaars, annual meetings, and rendering of accounts. Amongst others, two societies, the immediate offspring of the Commune, are now attracting much attention. One is that of St. Michael, to whom devotion as ancient patron of France has revived with marvellous ardor, and under whose protection has been placed the society for the distribution of good books; the other, “Les Cercles Catholiques,”[127] or Working-men’s clubs, more deeply interesting than any other of the present day.

At this present moment Paris counts its eighty different “Cercles,” while the provinces possess not less than two thousand. The third Sunday after Easter, the Patronage of St. Joseph, is their annual feast, and on that day, while gay Paris was attending the races in the Bois de Boulogne, we were present at the afternoon service in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. A more imposing sight, with greater promise for the future, it were impossible to conceive; for six thousand members, but only that portion which consists of the schools and apprentices—many from the Belleville quarters—had marched thither, each headed by their own chaplain and carrying handsome banners, unfolded as they entered the church. For them the nave was set apart, all others being in the aisles, while the meek, venerable Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris sat opposite the pulpit during the sermon, the blind Monseigneur de Ségur at his side, the Comte de Mun and other gentlemen of the society directing the general arrangements.

The now celebrated hymn of the Sacred Heart composed by the blind old bishop was first sung; and if the sensation of the Derby Day in May, 1871, had cut deeply into my soul, it was now all but effaced by the sublime, thrilling emotion caused by this vast multitude answering each verse chanted by the choir by the famous, heart-stirring chorus of

Dieu de Clemence, Dieu Vainqueur, Sauvez, sauvez la France Par votre sacré Cœur.

The effect at any time would have been marvellous, but with the knowledge that these six thousand youths had almost all been to Holy Communion that very morning, with such a past in one’s memory, and a congregation composed of such elements before one, it became simply overpowering. Moreover, we all knew that at the same hour, nay, at the same moment, the same prayer was being offered up in two thousand other churches in France; for, the provincial branches had made arrangements that their ceremonies should thus coincide with those of Paris. A procession, rendered picturesque as well as impressive by the six thousand lighted tapers winding in and out of the nave and aisles of this grand, historic cathedral and headed by the cardinal-archbishop, followed the short sermon, when a public act of consecration, with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, brought this most heart-stirring and encouraging celebration to a close.

And now, on the 30th May, since writing the above lines, another impressive ceremony has taken place in the same cathedral, but strikingly illustrative, too, of the increasing influence the religious element is obtaining in France—namely, a public act of reparation for the intended celebration of Voltaire’s centenary and in memory of Joan of Arc. Good principles have certainly made more progress than was supposed, for public opinion and the protests of the religious portion of the nation have forced the government to forbid the demonstration in honor of the enemy of Christianity. But, to show even-handed justice, they equally forbade all homage to Joan of Arc, even that of depositing wreaths around her statue in the Rue de Rivoli—erected, by the way, on the spot where she was wounded when attacking Paris for the king.[128] No authorities, however, could or would interfere inside a church. Hence at three o’clock precisely the act of reparation commenced, every spot in the vast cathedral being occupied by a crowd, composed in greater part, too, of men, though the ladies, especially the “Enfants de Marie,” distinguished by their lighted tapers, mustered strong under their president, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Amongst the number, in her Spanish mantilla, I recognized “La Reine Marguerite,” with many another high-born dame of far-sounding title. It was purely a work of devotion—vespers and benediction, the _Miserere_ chanted by this enormous congregation, constituting the “reparation,” followed by a “Regina Cœli” which in beauty nothing could surpass. But the countenances of all present were a perfect study in themselves, showing the depth of their emotion and how different such ceremonies are in a country like this, where every one attends them for a solemn and public purpose, far more than for private, individual motives. It lends a sublimity to such acts that raises the spirit high above ordinary moments. Who, for instance, could behold the vast multitude beneath the roof of this lofty nave, which goes back to the ancient days of France, without remembering that Providence had saved it seven short years since from destruction by its own sons, and that the chairs whereon they were kneeling had been piled up in that same spot, in the hope of putting an end to all ceremonies or worship of this kind? As one listened to the “Regina Cœli,” and gazed on the beautiful statue of the Virgin Mother presenting to us the Divine Infant, and which stands amidst the lights and flowers over the altar outside the choir, courage and hope revived, and all left the sacred edifice with renewed grace to encounter their struggles in the cause of right. Most surely prayer and expiation are the strength and the duty of modern France, and with such reward as has been already vouchsafed to them her sons and daughters need no longer despair.

Footnote 126:

The largest number at the Exhibition was on a Sunday, when upwards of 111,000 entered the building.

Footnote 127:

For a full description of these excellent associations see THE CATHOLIC WORLD, January, 1878, “Catholic Circles for Working-men in France.”

Footnote 128:

The Place des Pyramides in the Rue de Rivoli is on the site of the ancient ditch of the fortification in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and is known to be the spot where Joan of Arc was wounded.

THE CREATED WISDOM.[129] BY AUBREY DE VERE. II.

Behold! I sought in all things rest: My Maker called me: I obeyed: On me he laid His great behest, In me His tabernacle made.

The world’s Creator thus bespake: “My Salem be thy heritage: Thy rest within mine Israel make: In Sion root thee, age on age.”

Within the City well-beloved Thenceforth I rose from flower to fruit: And in an ancient race approved Behold thenceforth I struck my root.

Like Carmel’s cedar, or the palm That gladdens ’mid Engaddi’s dew, Or plane-tree set by waters calm, I stood; my fragrance round I threw.

Behold! I live where dwells not sin: I breathe in climes no foulness taints: I reign in God’s fair court, and in The full assembly of His saints.

Footnote 129:

Ecclesiasticus xxiv.

THE VENERABLE MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION.

A decree of the late Holy Pontiff permitted the introduction of the cause of the canonization of Mary Guyard Martin, known in religion as Mother Mary of the Incarnation, foundress of the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. There is in this much to console and encourage us. Up to this step no servant of God who lived or labored even transiently in any part of our continent lying north of the Rio Grande had ever been proposed for that exceptional public honor which the church permits by a decree of canonization.

To any servant of God whose life, stamped with the impress of sanctity, seems to justify a belief on our part that he is now reigning with Christ in glory, we may address our prayers to obtain those more abundant temporal and spiritual graces which we crave as a means to our ultimate end, salvation; but this devotion is for our own closet. The church permits no public honors till she has examined with the closest scrutiny the life, writings, virtues, and miraculous gifts of the one whom thousands are honoring in private.

Exalted sanctity was developed in the mission life in our northern wilds, in the first rude cloisters, in laborious ministry, in patient suffering; but there were no monarchs or wealthy communities to undertake the long and often expensive investigations and evidence demanded at Rome, where, as the saying is, it almost requires a miracle to prove a miracle.

Spanish America under the Catholic kings was differently situated, and that part of the western world numbers not a few canonized or beatified, as well as many whose process of canonization, begun long since, has been laid aside amid the changes in the political world, which in this century show us the government in almost all Spanish-speaking countries the enemy of religion.

Mexico and Peru were the two great centres of Spanish power, originally rich, prosperous, semi-civilized states. In and between these two states flourished nearly all those whose canonization was undertaken or completed. It would be an error, however, to suppose that the Spanish colonies were all that the church desired, or that they were models for a Christian state. The popular picture of them is dark enough, and the untempered zeal and vivid imagination of Las Casas gave to the enemies of Catholicity and Spain an authority for the most fearful charges. Calm Spanish accounts, however, reveal facts which show that, in the mad rush for wealth aroused by the opening of these golden realms, an immigration poured into our shores which made light of the salutary teachings of Catholicity, and even of humanity or the natural law. The sudden wealth did not tend to chasten or spiritualize these natures in which pride, avarice, and lust held such sway. Yet it was with adventurers of this kind that the church began her mission to bring the Indian to the Gospel, the Spaniard back to the spirit of the Gospel. There was opposition alike from Indian and Spaniard. If missionaries fell, slain by the Indians whom they sought to enrich with blessings beyond all price, a bishop died like St. Thomas of Canterbury, slain by his own Christian countrymen. Shining sanctity, however, exerted its influence and ultimately prevailed.

In Mexico the humble Franciscan brother Sebastian de la Aparicion filled Puebla with the odor of his virtues, and the process of his canonization attested his sanctity so clearly that he was beatified by Pope Pius VI. The causes of the Venerable Gregory Lopez and of the Venerable John Palafox, Bishop of Puebla and Viceroy of New Spain, were also introduced, while missionaries either born in Mexico, like St. Philip of Jesus, or laborers for a time in that field, won in Japan the crown of martyrdom, recognized by the beatification of the church.

St. Louis Bertrand for several years illumined by his holy life and gospel eloquence the coast of South America from Panama to Santa Marta and Carthagena, laboring among the Spaniards and the conquered Indians, and endeavoring, as did all his order, to save the latter from misery here and hereafter, as well as to bring his own countrymen to the practice of the religion which they professed. As though one saint prepared the way for another, Blessed Peter Claver came in the next century to devote his life on that same coast to a still more degraded race, the enslaved African. New Granada thus has her saints, but Peru is the favored spot in our whole continent—Peru, where religion seems at so low an ebb, where governments of a day, put up for sale by prætorian guards, agree only in one point: hostility to the church of God and to the well-being of the people. Peru was above all other parts blessed by the example of exalted sanctity. St. Toribius Mogrobejo, called from among the laity to the archiepiscopal see of Lima, illustrated his stewardship by untiring zeal—reviving religion in the clergy and people, extending the missions, erecting institutions of learning and charity—and by the wise decrees of synods and councils confirming his holy work. Among those who labored in his diocese was the holy Franciscan St. Francis Solano, whose zeal has made his memory hallowed from Tucuman, in the Argentine Republic, to Panama, but who is honored especially at Lima, long the scene of his apostolic ministry. His heroic virtues, the miraculous gifts with which God endowed him, gave a force to his words that no human eloquence could equal and the most hardened sinners could not resist.

While Lima, the City of the Kings, had these two brilliant examples before her, a child of benediction was born of a father Spanish in origin and an Indian mother. Little Isabel Flores y Oliva was, however, known from her cradle as Rose, and the church, in canonizing her, adopted this name, which St. Toribius, too, gave her when he conferred the sacrament of confirmation. Her wonderful life of austerity and zeal, of intense love of God and her neighbor, has made the name of the Lima virgin known throughout the world; and even before her canonization she was declared protectress and principal patron of all the churches of the New World.

She is one of the glories of the Order of St. Dominic, and in her day two humble lay brothers, in convents of the same order in Lima, were conspicuous for sanctity. Blessed Martin Porras, a mulatto, holy, zealous, full of love for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted, was looked upon by all as a saint and an angel of mercy. His labors and his fame were shared by the Spanish lay brother Blessed John Massias. What a privilege it must have been to have lived at that time in Lima!

Coeval with the last of these flourished in Quito the secular virgin Mariana de Paredes y Flores, whose life so resembles that of St. Rose that she has been called the Lily of Quito. Her beatification by the late Pope Pius IX. gave us another patroness for the western world.

The canonized and beatified in Spanish America thus represent all states and ages: the episcopate, the priesthood, the religious state, and secular life.

Spanish America, in the wild rush of the restless and adventurous to its rich and luxuriant soil, resembled California and Australia as we have seen them in our days, could we imagine the tide of emigration Catholic, with some of the knightly graces of chivalry still powerful, and devoted clergy and religious striving manfully to recall the wild horde from their temporary forgetfulness of religion, morality, and civilization.

When we turn from this picture to that of Canada, we find a contrast as striking as the difference of the climes. In Canada labor, hardship, the deepest religious feeling prevailed from the outset and left their impress on the colony. The world has rarely witnessed a community so completely guided by religion and morality as the first Canadian settlers, and so deeply imbued with them as to elevate to its own standard the repeated emigrations of more than half a century. The austere virtue of Canada was gay and cheerful; it had none of the ferocious Puritanism of New England, which enforced religious tyranny, and pursued with unrelenting hate alike dissenting whites and unbelieving natives. While New England, narrow and restrictive in character and territory, hugged the bleak coast of the Atlantic, Canada, under the broader, higher impulse of Catholicity, won the friendship of countless native tribes and pushed her conquest thousands of miles into the heart of the continent. “Peaceful, benign, beneficent were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed to subdue not by the sword but by the cross; not to overwhelm and crush the nations she invaded, but to convert, to civilize, and to embrace them among her children,” is the testimony of one to whom Catholic piety seems only a wild dream.

Time has shown on what a solid foundation they built who laid the corner-stones of the Canadian colony. At a critical moment, when the court of France, yielding to the spirit of licentiousness and infidelity which had leperized the higher classes, was forging a rod of iron wherewith in the hands of the neglected and demoralized masses to chastise the monarchy and the aristocracy, God in his providence saved Canada by what seemed a death-blow, by allowing it to pass under the sway of England, the bitter enemy of Catholicity and France. But though the French spirit in the colony died out, her teeming population is intensely Catholic, well trained, well guided, holding their own against Protestant and infidel influence.

With such results we may look to the founders of the Canadian commonwealth for examples of high and exemplary virtue. The history of the Canadian Church has not been written even in French, and does not exist in English; it has seemed scarcely necessary to write separately the history of a church when the history of the colony is so imbued with the religious element that, deprived of it, her annals would be almost a blank.

In every history of Canada we trace the life of the church; we see governors whose lives were models of Christian piety, of strict administration, of skill and courage; priests and missionaries whose austerity, zeal, and piety shrank from no hardship, no peril, no torture; religious devoting their lives to education and works of mercy; colonists, the whole tenor of whose career recalls us to the days of the primitive church, influenced by the highest motives of faith.

Among all the founders of Canada the eye rests especially on her martyred missionaries; on Mother Mary of the Incarnation, foundress of the Ursuline Convent, Quebec; on Margaret Bourgeoys; on Bishop Laval; on Catharine Tehgahkwita, the Mohawk maiden, who rose to such sanctity. To them devotion has been constant though private, fervent, and not unrewarded.

The time has come when the Head of the church has been solicited to sanction and confirm the devotion so long entertained for one of these heroic souls—Mary Guyard Martin, known in religion as Mother Mary of the Incarnation.

She was born at Tours, in one of the loveliest provinces of France—one that gave that kingdom some of its master-minds and American colonization some of its most energetic and manly pioneers. Her father, Florence Guyard, was a wealthy silk manufacturer, and her mother belonged to the noble house of Babou de la Bourdaisiere, one of her ancestors having been deputed by Louis XI. to escort St. Francis of Paula to his states. The hereditary piety of the family was marked by a special devotion to this servant of God.

Mary was born on the 18th day of October, in the year 1599, and showed from her cradle marks of God’s predilection. Her childish soul had no greater passion than a lively charity and most tender compassion for the poor and the sick, viewing in them the beloved of Jesus and Mary, whose names were the first she learned from a pious mother’s lips. On one of her little errands of mercy she was caught by the shaft of a cart and thrown so violently to the ground that bystanders rushed to raise the child, whom they supposed terribly injured, only to find that she had escaped unharmed, protected, as she always believed, by the influence of the prayers of the poor and afflicted.

When only seven she had a vision, in which our Saviour called her in an especial manner to be his alone. Her docile heart responded to the divine vocation, and from the age of nine or ten she sought the most retired places and least-frequented churches, in order to spend a considerable part of the day in communion with our Lord. She watched the devout persons at prayer, and imitated their humble and pious attitude, and, ignorant of meditation or mental prayer, made her spontaneous acts of virtue, repeated the prayers she knew or ejaculations prompted by her own innocent heart.

As she grew and began to study, the influence of her girlish companions could not wean her from her love of spiritual things. In pious books she found her greatest and most unwearied delight, and her piety only grew more solid as her mind was enabled to understand the mysteries of faith and the immensity of God’s love and mercy. Her whole soul tended to the consecration of herself to our Lord in some religious retreat, and she expressed to her mother her desire to enter the Benedictine convent at Tours, then the only one in the city; but as her pious mother, after advising her that she was yet too young to take such a step, heard no further allusion, she supposed it a mere passing thought and not a solid vocation. The child had not the advantage of a wise and prudent director at this moment, and her future was apparently to lie in secular life; yet Providence was but guiding her surely to her real vocation.

At the age of seventeen her parents proposed that she should accept the hand of a young man of good character who solicited her as his wife. She evinced the greatest repugnance to enter a state so incompatible with the recollection and prayer which were her great desire. But as her parents had accepted the offer she durst not resist. “Mother,” she exclaimed, “as the whole thing is determined and my father insists on it, I feel obliged to obey his will and yours; but if God does me the grace to give me a son, I here promise to consecrate my son to his service; and if he restores me the liberty I am now about to lose, I promise to consecrate myself to him.”

The young wife accepted her new life courageously. Her husband, Mr. Martin, was a silk manufacturer, employing many operatives, and she had a certain supervision over a number of them who lived on the place. But these new duties did not cause any relaxation in her pious practices; she heard Mass every day, and gave a considerable time to meditation and pious reading. Affection founded on the purest motives united her and her husband, who soon learned to revere the holy wife whom God had granted him. Yet her life was not free from bitter trials. Even greater were in store. She had passed but two years in the marriage state, and had been but six months a mother, when her husband was almost suddenly taken from her. The widow of nineteen, with her helpless child, saw her property swept away, law-suits encircle her in their deadly meshes, and a lot of almost absolute destitution await her. She soon returned to her father’s house, and in a garret room led the life of a recluse.

God now began to favor her by interior lights, and placed her under the guidance of experienced directors. She consecrated herself to his divine service, but the future was not made clear to her, and a further period of trial was to purify her virtue. A sister, also married, urged her to come and aid her in the business that devolved upon her. Mme. Martin reluctantly yielded, but was ungratefully made the drudge of the house, and then burdened with the superintendence of her brother-in-law’s extensive forwarding business. Amid all this distracting toil, apparently so incompatible with high spirituality, the servant of God maintained an almost uninterrupted union with God. Amid all the din and bustle of business life she was raised to the highest contemplation. In all this she subsequently beheld God’s providence. Writing at a later date from Quebec, she said: “I see now that all the states, all the trials and labors through which I passed, were a preparation to form me for the work of Canada. This was my novitiate, from which I issued far from being perfect, but yet, by the grace of God, in a state to bear the difficulties and hardships of New France.”

Heaven was fitting her alike for the external work in founding a religious community in a scarcely-organized colony, and for conducting its members with the experience of the highest mystical knowledge.

As the ties which bound her to the world fell away her longing for the religious life increased. Her director, however, deemed it her duty to remain in the world in order to superintend the education of her son; but he ultimately allowed her to make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the last referring to her director, and in temporal affairs to her sister and brother-in-law.

Her austerities at this time were constant and severe. She slept on a bare board, wore hair-cloth, mingled wormwood in her scanty food, and by frequent disciplines—even with nettles—and fastings mortified a body already over-burdened with daily toil. For this privileged soul, raised to the highest contemplation, and prepared by the heavenly Bridegroom for the most sublime union, mortifying the body with austerities that rivalled the anchorets of Thebais, was not even in a religious cloister, but immersed from morning to night in those business cares and details which seem so incompatible with a spirit of prayer and of recollectedness. She not only gave so much of her time to God and made all her labor one prayer, but in her great heart was always solicitous for her neighbor. Over the working-people under her direction she exercised the greatest influence, giving them from time to time clear and persuasive instructions suited to their understanding, and by counsel and mild reproof guarding them from offending God or recalling them from danger. But it was especially in the hour of sickness that they found her a true mother, rendering them all the service and care that the best of mothers could lavish on them.

It was not to be wondered at that she came to be regarded as a saint; but God, to purify her and preserve her from any self-esteem, permitted her suddenly to fall into the greatest aridity. Her fidelity when all sensible consolation was withdrawn was rewarded by extraordinary favors—visions in which the most profound mysteries of faith seemed laid open to her gaze.

The period at last arrived when she could place her son in a suitable institution and follow the inclination which had so long been to her as a vocation. Yet she was far from beholding to what order she was called. Her first inclination had been towards the Ursulines, while the contemplative order of Mount Carmel seemed most in unison with her whole spiritual life. Her director was a father of the order of Feuillants, and the general, desirous of securing for a convent of nuns of his rule a soul so privileged and so highly advanced in the ways of perfection, offered to assume the education of her son. While she remained thus undecided the Ursulines founded their first house at Tours. She felt at once that Providence wished her among them. A knowledge of their rule and of their profession of serving their neighbor confirmed this impression, and she felt convinced that she was not called to a purely contemplative life. A pious bishop, about to found a Visitation monastery at his see, heard on his way through Tours of the pious widow, and called upon her. He pressed her earnestly to join the community he projected, but all confirmed her in believing that the Ursuline was the order into which she must enter.

She did not, however, propose the step either to her director or to the superior of the convent, with whom she soon formed a holy friendship; but one day, visiting the convent to felicitate Mother Mary of St. Bernard on her re-election as superior, it came into her mind that her friend would offer her admission into the community, and she had no sooner congratulated her than the superior exclaimed: “I know well of what you are thinking: you believe that I am going to offer you a place in our community. I do indeed, and it depends on yourself to become one of our number.” Her director, however, showed no favor to the project until the divine call became so distinct and irresistible that he could not oppose it.

The Archbishop of Tours authorized the convent to receive her without a dowry; her sister assumed the education and future care of her son, and, giving him her last instructions, she parted with him and her aged father. Then, with the blessing of the archbishop, she entered the convent, expecting to commence her novitiate as a lay sister, but to her confusion was placed among the choir nuns.

She had reached the haven for which she had so long prepared herself by prayer and mortification; but a storm soon arose. Her son, excited by some who disapproved of her course, made his way into the convent, and by cries and complaints and boyish threats so interfered with the order of the community that it seemed impossible to retain the novice. A Jesuit Father, however, becoming acquainted with her great virtues and the difficulty of her position, took charge of young Martin’s education and placed him in a college of his order.

Thus freed from the last care, Mme. Martin took the white veil of a novice, and assumed in religion the name of Mother Mary of the Incarnation. In the sacred abode of piety new lights seemed to be given her. A knowledge of Latin was imparted to her without study, and an infused understanding of the Scriptures. Her fellow-novices listened to her eloquent and solid expositions with breathless wonder. But in a moment darkness overspread her soul, and she was assailed by the most horrible temptations. All her spiritual life seemed an error and an illusion; a self-deceit and a deceit in her director. Unfortunately her wise and experienced spiritual guide was removed about this critical time, and was replaced by one who regarded her as an ill-directed visionary. Her devotions in behalf of the obsessed sisters of Laudun made her the object of terrible visitations. Her son, after a brilliant opening at college, was led astray, and tidings came that he was threatened with expulsion. Everything seemed to thwart the vocation of the servant of God; but for two years amid all these trials she persevered in her novitiate, and when her superior directed her to prepare for her profession she obeyed, and pronounced her vows on the 25th of January, 1633, rewarded for a brief period with the highest spiritual consolation, only to be followed by a fresh season of trial.

At last a new and experienced director enlightened and relieved her soul; and this strong woman, taught in the bitter school of experience, became mistress of novices. Soon after in a prophetic vision she saw the Blessed Virgin and our Lord overlooking some vast land sunk in the depths of heathen darkness. Without knowing yet to what part of the world this vision seemed to call her, she became filled with a desire to aid by her prayers and other good works the missionaries laboring in pagan lands. But this did not divert her from her duties as mistress of novices. Her instructions to the young candidates were full of unction, and based especially on the words of Holy Writ. She explained fully and clearly to them the Psalms of David, which form so large a part of their office, and the Canticle of Canticles, in which the great masters of spiritual life have seen such mysteries of the union between the elect souls of predilection and our Lord. She also composed for their use a catechism, which the judicious Father Charlevoix, the historian of New France, regarded as perhaps the best then extant in French. “We may at least aver,” he adds, “that there is none in which the truths are explained with greater order, precision, and conciseness. The selection and application of the passages of Scripture show that Mother Mary of the Incarnation was one of those who in her age knew the Holy Scriptures most thoroughly. All breathes a wonderful simplicity which avoids that dangerous curiosity, the ordinary cause of pride, levity of mind, and insensibility of heart.”[130] The novices formed by her showed how solidly she had grounded them in spiritual life, and how fully her great experiences and trials had enabled her to guide them through all the dangers of that period where unwise and rash directors make shipwreck of so many vocations or hurry the unstable and doubtful into professions for which they have no grace of state. The novices of Mother Mary of the Incarnation can be traced among the superiors and important officers of many of the greatest Ursuline convents of France.

The interior sense of a vocation to the foreign missions grew steadily within her till her very body wasted under the longing and yearning to know the will of God. Her prayer was incessant. At last a divine light suffused her soul, and at the same time these words were spoken to her: “Ask me through the Heart of Jesus, my most amiable Son; it is through it that I shall grant thy desire.” From that moment, she declares, she felt so intimately united to the Heart of Jesus that she spoke and breathed only through it.

Among the points she often inculcated on the novices was a constant devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of which she was one of the early propagators, although God did not make her the instrument of its general diffusion. She would say to her novices: “The Eternal Father has made known to a person that he is ever disposed to grant what is asked of him through the Heart of his Son.”

One day she explained to her director, the Jesuit Father Dinet, her interest in the foreign missions and her mysterious dream. He remarked that it seemed very possible, and that Canada was probably the country designated in the vision. She had never heard of the colony begun there by France some twenty-five years before, and knew absolutely nothing about it; but some days afterwards, while in choir, she had an ecstasy and the vision was repeated, but she heard distinctly: “It is Canada that I show thee; and thou must go thither to found a house in honor of Jesus and Mary.” God’s designs were becoming clearer; and when a few days later she received from the Jesuit Father Poncet—now known for his labors and sufferings in Canada and New York, but then a perfect stranger to her—one of those Jesuit _Relations_ which our bibliophiles so eagerly seek, and a pilgrim’s staff from Loretto, she felt that the land for her future labors and prayers was beyond the Atlantic. Father Poncet sent with the pilgrim’s staff these words: “I send you this staff to invite you to go and serve God in New France.”

In her heart she responded fully; but how was she, a cloistered nun, to begin a convent in a distant colony of a few log huts, a colony with no female population, where everything was poor, scanty, struggling, and laborious? How was she to become the pioneer nun among the backwoodsmen who had begun to clear the Canadian forest? Nothing could seem to most minds more preposterous in a nun in a quiet convent in a quiet provincial town in France. Yet Providence was guiding her surely to her work. A holy young widow, Mme. de la Peltrie, who had reluctantly entered the marriage state when her heart was in the cloister, had responded to a call in a Jesuit _Relation_ of Canada, where Father Le Jeune exclaimed: “Alas! cannot some good and virtuous lady be found willing to come to this land to gather up the blood of Jesus Christ by instructing the little Indian girls?” She resolved to devote herself, and, when stricken down by illness and given up by physicians, she made a vow to St. Joseph, promising to consecrate under his patronage her fortune and her life to the service of the Indian girls. A recovery from the very brink of the grave, that seemed a miracle, confirmed her. Baffling all the objections of her family, she sought some community of religious to begin the work in which she desired to take an active part. The Jesuit missionaries from the shores of Lake Huron were writing to Mother Mary of the Incarnation; the Jesuits in France had resolved to attempt an Ursuline convent in New France. Mme. de la Peltrie and Father Poncet wrote to Mother Mary of the Incarnation to undertake the great work. The divine call so mysteriously given was at last accomplished. Her letter to the holy widow shows the fulness of her heart.

“Ah! my dear lady,” she writes, “beloved spouse of my divine Master, in finding you I have found her whom I love in truth, since there is no greater or truer love than to give one’s self and all one has for the person beloved. And since it has pleased His mercy to give me the same sentiments, it seems that my heart is in yours, and that both together are but one in that of Jesus, amid those vast and infinite spaces where we embrace the little Indian girls, teaching them how to love Him who is infinitely amiable. Do you really mean, madame, to do me and those of my companions whom God well chose this favor, to take us with you and connect us with your noble design? For five years now have I been awaiting the opportunity to obey the urgent summons which the Holy Ghost has made me; and, not to speak untruly, I believe that you are the one whom his divine Majesty wishes to employ to enable me to enjoy this blessing.”

This was in November, 1638. So rapidly did all progress that early in spring two pious companies gathered at Dieppe to found amid the unbroken wilderness of Canada the first convents of religious women—the first, indeed, between the Mexican frontier towns and the icy ocean.

On a vessel devoted to St. Joseph, already designated to Mother Mary as the patron of Northern America, embarked May 4, 1639, Mme. de la Peltrie and her attendant, Mother Mary of the Incarnation, and Mother St. Joseph, the only Ursuline of Tours who was permitted to join her, though all desired to do so; with Mother Cecilia of the Holy Cross from the Ursuline convent at Dieppe, three Hospital Nuns of the order of St. Augustine, Father Vimont, Superior-General of the Jesuit Missions in Canada, with two missionaries for that field, Father Chaumonot and Father Poncet.

The voyage was menaced at first by pirates and cruisers; was long and stormy, and the vessel escaped as by a miracle being crushed by a mountain-like iceberg. Yet, amid storm and blast, the vessel was a monastery and chapel; Mass was said, and the nuns, in two choirs, chanted the office of the day. On the 15th of July they reached Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, and the passengers in a smaller vessel then ran up the river to Quebec.

At daybreak on the 1st of August the whole population of the little settlement was gathered on the height, their eyes fixed on Ile Orleans. At last boats were seen putting out. The Chevalier de Montmagny, Knight of Malta, Governor of Canada, marched to the water-side with his garrison, followed by all the settlers, and the cannons of the fort saluted the sisters as their barks touched the strand.

Mother Mary of the Incarnation had reached the field of her labors, designated so long by heaven. It was a land endeared to her by the will of God. When she stepped ashore she and her companions prostrated themselves and kissed with respect the land so long desired. They were then escorted to the Church of Our Lady of Recouvrance, where a _Te Deum_ was chanted and Mass offered up. All communicated, and Mother Mary remained long before the altar in a holy ecstasy.

The work of building up her convent began. After visiting the Indian mission at Sillery the Ursulines took up their temporary residence in a little house in the lower town. One of the two rooms was choir, dormitory, and refectory; the other a school, where their first pupils were six Indian and some French girls born in the colony. A little chapel was erected beside this rude convent, and here this little community spent three years amid trials, hardships, and suffering, awaiting the completion of the new structure. Quebec was but a hamlet of two hundred and fifty souls, and, though Mme. de la Peltrie generously devoted her fortune, the work made but slow progress. In the selection of the site Mother Mary showed not only a superior judgment and prudence but a holy submission of her will. When the question of the site was raised their director, Mme. de la Peltrie, and the sisters fixed upon a spot. Mother Mary alone recommended a different one, and gave her reasons. Her opinion was rejected almost without examination, and the building was begun at the proposed place; but the difficulties and disadvantages were soon seen. The work was stopped, and the site suggested by the servant of God was adopted as really the only practicable one.

When the Ursulines were installed in this temporary convent Mother Mary of the Incarnation was at once elected their superior. The instruction of the Indian girls being one of the principal objects of the foundation, Mother Mary commenced the study of the Algonquin language, spoken by all the tribes on the St. Lawrence. It was no easy task, but she acquired it with an ease that astonished all.

The discomforts of these pioneer nuns were not yet completed. Their little convent was crowded to its fullest extent with Indian girls, whom they washed and clothed, and were endeavoring to form to European life, when the good nuns were dismayed to find the smallpox make its appearance in the Indian villages. Their school became an hospital, and the Ursulines stripped themselves of all their linen for the use of the sick.

The arrival of two sisters from the Ursuline convent at Paris gave the holy superior great joy, but the members of the little community were now from three different houses, each with special rules of its own, and great diversity of opinion prevailed as to the rule to be adopted. The patience, piety, and caution displayed by Mother Mary were those of a saint; and her really great mind and thorough knowledge of nature and grace enabled her to blend all into one happy community actuated by the same spiritual instinct.

But the very existence of the house was menaced. The expenses, especially in the great multitude of articles that it was necessary to import constantly from France, and the aid given to the Indians in health and sickness, exceeded all their income, and Mme. de la Peltrie withdrew for a time to Montreal, depriving them of her usual and stipulated contribution. Their agent in France assured them that the establishment must be abandoned, that there was no way left except to return to France. But Mother Mary was undisturbed. Her holy soul never lost its calm, its union with God. She wrote incessantly, and her appeals to hundreds of charitable souls in France brought alms that saved the convent.

Mme. de la Peltrie returned to the community she had helped to found, and on the 21st of November, 1642, the Ursulines took possession of their new monastery. It was not the only consolation of the venerable superior. Letters from France announced that her son, after securing a favorable position at court, had abandoned the world and entered the novitiate of the learned order of St. Benedict, where in time he became an illustrious member.

The new building was spacious, but in their poverty they still had much to suffer, especially in the long Canadian winters. Then came the overthrow of the Hurons in Upper Canada, the massacre of many holy missionaries personally known to Mother Mary, who beheld at her doors a crowd of fugitive Hurons. Their language she learned, to be able to labor for their good, if God spared the colony; for the Iroquois, intoxicated with success, now ravaged the valley of the St. Lawrence, and no one was safe even at Quebec.

While all were paralyzed by fear, and the colony in its sorest distress, fire broke out in the convent one December night toward the close of the year 1650, and before dawn naught remained but the walls. Mother Mary was the last to leave the burning structure. The whole community and their pupils were left in the snow, in their night-dresses, nothing having been saved of their clothing or stores. The Hospital Nuns received them with open arms and the whole town endeavored to meet their wants.

All was gone. There seemed no course but to return to France. Such was not, however, the decision of Mother Mary and her heroic companions. “The resolution was that, without further delay, we should rebuild on the same foundation, inasmuch as our courage had not been crushed by the weight of this disaster, and as our vocations were as strong or stronger than before, and the girls of French and of Indian origin needed our services.”

The work was begun at once, Mother Mary and the other sisters helping to clear away the ruins. A little house which Mme. de la Peltrie had erected became their temporary convent, while by loans they paid the workmen to continue the work on the new building. The work cost thirty thousand livres, and the furnishing and supplies required still more. Yet all came so wonderfully that Mother Mary of the Incarnation declared it to be a miracle and ascribed it to the special protection of the Blessed Virgin.

Soon after an Iroquois army spread terror through Canada, till a heroic band sacrificed themselves in an attack on the ferocious enemy, and by a glorious death so crippled them that the savages retired. During the panic caused by these cruel invaders the Ursulines were forced to leave their convent, which became a fortified house. Then came an earthquake which convulsed the whole country, attended by meteors that filled all with terror and alarm. Amid all these dangers Mother Mary of the Incarnation preserved unruffled her calm and serenity of soul.

One of the founders of the colony, she lived to see it develop and strengthen; children born on the soil had grown up under her guidance and become mothers of families, handing down to coming generations the solid Christian instruction imparted to them by Mother Mary of the Incarnation and her sisters in religion. Canada had grown, too, from a mere mission to an organized church with a holy bishop at its head, a seminary for the training of candidates for the priesthood, a Jesuit college, and inferior schools. Her work was well-nigh accomplished. In 1664 she felt the first symptoms of the disease which was to terminate the long death of her earthly existence and unite her for ever to her heavenly Spouse. Extenuated by austerities, labor, and vigils, she was attacked by a continued fever, accompanied by effusion of bile and violent pains which gave her no rest by night or day. Her constitution, naturally so strong and enduring, could no longer resist the inroads of the malady. She was soon at the point of death, and received the last sacraments amid the sighs and tears of her spiritual children. All Quebec was in tears, for there was scarcely a family in which she was not looked up to as a guide and mother. The continual prayers seemed to move Heaven to spare her to them for a time. But she survived only to remain on the cross in a state of continual suffering. Masses, novenas, prayers were offered for her complete recovery; but she herself offered none. Several persons, among others Bishop Laval, who visited her regularly, implored her to solicit her cure from God; but she replied that she felt utterly unable to frame such a prayer. “Of what use can an infirm old woman of sixty be? Oh! do not prolong my exile; let me go to my God.”

She did not even beg for a cessation of her pain or her state of suffering. The office of superior had been for the third time conferred upon her; from this she now asked to be relieved, as she was unable to discharge the duties incumbent on it. But when her director declined to permit this she submitted without a murmur and continued to bear the burden.

“My present condition,” she wrote to her son, “is most dear to me, because the cross is the pleasure and the delight of Jesus. I can never recover from my long malady, which has very painful and torturing consequences. But nature grows tame to suffering and becomes familiar with pain. I even feel attached to it; and I fear that my tepidity will oblige the divine goodness to deprive me of it, or at least to moderate it. Everything I take is like wormwood, and constantly brings to my mind the gall in the Passion of our Lord. This makes me love this state.”

Yet in a state which would have kept most persons prostrate on a bed she labored as unremittingly as ever. She rose the first and retired the last, attended all the duties of the community, conducted an extensive correspondence, and, when too weak to do other work, employed her time in painting or embroidery. Her existence during the eight years she spent in this state was as great a mystery as her whole mystical life had been.

Her missionary zeal never flagged, and the great consolation of these years was to instruct in the Algonquin and Huron languages the younger members of the community, to enable them to continue after her death the instructions which she had been in the habit of giving. It would seem as if her wish had been gratified, for two centuries after her death Huron girls were among the pupils in the convent she founded, playing beneath the very tree where she and Mme. de la Peltrie had washed, dressed, and instructed the Indian children.

Her works compiled for the use of the sisters, had they escaped the conflagrations of the monastery, would give her a high rank among the authors in Indian languages, for they comprised two extended Algonquin dictionaries, an Iroquois catechism, and a huge volume of Bible stories in Algonquin.

She could now walk only when supported. Mother Mary of St. Joseph went to receive her reward. Mme. de la Peltrie was also taken from her.

On the night of the 15th of January, 1672, an oppression of the chest seized Mother Mary of the Incarnation, attended with incessant vomiting and fever. The end had come, but amid the most exquisite suffering not a sigh, not a complaint, scarcely the quivering of a muscle, betrayed what she was undergoing. She seemed absorbed in an ecstasy. She received the last sacraments with unspeakable joy, and asked pardon of her director, her superior, and the community for all the trouble she had given them. She spoke to the younger sisters in the most touching and eloquent terms to excite them to esteem their vocation and to encourage them to care for the Indian children.

But the community could not part with its founder. They offered up earnest prayers in her behalf, and her director, Father Lalemant, commanded her to join her prayers with them. Though anxious to be united to God, she obeyed. An immediate improvement ensued. She rallied so as to join the community in the devotions of Holy Week.

On the evening of Good Friday the pain of two tumors that had formed became intense. An operation was performed, but she sank gradually, and on the 30th of April entered into her agony. It was long; but the strength of purpose evinced in life enabled her even then to raise the crucifix repeatedly to her lips when speech and hearing were gone. At six o’clock in the afternoon, after looking around on her sisters, as if to take a last farewell, she gave two sighs and expired.

The news of her death spread rapidly. She had been regarded as a saint, and all flocked to the convent. Every pious person in Quebec desired some relic; so that everything belonging to her was carried away, and the Ursulines had great difficulty in retaining her large rosary, which has been preserved to this day as their chief relic. Her funeral service was attended by all the dignitaries in church and state, and a sermon by Father Jerome Lalemant, her chief director during her long mission in Canada, depicted her labors and her sublime virtues.

Her body was interred in the chapel vault, and amid all the vicissitudes of war, conflagration, and change of nationality the Ursulines have continued guardians of the precious remains of their foundress.

She had in life impressed all as one elevated above the common order, one who received extraordinary graces from God, and who corresponded with them. The missionaries, men versed in the direction of souls and the paths by which divine grace leads them, all entertained the highest esteem for her virtues. Her fellow-Ursulines living with her, watching her minutely from day to day and from year to year, could aver that they had never seen her commit a fault against meekness, patience, humility, charity, modesty, poverty, or obedience, and that she never let an occasion pass unheeded of practising those virtues.

When, therefore, all could piously believe that she was reigning with Christ, the confidence of the afflicted led them to seek her intercession, and the consolation derived has kept alive devotion to her to this time; while her letters, published by her son, revealed to the masters of spiritual life the wonderful interior and mystic life led by this nun in a rude convent amid the handful of log-houses which constituted the capital of New France.

Father Charlevoix alludes to the opinion of “two learned prelates who have not always been of the same opinion [evidently Bossuet and Fénelon], but who, nevertheless, agree in regarding her as one of the brightest lights of her age.” Bossuet in one of his arguments says:

“Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Ursuline, who is called the Teresa of our days and of the New World, in a lively impression of the inexorable justice of God, condemned herself to an eternity of pain and offered herself for it, in order that God’s justice might be satisfied, provided only, she said, ‘that I be not deprived of the love of God and of God himself.’”

Mr. Emery, superior of St. Sulpice at Paris, wrote:

“The Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation is a saint whom I revere most sincerely, and whom I place in my esteem beside St. Teresa. In my last retreat her life, her letters, and her meditations alone constituted my reading and the subject of my mental prayer.”

Father Charlevoix wrote her life in gratitude for favors obtained by her intercession.

“Indebted,” says he, “as I have reason to believe, to the merits of the foundress of the Ursulines in Canada that I did not end my days in a foreign land in the flower of my life, it seemed to me that I could not do less than extend her knowledge among men. Not that she was hitherto unknown. The eulogium pronounced upon her by the greatest men, and her own works, in which we admire an exquisite taste, sound reason, a sublime genius, and that divine unction which so well distinguishes the writings of the saints, have already placed her in the rank of the most illustrious women.”

Father Galifet, in one of his spiritual works, says:

“Her life was full of marvels by the heroic virtues she practised, by the supernatural gifts with which she was endowed, by the choicest favors of her divine Spouse, by unspeakable communications of the Divinity, by the wisdom she derived from the Scriptures and from the mysteries of faith, and finally by the experience she had of all conditions of interior life, which rendered her a thorough mistress in this Divine knowledge.... This wonderful servant of God had an extraordinary devotion for the Sacred Heart of Jesus at a time when this devotion was yet unknown. She could have learned nothing about it from men. It was from God himself that she learned this in a heavenly revelation.”

Even Protestant writers, to whom all Catholic spiritual life is something unreal and deserving only of scorn and contempt, _blasphemantes quæ ignorant_, recognize in Mother Mary of the Incarnation a woman of a rare and singular combination of qualities, and never ascribe to her a fault. “She had uncommon talents and strong religious sensibilities,” says Parkman. “Strange as it may seem, this woman, whose habitual state was one of mystical abstraction, was gifted to a rare degree with the faculties most useful in the practical affairs of life.” “Her talent for business was not the less displayed.” “Now and henceforward one figure stands nobly conspicuous in this devoted sisterhood. Marie de l’Incarnation, ... engaged in the duties of Christian charity and the responsibilities of an arduous post, displays an ability, a fortitude, and an earnestness which command respect and admiration.” “Marie de l’Incarnation in her saddest moments neither failed in judgment nor slackened in effort. She carried on a vast correspondence, embracing every one in France who could aid her infant community with money or influence; she harmonized and regulated it with excellent skill; and in the midst of relentless austerities, she was loved as a mother by her pupils and dependants. Catholic writers extol her as a saint. Protestants may see in her a Christian heroine, admirable with all her follies and faults.”

The follies and faults consisted in her being a Catholic, a nun, and in rising to the higher states of mystical life.

And how are we to regard this inner life of this remarkable woman? Was this clear and gifted mind, this pure soul, this person devoting a long life to incessant occupation and free from all selfish taint, one to be readily self-deceived? Was anything that passed in her soul, as described by her, without its parallel in the history of the church? By no means. It is, indeed, the state to which few comparatively are called by God, and to which all who are called do not rise. But it is one recognized by the church, which is the pillar and ground of truth, and from the case of St. Paul there have been ever in the church remarkable examples of great souls combining the exterior activity with the highest contemplation. Wise and spiritual directors are seldom wanting as guides, and the highest authority in the church is frequently called upon to decide questions that arise.

“Moreover,” says Father Charlevoix, in reference to this very case, “we have general rules which, being founded on good sense, are within the reach of all; and they are given to us by the Doctors of the church and by all the masters of interior life, as sure means to guarantee us against seduction. I will not mention all, as the detail would lead me too far, and the rules can readily be found. I shall speak of only one of the most important, which includes the principles of all the others. According to this rule, we may believe that what passes in the soul is a favor of heaven, if in the conduct of the person who receives it, in the matter in question, in the manner in which it occurs, and in the effects which it produces, there is nothing that does not lead to God, nothing savoring ever so little of one’s own mind, or which can come from a suggestion of the devil. For if in a vision, revelation, or any similar impression nothing can be discovered that is not conformable to pure doctrine and sanctity of life, if there is no ground for prudently fearing surprise or deceit, on what basis can we pronounce the whole to be frivolous? It may be that after all it is only an effect of the imagination, but, at least, nothing is risked if the soul in which it occurs remains in distrust of self and in humility.

“But if it is only an operation of the enemy of salvation to seduce and lead into sin, a little application and experience will soon reveal the venom hidden under the appearance of piety....

“When, then, we are told of a person to whom it is said that God communicates himself in an extraordinary manner, if this person is recognized by all acquainted with him to have a sound and upright reason, a firm mind, imagination under control, solid virtue based on Christian simplicity, humility, and distrust of self; if his conduct never belies itself; if he perseveres to the end in the exact discharge of his duties; if on all occasions he does works worthy of that sublime state in which he is represented to be—there is, I admit, no indispensable obligation of giving credit to what is said in regard to him; but there is, it seems to me, a reasonable prejudice in favor of this person, and we can scarcely avoid a want of the respect due to God’s gifts in a soul which has all the appearances of being so singularly adorned. I may even go further, and if Lactantius has proved the truth of the Christian religion by showing that it is in all points conformable to reason and nothing contradicts it, would I not have some right to maintain that we can recognize God’s operation in a soul when what passes there is in perfect accord with good sense, faith, reason, and itself?”

When two centuries had elapsed after the holy death of Mother Mary of the Incarnation, and her memory was still fresh in the minds of the Canadian people and of the few remaining bands of Indians, and temporal and spiritual graces were constantly ascribed to her intercession, a process in due form was drawn up by the authority of the Archbishop of Quebec in regard to the miracles attributed to the servant of God. This was duly authenticated, and sealed and despatched to Rome in 1868 by a clergyman selected for this duty. These documents were presented to the secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and, according to a wise regulation, must lie there untouched for ten years, during which time nothing is to be done in regard to the desired beatification.

The Ursulines solicited the beatification of the illustrious member of their order; the remnant of the once powerful Huron nation attested the traditional reverence for her who had welcomed them when wretched fugitives from Iroquois cruelty, and had lavished her kindness on the hapless women and children, teaching them to suffer as Christians and training them to die worthy of the name.

The hierarchy of Canada, assembled in Provincial Council in that year, gave to the Holy See their testimony in regard to the fame of the servant of God.

“Nearly two centuries have elapsed,” say these venerable prelates, “since the death in the Lord of Mary Guyart, called in religion ‘Mary of the Incarnation,’ first superior and foundress of the Ursuline convent erected in this city of Quebec. How illustrious she was both in the theological virtues and in the observance of the religious life is attested by history and by constant tradition. The tree is still shown under which she sat and taught the Indian girls the rudiments of the faith; the wandering tribes still retain a tradition of the benign mother who first introduced into this land, then seated in darkness and in the shadow of death, such an illustrious example of monastic life in her sex.

“As years have gone by, the fame of her sanctity and her miracles has not decreased, but is rather increased from day to day, especially as many aver openly every day that they have obtained great temporal and spiritual benefits through her invocation....

“Assembled in provincial council, turning to your paternity with the utmost confidence, we cannot refrain from expressing our most ardent desire, as well as that of our diocesans, and of all the Ursulines scattered throughout the whole Catholic world, of soon publicly and solemnly invoking her whose assistance we now often implore privately but efficaciously.”

Such was the testimony of the Archbishop of Quebec and the bishops of Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, St. Boniface, Kingston, Toronto, St. Hyacinth, Three Rivers, St. Germain, and Sandwich, given in the most solemn form.

The ten years of patient waiting had almost ended in 1877, and further steps could be taken. The documents were by a special permission opened, the life of the servant of God and her writings were proposed. It was then for the Holy See to decide whether they presented such a case that the cause of her beatification could be introduced, and the long law-suit, so to say, be commenced in which her life, writings, and miracles should be subjected to the severest scrutiny. The Sacred Congregation of Rites reported favorably, and one of the latest acts of the great Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., was:

“Our most Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., having deigned to permit on the 9th of September of last year that the question of the signature of the commission charged with introducing the cause of the servant of God, Sister Mary of the Incarnation, be brought up in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, in ordinary session, and without the participation and the vote of the consultors, although it is not ten years since the day of the presentation of the process of the ordinary in the Acts of the Congregation of Rites, and that the writings of the said servant of God have not been inquired into or examined;

“The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal Aloysius Bilio, Prefect of the said congregation, in the name and in the absence of the Most Eminent Cardinal Bartolini, reporter of the cause, at the instance of the Rev. Benjamin Paquet, Private Camerlengo to his Holiness, and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Quebec, designated as postulator in this cause, in view of the postulatory letters of a great number of cardinals of the holy Roman Church, of venerable prelates and persons illustrious by their ecclesiastical and civil dignity, to-day proposed at the session of the Sacred Rites, held at the Vatican, the discussion of the following question: ‘Should the commission of introduction of the cause, in the case and for the object in question, be signed?’

“The same Sacred Congregation, having maturely examined all things, having heard the address and report of Father Lorenzo Salvati, promoter of the faith, has decided to answer affirmatively, that is, that the commission should be signed, if such was the will of the Holy Father.—September 15, 1877.

“The undersigned secretary having then made a true report of all the foregoing to our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., His Holiness ratified and confirmed the decision of the Sacred Congregation, and signed with his own hand the commission of introduction of the cause of the venerable servant of God, the said Mary of the Incarnation.—September 20, 1877.

“A., Bishop of Sabina, CARDINAL BILIO, _Prefect_. ”PLACIDUS RALLI, _Secretary_.”

Years will be spent in the investigation; and meanwhile the hearts of the devout, not only in Canada but throughout this country, will turn with confidence to this wonderful and holy woman, this early propagator in the western world of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, soaring to the highest mystical contemplation, yet immersed in constant, active labor—a fitting patroness indeed for so many of us who find the best and holiest impulses of our lives choked and stifled by the thorns and brambles of earthly cares and duties. Her intercession will be as powerful as it has been, and it may be in God’s providence that confidence will be rewarded by some striking mark of favor to attest the sanctity of his servant.

* * * * *

The body of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation, at the time of the removal of the remains of the deceased members of the community to the new choir in 1724, was placed in a leaden coffin with those of Mme. de la Peltrie and Mother St. Joseph. They were again taken up in 1799 and placed under the communion screen. On the 30th of April, 1833, the ever-constant devotion to Mother Mary of the Incarnation led to another verification of her relics. The leaden coffin was found full of clear, limpid water, which was devoutly preserved as a relic of the holy foundress, and has been, under God, the instrument of many cures which are regarded as miraculous.

The first of these occurred, we may say, on the spot. One of the scholars, Miss Margaret Mary Gowan, had for a year been deprived of the use of an arm. Full of confidence in the Venerable Mother Mary, she began a novena, applying the water that had touched her venerated relics. A total cure followed. This remarkable restoration was soon made known, and far and wide the afflicted turned as of old to this holy servant of God for temporal and spiritual aid.

Cures like that of Father Charlevoix had taken place from time to time, but the authentications had been neglected or perished in the repeated destructions of the convent by fire. The miracles of recent date are well attested. Miss Gowan became a Sister of Charity, and is, we believe, still alive to give her testimony of the cure wrought in 1833.

The devotion of the Venerable Mother Mary is generally a novena, using especially her prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus[131] and the application of the water.

Among the prodigies ascribed to this servant of God are the cure of Mary Coté, a girl of twelve living at Black River. She had been blind for five years after an attack of small-pox. No pupil, iris, or cornea could be distinguished in either eye, and the pain, especially in winter, was intense. Dr. Morin examined her and declared it an incurable case of _leucoma_. By the advice of Miss Bilodeau, the teacher at the place, to whom the child was brought to prepare for her First Communion, she began a novena to Mother Mary of the Incarnation, applying a drop of the water. On the fourth day, during Mass, the child felt all pain leave her eyes, and, raising them for the first time, saw the altar and a large statue of the Blessed Virgin upon it. On examining the eyes they were found clear and limpid. A few reddish stains remained for some days in the left eye, but gradually disappeared. The cure was complete and durable, and was attested by the physician, the teacher, and others who were eye-witnesses. This remarkable cure occurred June 8, 1867.

The cure of James McCormac, a boy five years old, in 1868, is also attested in a most satisfactory manner. He suffered from terrible internal pain, especially in the bowels, and from a contraction of the leg, and hip disease. No sooner had a novena been begun and the water applied than the pain ceased and the child was able to get upon his feet and walk, though uncertainly, like a young infant not yet accustomed to step. At the end of the novena he walked perfectly, and from that time enjoyed complete health. Damian Gavard was similarly cured at St. Alban in 1876.

The devotion to the Venerable member of their order extended to the Ursuline convents in Europe, and cases are reported from Aubresles, Quimperlé, Carhaix, Blois, Mons, in France and Belgium, as though Providence was preparing near the Eternal City testimony of the sanctity of the Canadian nun.

Footnote 130:

It was published in France in 1684 under the title of _L’Ecole Chrétienne_.

Footnote 131:

Prayer of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation:

“It is through the Heart of Jesus, my way, my truth, and my life, that I approach thee, O Eternal Father. Through this divine Heart I worship thee for all who worship thee not; I love thee for all who love thee not; I acknowledge thee for all the wilfully blind who through contempt acknowledge thee not. I wish by this divine Heart to fulfil the duty of all men. In spirit I traverse the whole world to seek all the souls ransomed by the most precious Blood of my divine Spouse, in order to satisfy thee for them all by this divine Heart. I embrace them in order to present them to thee through it, and by it I ask of thee their conversion. Wilt thou, O Eternal Father, suffer them to be ignorant of my Jesus, or live not for him who died for all? Thou beholdest, O divine Father, that they live not yet. Oh! make them live through the divine Heart.

MABEL WILLEY’S LOVERS.

Early one June morning, not many years ago, a young couple might have been seen strolling along by the side of a babbling brook a short distance from the village of North Conway, New Hampshire.

Harry Fletcher, although a late riser when at home, had determined to be up betimes this morning and catch a mess of trout for breakfast. Not for his own breakfast, however, but for that of Miss Kitty Gibbon, who, like himself, had come to pass a few weeks at the Kearsarge House.

“’Twill please her,” thought Harry, “to hear how I left my comfortable couch for her sake, at an hour when only farmers are stirring.”

But Miss Gibbon, who had seen him the evening before making ready his fishing-tackle, had said to herself: “I’ll be up early, too, and go with him.” And she kept her word; nay, she was down before her admirer. And when the latter discovered Kitty seated on the piazza reading _Middlemarch_, he of course invited her to accompany him; which invitation Kitty accepted, but not until he had asked her a second time; and then she closed the book slowly, lingering a moment over the last line and exclaiming: “What an interesting tale this is!” So that Harry was half tempted to apologize for thus interrupting her reading.

“The truth is, Miss Gibbon,” he said, as they wended their way toward the stream—“the truth is, I know that you like fresh trout. For no other human being would I have risen at such an unearthly hour.”

“Indeed!” returned Kitty with an air of perfect indifference. Yet, accustomed as she was to receiving attention and to hear flattering words, she could not prevent a tiny rose from blooming on her pallid cheek when Harry went on to assure her upon his honor that this was the truth.

In our opinion Miss Gibbon is an attractive young lady. But most people might not agree with us; and not a few of her rivals declare it is only her money that makes her so pleasing to the gentlemen. There is, indeed, a slight cast in one of her eyes, and her forehead is somewhat too broad for a woman’s. But then she is gifted with a melodious voice (a rare gift among American women) and has exquisite teeth, which she knows how to display to the best advantage by a merry laugh practised before the mirror. Her hair, too, wonderful to relate, is all her own, and, despite the care which she bestows on her toilet, one glossy ringlet always manages to escape from its thraldom and fly hither and thither. But the best feature Kitty possesses—at least so think we—is her nose. It is a bold Roman nose, which proclaims her to be a girl of character; and we are convinced that, however spoilt she may be by fortune, there is a solid groundwork of worth in Kitty which would reveal itself if the occasion demanded it.

Her mother, who is a rich widow, has been living five or six years abroad, most of the time in Paris, and Mrs. Gibbon only came home this summer because she thought that a trip across the ocean would be good for her daughter’s health.

Harry Fletcher, Kitty’s companion this June morning, is the son of a prominent New York banker; and as it seems to be one of the laws of nature that wealth should attract wealth, we cannot wonder if he and Miss Gibbon have very soon become known to each other.

“He will be as good a catch for you, child, as you will be for him,” spoke the watchful mother. “And if you play your cards right we may be back in Paris before October, bringing Mr. Fletcher along with us; and, considering his prospects, he will do almost as well as a count.”

It would be untrue, however, to say that there was no real love between this youthful pair. Money may, indeed, have first drawn them together; but now, after only a fortnight’s acquaintance, we doubt, if one of them were suddenly to be stricken with poverty, whether poverty would separate them.

“How charming this walk is!” exclaimed Harry, as he took Kitty’s hand to help her over a fallen tree.

“In Paris such a delightful walk would not be possible,” answered Kitty.

“Do you really enjoy it?” said Harry. “It must seem so different from the Champs Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne.”

His companion was silent a moment, and ’twas not until he repeated that the pine woods and stony fields of New Hampshire must appear very rugged and unpleasant to her that she said:

“Well, but here, sir, I do for once in my life feel that I am free. Why, at the fashionable _pensionnat_ where mother put me I was not allowed to walk out alone even with my cousin Arthur.”

“Oh! you can’t imagine how I long to see Paris,” continued Harry.

“Well, despite what I have just said,” answered Kitty, “it is a most fascinating city—the queen of cities; and there is a large colony of Americans there, who have made up their minds to die in Paris, and who look upon their countrymen here as semi-barbarians.”

In a few minutes they reached the brook and Harry cast in his fly. But no fish rose; and presently he gave another throw. This time it was not skilfully done, or rather it was most skilfully done, for the fly, as it went circling round his head, got caught in Kitty’s truant curl, who laughed and said: “You have hooked a big trout now, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Well, I came purposely to catch a mess for you,” returned Harry. “But may I crave leave to keep this one dear fish all for myself?”

“What do you mean?” laughed Kitty, as he tried to disentangle the fly.

“I mean—” here his fingers stopped working and his voice trembled. “I mean—” Kitty, who understood him well enough, in another moment gave the happy response, and Harry was so overjoyed that he wound up his line and did not fish any more.

But they did not return immediately to the village; they felt drawn nearer to each other in the lonely woods, with only the trees and the brook to watch them; and so on and on they wandered, until by and by they emerged from the forest and saw before them an old farmhouse with moss-covered roof, on which the morning sun was shining, and round about the homestead the stream made well-nigh a circle—a bright, silvery circle, murmuring sweet music to those who dwelt there. The lovers paused a moment and gazed upon the scene without speaking. Then presently Kitty said: “I could live in such a spot all my life.”

“So could I,” said Harry, turning his sparkling eyes upon her. “With you I could live anywhere.”

“Let us draw nearer,” continued Kitty, “and speak to the young woman who is feeding the turkeys by the door; and quite a pretty girl she is,” Kitty added in an undertone, as Mabel Willey turned towards them.

“Yes, if one admires a dark complexion,” said Harry.

“And buried among these hills!” continued Kitty compassionately. “But I forgot what I said a moment ago; if I could be happy here with you, dear Harry, why, she may have a lover too, and not pine one bit for city life.”

The genial way in which Mabel returned their greeting quite won Kitty’s heart, while Harry inwardly confessed that, although he did not like brunettes, she was the handsomest one he had ever seen. And when presently he glanced down at her bare feet she did not blush, but quietly remarked:

“I have been gathering lilies, sir, at the pond, and I had to wade in after them.”

But Harry thought no excuse was needed; for Mabel’s foot was as perfectly shaped as her hand—a sculptor might have chosen it for a model.

“What a sweet home you have!” observed Kitty. “And the swallows love it, too; how many there are skimming over the grass!”

“’Tis not my home,” returned Mabel. “I am here only on a visit to my grandfather.”

“Indeed! Well, may I ask where your home is?” continued Kitty.

“In Illinois. My parents settled there twenty-three years ago, when they were first married, and I was born there, and I like it much better than New Hampshire.”

“Do you? And what part of Illinois are you from?”

“Lee County; and we live on the bank of a beautiful river called Rock River, which is full of black bass and pickerel, and in autumn ’tis covered with mallard and teal. Oh! I love Rock River.”

“Well, if your home is a more delightful spot than this it must be exquisite indeed.”

“I never saw a finer beech-tree than that one yonder,” put in Harry. Then turning to his betrothed and dropping his voice, “Let us go cut our names upon it, Kitty, to preserve the memory of this happy day.”

“Oh! do,” answered Kitty aloud. Then, taking Mabel’s hand, she added: “You must know, my dear, that he and I are just engaged. I spoke the sweet yes to him as we were strolling up the brook—this never-to-be-forgotten brook.”

“Engaged—going to be married,” said Mabel in a musing tone and fixing her dark eyes upon Harry, who wondered what she was thinking of while she watched him so wistfully. Then presently Mabel went on:

“Yes, do cut your names on the tree, for you must never forget this day—never; and your names will be visible upon it many years to come.”

All three now bent their steps to the beech, where Harry deftly carved his name and the name of his betrothed upon the bark.

“Why, how strange!” cried Mabel when he had finished. Then, taking Kitty by the sleeve, she drew her to the other side of the tree, where, lo! in letters almost obliterated by Time, was written _Harry Fletcher—Mabel Willey!_

“Then you have a lover, too, of the same name as mine,” observed Kitty.

“I a lover! I have none,” returned Mabel. “Besides, do you not perceive that these names have been here a long time, for the bark has nearly grown over them?”

“Well, who were these lovers, then?—for such no doubt they were,” said Kitty.

“I do not know; I only discovered the names yesterday. I’ll ask grandpa as soon as he comes back from the mill.”

“Do,” said Harry, “for I am curious to know.”

“And before you return to Illinois,” continued Kitty, “please come to the Kearsarge House, in order that I may see you again; for where your home is, is far, far from where ours is going to be.”

“We intend to live in Paris,” said Harry.

“In Paris?” observed Mabel. “You mean, of course, the Paris that is in France?”

“Is there any other?” said Kitty, inwardly smiling at her simplicity.

“Oh! yes. There is a Paris in Oregon and another in Texas.”

Here the talk ended by Mabel promising to visit Kitty ere many days were over.

“I should not have expected to meet such a fine-looking, well-mannered girl in a place like this,” spoke Miss Gibbon, when she and Harry were out of Mabel’s hearing.

“In America pretty girls are as plenty as blackberries,” answered Harry.

“Well, we certainly carry off the palm in Europe,” added Kitty. “But this young woman is a peasant.”

“A farmer’s daughter,” said Harry.

“Oh! we should call her a peasant in France, Harry dear. And I have some misgivings as to what mother will say when she hears that I have invited Mabel to visit me at the hotel.”

“Well, she is dark-complexioned, and I’ll swear she is an Italian baroness,” returned Harry, laughing.

“Oh! yes, do. A capital joke! Why, we know ever so many baronesses abroad. Ma has a large circle of noble acquaintances.”

“Really!”

“Yes. And I know three American girls married to counts. But there was no love between them during the courtship—not a spark—’twas all pure business from beginning to end, and I am told the young ladies are now very unhappy.”

“Well, our way of courting is the best,” said Harry.

“Judging from my own experience it undoubtedly is,” continued Kitty, looking tenderly at him. “The walks we have enjoyed together have taught me what you are, and taught you what I am; and, oh! how fortunate it is that I came back to America this year.”

“Most fortunate for me,” said Harry.

“And for me, too, dear boy. But now, to speak seriously about Mabel; I am in a quandary. What shall I do? Ma will see at a glance that she is a peasant.”

Mrs. Gibbon was highly pleased when her daughter told her of her engagement to Henry Fletcher, Jr.

“_Console toi, ma fille_,” she said. “_S’il n’a pas de titre, l’argent au moins ne lui manque pas._”

But, as Kitty had feared, she was not at all pleased when she heard about Mabel Willey.

“_Mais, mon Dieu! C’est une paysanne!_” groaned the widow, who was wont to speak French to Kitty, and spoke it well, too—“_une paysanne!_” Then, sinking down in a rocking-chair, “_Mon Dieu!_” she sighed, “_mon Dieu! quel scandale._”

Here the matter was let drop, for Mrs. Gibbon was too delighted with Kitty’s engagement to remain long out of humor.

Three days later, while the widow was seated on the piazza, fanning away the mosquitoes and wishing with all her heart that she was at Biarritz or Trouville, up rattled a farm-wagon. An old man was driving, his back pretty well bent with years, and beside him sat Mabel.

“Grandpa, I’ll not be long,” said the girl, alighting from the vehicle, and speaking loud enough to be overheard by a number of guests.

“_Mon Dieu!_” groaned Mrs. Gibbon, who guessed who it was.

Now, Mabel did not know Kitty’s mother, but it so happened that it was she whom the girl first addressed.

“I am come to call on Miss Gibbon. Can you tell me, madam, whether she is in?” inquired Mabel.

“Go ask one of the servants,” replied the widow, her eyes darting flashes of anger as she spoke. Then suddenly a bright thought struck her; quick a change came over her features, and, dropping her voice, she added just as Mabel was turning away, “Stop! I remember now Miss Gibbon has gone on a picnic and won’t be back till quite late.”

“Oh! too bad,” ejaculated Mabel. “I may never see her again.”

In another moment the wagon drove off and the girl was on her way to the West.

When Harry returned the following week to New York and told his father of his betrothal to Miss Gibbon, the heiress, Mr. Fletcher senior was as pleased as Kitty’s mother had been.

“But now, my son,” he said, “you must not be idle any longer; you must come down town and learn business.”

“Business!” exclaimed Harry with an air of surprise.

“Why, yes. Have I not been steadily at work in Wall Street more than twenty years? During all that time no holiday have I taken—not one, except a fortnight after your mother’s death. Then I own I did pass a short while in the country, for grief rendered brain labor out of the question. And now I am worth a million at the very least; and with such an example as I have set you would you lead a drone’s life?”

“Well, but, father, I am quite satisfied with our fortune; ’tis large enough, and I—I have promised Miss Gibbon that we should make our home abroad.”

Mr. Fletcher was so taken aback by these words that he could only knit his brow; he could not speak.

Then Harry proceeded: “And, father, I think you ought to take a holiday this season. What is the use of racking your brains for more money, since you have a million? Oh! I wish you had been with me at North Conway. I had such pleasant rambles among the hills, such fine trout-fishing! And in one of my walks—’twas the morning I proposed to Kitty—I found our name carved on a tree.” The youth now described the big beech and the brook and the old farm-house; for it was a never-to-be-forgotten morning, and he loved to tell all he remembered of those happy hours.

While he was speaking the look of displeasure which had clouded his father’s face when he began gradually passed away; the stern, matter-of-fact business man grew pensive; and when at length Harry came to describe Mabel—dark-eyed, barefooted, graceful Mabel Willey—the attentive listener shaded his eyes with his hand, and Harry could not imagine why his parent sighed. But the young man adroitly took advantage of his emotion to again ask if he might not go live in Paris. “I promised Miss Gibbon, father, that we would make our home there. You surely would not have me break my word?”

Mr. Fletcher merely answered: “Hush! speak no more about it. Go! go!”

Whereupon Harry, now in the blithest of moods, hurried off to get his trotting-wagon; for he had invited Kitty to take a drive in the Central Park.

At this same hour, while Harry and his betrothed were enjoying themselves together, conversing chiefly about Europe—their own country seemed to hold very little place in their thoughts—Mabel Willey was engaged in household duties with her mother.

Mabel was right when she praised her Western home: a log-house standing on a knoll which overlooked a swift-flowing river; beyond the river a broad expanse of rolling prairie, where the grouse were wont to gather in springtime, and for hours long their voices, saying, “Coo-ooo, coo-ooo, coo-ooo,” would reach Mabel’s ear; while ever and anon a black bass would spring up out of the flood, marking the spot where he fell back into the water by a ring of widening, quivering ripples. And, oh! how the girl loved these sights and sounds. But most of all did she love the deer, who would steal out of the forest of a moonlight night in autumn and make incursions into the corn-field hard by. Nothing had ever disturbed the harmony of this sweet spot. Husband and wife loved each other with true love, and God had blessed them with six children, of whom Mabel was the eldest; and when you saw Robert Willey felling a tree or following the plough you knew where his offspring had derived their health and strength from, while in the mother’s face still lingered traces of the beauty which young Mabel had inherited. But Robert did not perceive that _his_ Mabel was changed: no, as fair in his eyes was she now as when he wooed her in the far-off days of his youth.

Above the broad fireplace in the room where the family assembled of an evening, to chat and make merry after the labors of the day were over, were these words, painted in large letters and taken from the Book of Proverbs:

“Give me neither beggary nor riches: lest perhaps being filled, I should be tempted to deny, and say: Who is the Lord? or being compelled by poverty, I should steal, and forswear the name of my God.”

What a happy hour this evening hour was! Sometimes Mr. Willey would tell the young ones a story; and when he began, what a scramble there was for his knees! Sometimes he would look over the columns of the _Prairie Farmer_, gleaning therefrom useful hints for his vocation. While he was thus occupied his wife would read aloud to the children. But she did not select anything from a silly dime novel or illustrated paper, but generally something in Washington Irving’s _Sketch-Book_, or one of Cooper’s tales; and let us say that the tale they all liked best was _The Pioneers_.

“I am glad you enjoyed your visit to grandpa,” spoke Mrs. Willey one morning, as she rested awhile at the churn.

“Oh! ever so much,” answered Mabel, who, with sleeves rolled up, was busy skimming cream. “But I forgot to tell you, mother, that a few days before I left him there came to the house, at a rather early hour, a young gentleman and lady from one of the hotels in North Conway. They had strolled up Wild-cat Run, which, you know, winds almost round grandpa’s home, and had become engaged to each other on the way. I told them it was quite romantic. The girl was stylish-looking, but didn’t appear to be strong; her face was like wax-work, and her dress was made in such a fashion that I think she must have found it hard work to breathe. But she was exceedingly polite, and I was quite taken with her before we parted. The young gentleman likewise was a very pleasant fellow, and much better-looking, too, than she was. I judged by his hands that he has never done any work in his life, and his moustache was twisted and curled in the most coquettish way imaginable—just like this.” Here Mabel put her fingers to her upper lip, then twirled them round and round to Mrs. Willey’s great amusement.

“But what I want most to speak of,” she continued, “is the big beech-tree.” Mabel now proceeded to tell how Harry had carved his name and Kitty’s upon it, and how she had discovered the names of Harry Fletcher and Mabel Willey upon the same tree in letters barely legible.

“O child!” exclaimed her mother, when she was done speaking, “you cannot imagine how vividly my girlish days come back upon my memory when you speak of that old beech. Yes, I can see Harry Fletcher cutting his name and mine upon it just as plainly as if it were yesterday. A handsome fellow was Harry. He wanted me to be his wife. I did not dislike him—no, indeed. We were good friends; we sat side by side at school; we picked huckleberries together. Many folks thought I should marry him. But there was another young man courting me, one who bore the same name as myself, though no relation; and one day we all three met, and my lovers agreed that I should then and there decide which of them I’d choose. And ’twas your father, Mabel, who won me; nor have I ever for a single moment regretted my choice. Yet Harry Fletcher was a brave, generous fellow, very smart, too, and I have often wondered what became of him. All I know is that soon after I refused him he quitted our part of the country to seek his fortune elsewhere.”

“Right, wife, right! A splendid fellow!” cried Mr. Willey, entering the dairy to get a cup of milk. “Why, I was thinking about him myself only a few minutes ago while I was looking at our corn—and a fine crop it’s going to be, a mighty fine crop. And I wondered whether Harry, if he is still in the land of the living, has a farm like ours and a snug log-house to shelter him. Many things may happen in the length of time since he and I parted; this world has many ups and downs—it’s a regular seesaw.”

After talking awhile about Harry Fletcher Farmer Willey said: “Come, wife, let’s take a row; and I’ll bring my rod along and catch a mess of black bass for supper.” Mrs. Willey, who liked to see her husband play as well as work, gladly assented. They did not fish much, however, for the skiff was long and broad and leaked never a drop; and the six happy children went a-rowing too. It did your eyes good to look at them, and your ears good, too, to hear them—so healthy and strong and rollicksome they were; dipping their hands in the water, sprinkling each other’s faces, singing, laughing; and finally barefooted Dick, who was ten years old, wittingly tumbled overboard and played fish around the boat—the boy could swim like a fish—to the great amusement of his brothers and sisters.

Three months after this pleasant excursion on the river Mabel found herself again in New Hampshire. The truth is her grandfather, whose feelings had been much wrought upon by the visit she had paid him in summer, could not bear to be separated any longer from those whom he loved, and, moreover, he was of an age when farm-labor was getting rather irksome. Accordingly, he had written to Mrs. Willey, telling her that he wished to spend the rest of his days in Illinois, and begged that he might have the company of young Mabel in the long, tiresome journey to the West. “For she is a bright girl,” he said, “and can take charge of me and my trunk, and of herself too.”

So Mabel, who, fond as she was of home, was not averse to seeing a little of the world, went to fetch her grandfather; and now in October we find her passing with him through the city of New York.

“It’s just like a beehive, this town,” spoke Mabel, as she paused a moment in Broadway near the Astor House to try and discover the ticket-office of the Michigan Southern Railway.

“Such a crowd makes my head swim,” said the old man, who was leaning on her arm.

“Well, I’ll ask somebody where the ticket-office is,” added Mabel.

And she did ask somebody, and that somebody happened to be no other than Harry Fletcher, Jr., who was on his way down town with his father. Right cordial was the meeting between them.

“I have often thought of you,” said Harry.

“Indeed! Well, the morning we first met was a blissful morning for you—was it not?” returned Mabel, with a laughing gleam in her eye. “Pray, sir, how is Miss Gibbon?”

“Oh! extremely well. She is now in Philadelphia, bidding good-by to some friends, for we sail shortly for Europe.”

“But you will not really settle abroad, as you once told me?” said Mabel. Then, with a little hesitation, she added: “Men like you, sir, ought to live in their own country.”

“You are more eloquent than you imagine,” answered the youth. “But I have promised Miss Gibbon that we should make our home in Paris.”

Here Mr. Fletcher senior shook his head, while Mabel’s grandparent observed: “Why, young man, isn’t this country big enough for you?”

Harry made no response, but, taking a pretty rosebud from his buttonhole, he presented it to Mabel, saying: “We may never meet again, but Miss Gibbon and I will often speak of you when we are far away.”

Closely during this brief conversation had Harry’s father watched Mabel, and now he took her hand and pressed it, and the girl wondered why he gazed upon her with moistened eyes. Then, after showing her the ticket-office, Mr. Fletcher went to a flower-stand near by and bought her a beautiful bouquet which quite threw into the shade Harry’s rosebud. “Oh! thanks, sir,” said Mabel, as she accepted the flowers. “How delicious they are!”

When presently they parted Harry said to his father: “Miss Willey is a very fine girl, isn’t she? And I’ll not let Kitty call her a peasant any more.”

Mr. Fletcher did not seem to hear this remark; he appeared like one absorbed in a reverie. But of a sudden he burst out: “A peasant! a peasant! By heaven! there is not a princess in Europe better than Mabel Willey.”

“Well, Kitty would not call her a peasant except for her mother,” continued Harry. “But Mrs. Gibbon has filled her head with foolish notions.”

“Such as living in Europe,” answered Mr. Fletcher. Then, with a sigh, he added, “O Harry! how you have disappointed me. Why, I would rather see you wed a girl like Mabel, even if she were poor, than have you pass your days in a foreign land.”

“Would you really?” exclaimed Harry.

“But, alas!” went on Mr. Fletcher, now speaking to himself—“alas! ’twas I who urged him to make a rich match. Yet I have been rolling up money for years and years; and now, when I am worth a million, my only child is going to spend my fortune among foreigners.”

As they pursued their way to Wall Street, Harry noticed the unhappy look on his father’s face and again advised him to take a holiday. But Mr. Fletcher answered: “I wish I could. But I have been so long in the treadmill of business that now I should not know how to play if I went away.”

And so the millionaire went down to his office, while the heir to all his wealth, with a fresh rosebud sticking in his buttonhole, repaired to Delmonico’s to kill time, as he expressed it—to kill time sipping sherry and thinking about Paris and Kitty Gibbon.

But the banker’s thoughts were of Mabel Willey. “She brings me right back to the dear old days,” he sighed—“the dear old days. She is the living image of her mother.”

For once in his life Mr. Fletcher was absent-minded, and the president of a trust company, who came to talk with him upon important business, fancied that he did not evince his usual shrewdness and penetration. They were still engaged in earnest conversation when a piece of news reached them, a startling piece of news, that made them both stare and wonder if their ears told the truth: the Confidence Trust Company had closed its doors!

But Harry, who heard of it at Delmonico’s, was not startled in the least; nay, he rather enjoyed the excitement which quickly followed. He was rich; how could this failure harm him? Ere long other failures were announced, and Wall Street became filled with an excited crowd—so filled that it was well-nigh impossible to move about; crash followed crash, and, judging by men’s faces, you might have thought the end of the world was at hand.

Yet Harry calmly edged his way through the throng, always careful of the pretty rosebud, over which he frequently placed his hand for protection.

But ere this memorable day came to an end Harry grew serious.

“This is going to prove the greatest financial crash our country has known since the Revolution,” said Mr. Fletcher to him in the evening; “and, my son, I may be utterly ruined.”

“And I’ll not be able to go to Paris,” said Harry inwardly. “Oh! what will Kitty say?”

But it was not so much Miss Gibbon as Miss Gibbon’s mother, who took to heart the sudden, unexpected, astonishing change in Mr. Fletcher’s fortune; for the banker, who had been entangled in many speculations, did indeed lose nearly all he possessed—so little had he left that the widow made up her mind that her daughter should not marry his son if she could prevent it.

A few days after the panic Harry called on his betrothed, who was now back from Philadelphia. He meant to tell her the whole sad truth, and afford her an opportunity to break off the engagement, if she wished to do so. In the parlor he found Mrs. Gibbon, who seemed to be expecting him (he had written Kitty a note to say he was coming), and the widow’s countenance chilled his heart as he entered. Harry began by making a commonplace remark about the weather—the equinoctial was raging—then went on to speak of the unhappy change in his father’s fortune, wondering all the while why Kitty did not appear.

“We have heard of it,” answered the other, “and needless to tell what a shock the news gave us. However, such misfortunes will happen—_c’est la vie_. And now that you have been so frank with me, Mr. Fletcher, let me be equally frank with you, and say that my daughter and I have had a long, serious talk on the subject. Miss Gibbon, you know, has set her heart upon living abroad—indeed, we wish to be back again by the end of the month, and—”

“And now that I am penniless,” interrupted Harry, “perhaps you deem it best that the engagement be broken off.”

“I regret to say it is the conclusion we have come to.”

Harry, who had feared this would be the step which Mrs. Gibbon would urge Kitty to take, nevertheless wished to see the young lady in person, and so he said: “But may I not speak with Miss Gibbon a moment? I—I—”

“She has a bad headache and is confined to her room,” interrupted the widow. “Besides, sir, I am fully authorized to speak for my daughter, who, you are aware, is not yet of age.”

“Oh! but do tell her I am here; let me speak only a word to her,” said Harry in a pleading tone.

“I am sorry that I cannot grant your request,” answered Mrs. Gibbon firmly.

With this the interview closed, and Harry departed in a sorrowful mood indeed.

For a while the blow quite stunned him. The tears did not flow; he could only sigh and groan. He wished he had been born poor, and that Kitty had not been an heiress. “For then poverty would not have separated us; we should have toiled for our daily bread, and been as happy as if we had lived on Fifth Avenue.”

The following week he read in a newspaper the names of Mrs. Gibbon and her daughter among the passengers by the steamship _Russia_ for Liverpool.

“Well, Harry, let us not despair,” said Mr. Fletcher a month after the panic. “Happy days may yet be in store for us.”

And as he spoke his thoughts turned westward to Rock River—to Mabel Willey.

“And why not?” he asked himself, after musing a moment. “Why not? Many a man as old as I am has married a girl as young as Mabel.”

“Well, yes, father, I do believe happy days are in store for us,” returned the youth, his countenance brightening; for he was beginning to recover from the blow which his heart had received (young people easily recover from such blows). Besides, he had come to the conclusion that all had happened for the best. Miss Gibbon was not worthy of him, otherwise, despite her mother, she would certainly have managed to communicate with him ere she sailed. It was only his money she cared about. “And, father,” he added, “I could be perfectly content on a farm; yes, I know I could, and you have enough left from the wreck of your fortune to buy a farm, and we might live together on it very happily. Suppose, therefore, we go West—say to Illinois, where Mabel Willey’s father lives.”

“Just what I was thinking of,” said Mr. Fletcher, with a tender throbbing of the heart, which might have changed to a bitter pang had he known what was passing through Harry’s mind; for Harry, too, had asked himself:

“Why not? I abominate rich girls now. Mabel is quite good enough for me.”

Accordingly, to Illinois they went, and arrived in the most glorious time of the year—Indian summer.

“Why, I do declare! Can it be possible? Is this really my old friend Harry Fletcher?” cried Mr. Willey, as he grasped the other’s hand, while Mrs. Willey and Mabel and all the little ones stood in a gaping circle round them.

“Yes, I am he and nobody else,” was the response, given in a voice quivering with emotion.

“Well, you are welcome—a thousand times welcome!” put in the wife, a tear glistening in her eye. “Ay, Harry, it makes us young again to look at you.”

“And here is the image of yourself in the dear old days,” spoke Mr. Fletcher, turning towards Mabel, who blushed and looked very pretty, while Harry Fletcher, Jr.—who did not dream of his parent falling in love—whispered to Mabel:

“How romantic this is!”

“Very,” answered Mabel. “But pray, sir, why didn’t you bring Miss Gibbon? Or perhaps you are married, and I should say Mrs. Fletcher?”

“I’ll tell all about it by and by,” said Harry in a low tone. “It is an exceedingly painful subject. I am trying to forget it.”

Then, after a pause, and drawing the girl aside, he added:

“I may as well tell you now: our engagement is at an end—Miss Gibbon is in Europe.”

When Mabel heard this her kind heart was deeply moved for Harry as well as for Kitty. Mabel had no lover, but she had often thought that if she had one how dearly she would love him. “And if our engagement were to be broken off, I hardly think I should ever smile again.”

“Well, Harry,” continued Mr. Willey, addressing his old friend, and at the same time sweeping his hand over the landscape, “is not this a charming country? Look, yonder is the prairie; and there is Rock River—isn’t it a fine stream? And there you see my timber—I have fifty acres of it; and that is my corn-field—a good fifty acres of corn; and there are my cattle; and I have no end of chickens and turkeys; and I have a good orchard. In fact, I want for nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Well, you ought to be happy,” answered Mr. Fletcher.

“Happy isn’t the word,” put in Mrs. Willey.

“Right, wife,” said the farmer. “I’d not change places with the richest man in New York. People talk about the panic. Why, it hasn’t harmed me a bit. My corn is ripening just as well now as before the crash; my land is all paid for; I owe not a dollar to anybody; and I really don’t know what worry means.”

“No worry!” murmured Mr. Fletcher, pressing his hand to his brow. “Alas! when have I been free from it?”

“Well, it is worry and not work that kills people,” went on Mr. Willey. “So stay out here and buy a quarter section; ’twill make you ten years younger. No life so happy as a farmer’s life.”

“The very thing I intend to do,” said Mr. Fletcher. Here Mabel clapped her hands, and all the little ones laughed and clapped their hands too; while Mrs. Willey said to herself: “How very pleasant it would be if the son of my old lover were to marry Mabel!”

It was long since Mr. Fletcher had passed a happier day than this first day in Illinois; the balmy air, the entire change of scene, the gladsome faces around him, but above all the company of sweet Mabel, who insisted on showing him all over the homestead, obliterated from his mind the troubles and worries he had gone through and really made him feel many years younger.

The following week Mrs. Willey was delighted when she heard Harry ask her daughter to take a row on the river. “I have only a short letter to write,” said the youth, “then I’ll be ready. Will you come?”

“Suppose we take a row,” said Harry’s father to Mabel a few minutes later—he had not heard Harry’s invitation.

“To be sure,” replied Mabel. “But shall we go immediately, sir, or wait for your son? He asked me to go with him as soon as he had done a little writing.”

“Oh! indeed,” said Mr. Fletcher; and now for the first time it occurred to him that perhaps Harry might fall under the influence of this simple yet bewitching maiden. “Well, if he does,” he added inwardly, “dearly as I feel that I could love her—for her mother’s sake, dearly, dearly—I’ll not stand in my boy’s way.”

However, Mr. Fletcher and Mabel did go down to the river without waiting for Harry, who made his appearance on the bank in less than twenty minutes, waving his hand and shouting lustily.

But Mr. Fletcher seemed not to hear his voice; at least he did not hear it for a long time—so long that Mabel fancied the old gentleman, as she inwardly called him, must be a little deaf. At length she made bold to inform him that his son was calling; whereupon Mr. Fletcher looked round and exclaimed: “Oh! ay, to be sure, so he is.” And now the bow of the skiff was turned slowly shoreward. But the oars did not move very briskly; nay, so sluggishly were they plied that the boat drifted a good half-mile below the landing-place—poor Harry following it along the shore, while Mabel was tempted more than once to ask her companion to let her have the oars.

“Well, well, I have had my day,” sighed Mr. Fletcher, about a quarter of an hour later, as he sat on a stump watching with tearful eyes his son, whose vigorous young arms were now sending the boat upstream as rapidly as he himself had sent it down with the current. “No, I must not lament; Mabel is worth a dozen city flirts, and I hope that Harry will fall in love with her.”

“Is it not a beautiful view from this knoll?” spoke a voice, presently, close behind him; and, turning, Mr. Fletcher beheld Mabel’s mother, who had approached him unheard over a bed of moss.

“It is indeed!” he replied. “And the most beautiful object in the whole landscape is your daughter.”

“Well, Mabel is a jewel, and no mistake,” continued Mrs. Willey. “And right glad am I that she and your son are enjoying themselves together on the river.” But even as she spoke a strange thought flashed upon the mother, for she perceived that the eyes of her old suitor were moistened with tears.

“Can it be possible,” she said to herself, “that he, too, is falling in love with Mabel? Well, I hope not; for there will be a poor chance for him while young Harry is about.”

We need scarcely say that for Harry Fletcher, Jr., this was only the first of many pleasant excursions on the river with Mabel; and day by day the recollections of his former life—the dinner-parties, the operas, the balls he had gone to, the pretty girls he had danced with—grew dimmer and dimmer in his mind’s eye. More than once, too, did Mrs. Willey discover Harry’s father watching the happy couple from the stump on the knoll.

“How strangely things turn out!” spoke Mr. Fletcher, a fortnight later, when Mabel’s mother once more approached him over the bed of moss.

“Perhaps you are thinking of just what I am thinking,” returned Mrs. Willey. “If so, it is indeed strange, and, I may add, a most romantic way of taking revenge on me; eh, Harry?”

“Ah! little did I dream of this the day when I proposed to you and you refused me,” continued Mr. Fletcher, shaking his head. “It seems only yesterday. Yet here is a son of mine, with beard on his chin, as much in love with your daughter as ever I was with you.”

“And I guess there’ll not be any nay spoken this time,” answered Mrs. Willey.

At these words Mr. Fletcher buried his face in his hands and sighed, while the other, who remembered the tears which had once moistened his eyes as he sat looking at Harry and Mabel from this same spot, felt more than ever convinced that her child had two lovers, and wished that she had two Mabels, in order to be able to give one to each.

Yes, Harry and Mabel were already deeply in love, and Mabel, for whom it was quite a new experience, trembled every time the youth met her—and he met her very often between sunrise and sunset: at the churn, feeding the poultry, gathering chestnuts—“For now I am sure he is going to propose,” she would say to herself.

At length a morning came when Harry resolved to put the all-important question. Why dally any longer? He had made up his mind to become a farmer; Mabel would be just the wife for him; she was not only handsome but healthy—no headaches, no dyspepsia. If her hands were not so soft as Miss Gibbon’s, what of it? They were industrious, willing hands, and able to do almost everything except thrum on a piano.

Accordingly, Harry went in quest of Mabel, who, one of the children told him, had gone to pay a visit to their neighbor. Whereupon he took the lane which led to the adjoining farm, and had proceeded about half way when he saw the girl coming towards him. She did not walk with her usual elastic step; her eyes were cast upon the ground, nor did she raise them until he was quite close, and then Harry perceived that she was very pale, and seemed to be startled, as if she had not heard him approaching.

“Dear Mabel, what is the matter?” said Harry, taking her hand as he spoke. “I never saw you look troubled before. Are you ill?”

In a voice wonderfully firm, considering the poignant anguish she was suffering, and forcing to her lips the ghost of a smile, Mabel answered:

“Ill? No, indeed, sir! And I should not have been moving at such a snail’s pace; I should have been running, flying, for I bring you great news—news that will ravish your heart with delight.”

“Really! Well, pray, what is it?” said Harry, who felt the hand which he clasped growing colder.

“Miss Gibbon has arrived,” continued Mabel. “She is at our neighbor’s; she mistook the road, and went there instead of coming to our house; and I told her to wait where she was until I found you and broke the glad tidings So, Mr. Fletcher, make haste, do, for Miss Gibbon is longing to meet you.”

Here Mabel, who could not trust herself to utter another syllable, tore away from him, leaving Harry perfectly dazed and bewildered.

But Mabel did not go home. No, into the woods she plunged, where no eye might witness the tears which now rolled down her cheeks. And it happened that somebody else was strolling among the trees at the same time, pensive and musing over days gone by. Suddenly the girl found herself face to face with Mr. Fletcher. In vain she strove to hide her grief—too late; not ten paces separated them.

“Why, Mabel, dear, darling Mabel,” cried the other, who fancied that a lover’s quarrel had broken out between herself and Harry, “what has happened? ’Tis the first time I have seen anything but gladness on your sweet face.”

As Mr. Fletcher spoke he drew her affectionately towards him. But it was several minutes ere she could check her sobs sufficiently to answer.

Finally, yielding to his solicitations, Mabel opened out her heart; she told him the whole truth, and we may faintly imagine what Mr. Fletcher’s feelings were as she went on to confess her love for his son, and the cruel shock which her heart had received a half-hour since when she met Miss Gibbon.

“And Miss Gibbon told me, sir, that she loved Harry as much as ever; that she had sold all her diamonds, run away from her mother, come alone the whole way from Paris to find him, and that her mother should never part them again.”

A spell of silence followed Mabel’s confession, and during the silence Mr. Fletcher’s heart throbbed violently.

“Well, Mabel,” he began presently, and looking her full in the face, “you have unbosomed yourself to me, let me now reveal my inmost feelings to you. I, too, have a cause for sorrow—one which I find it impossible to overcome. Nobody can remove it except you; but you can remove it—you may make me the happiest man in Illinois, if you choose.”

“I!” exclaimed Mabel in surprise. “O sir! I will do anything, anything to make you happy.”

“Ay, child, the happiest man in Illinois,” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, who had caught these last words as she pushed her way through the trees, and was determined to back him up in his suit with all the authority she could command.

“O mother, mother!” cried Mabel, leaving Mr. Fletcher and flinging herself in her parent’s arms.

“Come, come, child! Don’t take on so about it,” continued Mrs. Willey. “I know what the trouble is. But it can’t be helped. Harry loved Miss Gibbon before he ever laid eyes on you, and she loved him, and they were once engaged to be married; and now they are engaged anew—not the least doubt about it, for I have just left them walking arm-in-arm, cooing together like a pair of doves. So, Mabel, dry your tears, and let me declare you would make me the happiest woman in the State, if you would accept the hand of my dear, good friend Henry Fletcher.”

“What! marry the old gentleman?” whispered Mabel, looking up in her mother’s face; then turning she gazed furtively on Mr. Fletcher, who had retired a few steps, while a smile, a very faint smile, played on her lips.

“Hush, child!” returned Mr. Willey in an undertone. “He is not old; his heart is just like a boy’s.” Here Mabel again hid her face in her mother’s bosom, and the latter began to feel a little vexed, for she fancied that she heard Mabel laughing.

“Be my wife, Mabel!” exclaimed Mr. Fletcher, drawing near, “and then I’ll settle here, and Harry will too, and we will all be happy neighbors. Oh! speak, dear Mabel, speak.”

“Give me until to-morrow,” answered Mabel, with her face still concealed.

“Surely I will,” said Mr. Fletcher.

“O child! be business-like and arrange the matter at once,” urged Mrs. Willey.

“Not now; to-morrow,” said Mabel—“to-morrow.” And she ended her words with a sigh.

With this Mr. Fletcher withdrew, and mother and daughter went their way home—the mother eloquently pleading the cause of her old lover, Mabel patiently, reverently listening; and when they reached the log-house, whom should they meet standing by the porch but Harry. He was alone, and appeared much confused as Mabel fastened her eyes on him—poor Mabel! Then in broken accents he said: “Mabel, Mabel, can you forgive me? I—”

“Forgive you! Pray, for what?” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Did I not tell you I brought glad news? And I hope that you and Miss Gibbon will live long and happily together.”

“Oh! how good, how generous, how noble you are,” said Harry, who knew full well that Mabel loved him; in more ways than one she had let the dear secret escape her. “And fortunate will be the man who wins you!”

Here the girl stood silent a moment; a violent struggle was going on within her. Then, a sunny look beaming over her face, “Who _has_ won me,” she replied.

“Well spoken, child!” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, clapping her on the shoulder—“well spoken!”

“Why, Harry,” added Mabel, “I am going to be your step-mother.”

“Really, truly!” cried a voice from an upper window. “My Harry’s step-mother!” In another moment Kitty Gibbon came rushing down the staircase at a break-neck pace, and half choked Mabel with her embraces. Her arms were still clasping Mabel’s neck when the elder Harry appeared on the scene; and we may imagine, if we can, what his feelings were as Mabel stretched out one of her hands towards him.

Presently Mr. Willey arrived; then the grandfather and all the little ones; and while they were rejoicing together a man on horseback galloped up.

“Is there a lady here named Miss Gibbon?” inquired the stranger.

“Yes, I am she,” answered Kitty, looking somewhat agitated, for she could not imagine what the fellow wanted; all sorts of things passed through her head.

“Well, I have a telegram for you,” continued the man, handing her an envelope.

“A telegram! Why, so it is, and from Europe, too!” cried Kitty. Then, tearing it open, she read as follows:

“Kitty, I forgive you. Will allow you $5,000 per year. Count de Montjoli heart-broken. Write at once. God bless you!”

“Oh! it is from mamma,” she said, after reading it to herself. “And now I’ll read it aloud. And, Harry, listen well, for it’s jolly. But let me say before I begin—and I wish mother could hear me—you are worth, dear boy, all the counts in the world.”

Here Kitty read over the telegram, after which followed a general round of embraces. All were indeed happy beyond measure, Mabel as well as the rest; and the girl said to her mother, “You have chosen a husband for me, and no doubt chosen for the best.” Then, with a smile, she added: “And I promise to grow older every day and catch up to him by and by.”

“And you will teach me how to be a farmer’s wife,” said Kitty to Mabel.

“And I’ll play boss over you all,” spoke Farmer Willey, spreading forth his brawny arms so as to covey the whole group.

“Yes, yes,” said young Harry, “and I will write to New York and tell others who are crying over hard times to follow our example and come West.”

“Do, do!” exclaimed Harry’s father. “Here is health and no worry, sound sleep by night, and—”

“Wives to be had without much wooing,” interrupted Mabel, glancing archly at her future husband.

“Darling girl!” replied Mr. Fletcher, with tender pathos in his voice. “This is the blessed end of an old, old courtship. Ay, Mabel, the shadow of my days, like Hezekiah’s, runs backward when I gaze upon you.”

“Well spoken!” exclaimed Mrs. Willey, with tears of joy glistening in her eyes—“well spoken! And, oh! most sincerely do I thank God that my old lover has won his Mabel at last.”

ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT LAFAYETTE, N. H.

I.

Thou rear’st thy graceful head, thy serrate crest, O noble mountain, o’er the busy vale, Franconia’s seething, motley-crowded dale: Below, we inly chafe; on thee, we rest. The scars that seam thy fir-crowned, rocky breast, The rifts that rend thy floating, cloud-spun veil, Tell but of nature’s laws the ordered tale— Each change with seal of sovereign might impressed. If void of man’s proud gift, a living soul, At least thou knowest naught of rebel will, Of petty passions, pettier aims, that toll The knell of love and praise his days should fill. Here rest we, while thine anthems heavenward roll, And list the voice of God, so sweet, so still.

II.

Ay, rest, poor human soul, but not for long: That searching voice hath bid thee look below, Where freshening streams by dusty roadsides flow, Where sunlit dwellings vales and uplands throng. It bids thy fretted, fainting heart be strong, It whispers of a glory passing show, Of loftier intercommune thou mayst know Than mountain top, skies’ sweep, or forest song. Above yon hamlet gleams a glittering cross, A beacon light to show where dwells the Lord. He calls! our brethren call! Can that be loss Which brings us nearer Him whose life outpoured Hath power to right all wrongs, lift this poor dross To heights where thought of man hath ne’er yet soared?

THE PRUSSIAN PERSECUTION EXHIBITED IN ITS RESULTS.

Seven years ago the government of the new German Empire, pursuing the Protestant traditions of Prussia, and spurred on to action by the occult power of Freemasonry, began its gigantic attack on the Catholic Church. It opened hostilities without the customary declaration of war, and, in order to hide the real motives and aims of the campaign, its crafty rulers professed well-meant intentions and a sincere solicitude for the welfare of the church, declaring over and over again that the religious policy they were inaugurating was exclusively directed against the Jesuit or ultramontane influence in the church. Soon, however, and as the government gradually unfurled the banner of persecution, the dark designs of Freemasonry appeared in their real light and character. Whilst the ministers moved heaven and earth to produce some plausible pretexts in justification of the announced legislation, such as the pope’s infallibility, the pretended encroachments of the Roman Church on the domains of the state, the creation of the Centre party, etc., the national liberals in the Landtag dogmatized on the religion of the future, the first mission of which was to bring Christianity into harmony with the spirit of the age, or, as one of their leading organs put it, “to reconcile the faith of our forefathers with the reason of their children.” At last, when the legislators had gained the conviction that the reasons alleged for the May Laws found neither credence with Catholics nor favor with honest Protestants, they threw off the mask, and Infidelity, fully armed and with colors flying, boldly entered the lists of the _Kulturkampf_. The final aim of the struggle, so long and persistently denied, now openly acknowledged, was nothing less than the annihilation of the Roman Catholic Church, and thereby of Christianity itself. Whatever exception Prince Bismarck may have taken to this sweeping programme in favor of his own idea of a German state church, with the emperor for its head, appears irrelevant before the extraordinary fact that he placed himself at the head of the enemies of Christ, and with their help worked for the destruction of his religion. For this end, and for this end only, did the German infidels devise and pass the May Laws. Have they succeeded? Will they ever achieve their object? To these questions we unhesitatingly oppose a decided never. As Catholics we have the promise of Christ that his church here on earth will last to the end of the world; as witnesses of the persecution and its results we proclaim with unspeakable satisfaction that the attempt to destroy the church in Germany has completely failed. Although the body of the church has been roughly handled, although it bleeds from a thousand wounds, and stands mutilated, disfigured, a most piteous sight, still the church itself, the Catholic faith, has remained untouched and shineth forth with increased splendor, strength, and beauty. Men have suffered, not their religion.

Taking a bird’s-eye view of the present condition of the Catholic Church in Prussia, we discover an immense field of desolation on which a seven years’ relentless war has spread intense misery and suffering, heaped ruins upon ruins, and well-nigh destroyed every monument of Christian faith and piety. The guides and pastors of the church are dispersed, the whole hierarchy is broken up, hundreds of priests eat the bitter bread of exile, many more waste their lives in prison, and greater still is the number of those for whom the exercise of priestly functions is accounted a treasonable crime. More than one million of loyal Prussian subjects are doomed to live and die without the blessings of the church. In more than seven hundred parishes no sacraments can be received, no Mass be heard, no Christian burial obtained. New-born children must be baptized by lay hands or carried with personal danger to distant parishes. The sick and dying are denied the last sacraments, unless they, too, can be conveyed to neighboring churches. All Catholic seminaries, schools, and educational establishments are either closed altogether or taken possession of by the Protestant government. Convents and monasteries are empty or inhabited by criminals, their former saintly inmates driven out of their homes and country. Catholic orphanages, hospitals, reformatories, all charitable institutions are suppressed, and the church property of dioceses deprived of their bishops is sequestrated by the civil power. Catholic religious instruction in popular and higher schools, no longer under the control of the church, is now exclusively taught in the name and by authority of the Prussian government.

This sad work of destruction and persecution appears sadder still when viewed in the ghastliness of its details. By clause 1 of the law of May 11, 1873, all papal jurisdiction in matters of church discipline was transferred from the pope to the German ecclesiastical authorities, or, in other words, German Catholics were, declared cut off from the visible head of their church. This law, on the very face of it, could have no practical meaning in the nineteenth century, and therefore remained a dead letter. Beyond a certain number of penalties inflicted on priests and editors for publishing papal documents addressed to German bishops and priests, or forwarding letters of excommunication to apostates, no harm was done to any one by this law, and diocesan communications are uninterruptedly carried on by the pope, not publicly, it is true, but almost as completely and safely as if the Holy Father enjoyed the Prussian government’s sanction for it.

Far more mischievous, downright disastrous to the German hierarchy, became the various laws concerning the education and appointment of priests to the ecclesiastical office. With regard to the clause prescribing a state examination in science for ecclesiastics over and above the usual examination in philosophy and theology, its severity could not hitherto be tested; for, although the official list of thirty-four examiners is every year published in the leading newspapers, not one Catholic candidate has presented himself for examination. This clause, too, may therefore be termed a failure. On the other hand, the appointing and not appointing of priests to vacant parishes became fatal to all Prussian bishops. Whenever they proceeded to such appointments without giving the required notice to their respective ober-presidents, or if they failed to comply with the latter’s orders to fill up vacant parishes, the bishops were in all cases prosecuted, fined, or imprisoned. For a time fines were paid by some good diocesans, or the bishops’ sold furniture was bought back and restored to their owners; but when, from the continued and increased severity of such prosecutions, it became evident that the well-meant aid of good Catholics contributed only to enrich the persecuting government without removing their chief pastors’ difficulties, perhaps also on the express wish of the exalted victims themselves, the generous practice was discontinued, and the bishops, some reduced to utter poverty and unable to pay the ever-increasing penalties, were ignominiously dragged into prison. The Archbishop of Cologne alone was condemned to pay at very short intervals 120, 150, 3000, 21,000, 88,500, in all 112,770 marks. His brother bishops, even those not deposed, had to suffer similarly high and numerous penalties. What made a great many of these condemnations appear excessively hard and unjust was the bishops’ inability to fill up the vacancies; for they had no longer priests at their disposal, since the closing of the seminaries made new ordinations impossible. Thus the government asked an impossibility and punished the bishops for not achieving it. With the exception of the Prince Bishop of Breslau and the Bishop of Limburg, who escaped imprisonment by going abroad, all the Prussian bishops had to go to jail, some for months, others for years. As soon as their imprisonment was over proceedings for their “deposition” were instituted at the royal Tribunal of Ecclesiastical Affairs in Berlin. To the official summons to lay down their offices the bishops answered in substance that, the state not being a spiritual power capable of investing them with or depriving them of their ecclesiastical offices, they did not consider themselves empowered to accede to the government’s request; and that as the church alone—_i.e._, her head, the pope—had endowed them with the said offices, she alone possessed the spiritual power to dismiss them. The answers which priests gave to the government, when summoned to lay down their offices as parish priests, were couched in equally decided language. Thus Dean Leineweber, of Heiligenstadt, wrote to the ober-president that, according to the principle and teaching of the Catholic Church, Bishop Martin, although “deposed” by the state, was still their bishop, and that consequently no priest was released by this “deposition” from the vow of obedience by which he is bound to his bishop; moreover, that a faithful priest is a better and more loyal state officer than an unfaithful priest, and therefore could not in any way admit that his removal from office was required by the interest of the state. The government, however, paying no heed to the bishops’ refusals to resign, summoned them one after the other before the Supreme Tribunal of Ecclesiastical Affairs. After a short trial, at which the accused bishops neither appeared in person nor were represented by counsel, the court pronounced sentence of dismissal from their offices as Prussian bishops on the ground that “the accused had so grossly violated their duties as _servants of the church_ that their remaining in office involved a serious danger incompatible with public order.” In this way the Prussian government managed to get rid of seven bishops—viz., Archbishop Melchers, of Cologne, who is supposed to reside in Holland; Cardinal Ledochowski, Archbishop of Gnesen-Posen, now in Rome; the Prince Bishop of Breslau, living in the Austrian part of his diocese; Bishop Martin, of Paderborn, now in Belgium; Bishop Brinckmann, of Münster, present residence unknown; Bishop Blum, of Limburg, somewhere with the Benedictines; Dr. Janiszewski, suffragan Bishop of Posen, in Cracow. The three episcopal sees of Treves, Fulda, and Mayence being vacant through the death of their former occupants, there are now nine dioceses without visible spiritual administration in Prussia. The only remaining bishops are those of Hildesheim, Osnabrück, Ermeland, and Kulm. For what reason these church dignitaries are allowed to remain in office, although they committed the same transgressions of the May Laws and are in every respect in the same position as their brethren, is indeed difficult to say; the only reasonable explanation we can venture to offer for this forbearance is either the government’s determination to discontinue the useless persecution, or the emperor’s unwillingness to consent to the expulsion of _all_ the Catholic bishops from the country over which he rules. Even an emperor may dread the verdict of history.

As was to be expected, the “deposed” bishops, although far away from their flocks, found the necessary means and ways to carry on the spiritual administration of their dioceses, either by appointing secret delegates or with the help of certain priests with whom they keep up regular communications. Of course their conduct involved, in the eyes of the government, fresh and very grave offences, which were resented by endless prosecutions not only against the bishops themselves but all persons, laymen as well as priests, whom the public prosecutor suspected of helping the bishops in the exercise of their “illegal” episcopal functions. Summonses to appear again before the royal tribunal in Berlin were nailed on the doors of the bishops’ former residences, and in the trials which ensued the accused were sentenced _in contumaciam_ to fines and years of imprisonment. And as the government could neither exact the inflicted penalties nor lay hold of the convicted dignitaries, it issued disgraceful writs of arrest in which the Prussian gendarmes were ordered to watch for the said criminals, and, when apprehended, to deliver them to the next police station for the execution of the sentences passed upon them. The bishops, in their safe retirement, could afford to smile at these futile attempts on their liberty, but those persons who remained within the grasp of the government had to suffer many hardships for the support they had lent to their bishops. Hundreds of priests are constantly harassed with summonses to make depositions concerning the secret delegate, but, to their glory be it said, all proved faithful, all persistently refused to give the demanded evidence, declaring their inability to recognize the authority of civil courts of justice in purely ecclesiastical affairs. The only case in which the prosecution was successful is that of Dean Kurowski, of Posen, who, on secondary evidence, was pronounced to be the secret delegate of Cardinal Ledochowski, and sentenced to two years and four months’ imprisonment. Released in October, 1877, he received his dismissal from office in the beginning of the present year. Connected with the illegal exercise of episcopal functions was the persecution of the Rev. Dr. Kantecki, editor of a Polish newspaper, who sat six months in prison without trial simply because he refused to turn king’s evidence; and that of Fathers Herold and Pudenz, of Heiligenstadt, who were kept in jail for more than one year for not revealing the name of the secret delegate.

Another deplorable consequence of the law concerning the education and appointment to ecclesiastical offices is the closing of all priests’ seminaries, which took place almost immediately after the promulgation of that law in 1873, in consequence of the refusal of the authorities to admit the delegates of the government as inspectors of these purely ecclesiastical institutions. Since then not one priest has received ordination in Prussia. That is not, however, a great hardship, as no new priests can, under the present circumstances, be appointed in Prussia, and a great many Prussian young men are constantly ordained abroad who will one day return to their country. On the other hand, the number of vacant parishes increases rapidly every day. At the present moment there are in Prussia about 700 parishes deprived of priests—viz., in the archdiocese of Cologne, 121; in the diocese of Treves, 153; Paderborn, 68; Münster, 70; Limburg, 33; Fulda, 30; Hildesheim, 22; Osnabrück, 23; Kulm, 14; Ermeland, 13; Breslau, about 100; Posen, about 100; in the principality of Hohenzollern, 19, to which must be added more than 100 curacies.

Of the exiled secular priests of Prussia about three hundred found a field for their labors in Bavaria; the others went chiefly to Belgium, Austria, Italy, England, and America. As the religious orders were expelled from the whole German Empire, their members had to settle outside of Germany; they emigrated either to America, or went as missionaries among the heathens, or transferred their establishments to Belgium, England, etc.

The number of Prussian Catholics deprived of church ministrations now amounts to one million and a half. If these wish to hear Mass on Sundays or receive the sacraments, they must attend the services in churches of their neighborhood, and sometimes walk as far as ten and fifteen miles. In a great many places, and now in nearly every widowed parish, so-called lay services have been arranged by the parishioners, at which one of them reads the prayers of Mass, and, if not forbidden by the local police, a sermon as well. In the afternoon they sing Vespers and hymns in the same manner. At first it was feared that even this poor comfort would be taken away from the desolate parishes, for in many places the conductors of lay worship were prosecuted and heavily fined for exercising illegal functions in church; but later on both the officials and the judges took a more lenient view of these cases and abstained from interfering with them. Now and then, however, the forsaken parishes have the unexpected joy of hearing Mass in their own churches. In every diocese, especially in that of Posen, banished or newly-ordained priests travel in disguise through the country, baptizing, hearing confessions, giving the last sacraments to the dying, and saying Mass in every deserted church they can reach. Notwithstanding the greatest vigilance by day and by night, the police seldom succeed in arresting one of these faithful shepherds, for the parishioners exercise a strict watch over the police and give their pastors timely warning of the enemy’s approach. When found out the itinerant priests invariably undergo a severe punishment of two or three years’ imprisonment, followed by banishment from their country. How loyal to these priests not only the Catholic but even the Protestant and Jewish population is may be seen from the following case, taken out of many. From Schwerin-on-the-Wartha, diocese of Posen, Father Logan, whom the government had exiled several years ago, managed for a whole year to administer a parish in the neighborhood, and to carry the consolations of his ministry wherever they were required. During that time he kept a well-attended shop in the little town, and travelled about in the neighborhood apparently as a cattle-driver, in reality as a good shepherd of souls. At last discovered and tried, he was committed to prison for thirteen months. Forty-six such priests, mostly newly ordained, are said to administer the vacant parishes of this much-troubled diocese, in which meritorious work they are successfully assisted by the great landowners, who provide them with food and shelter, and, when wanted, with safe hiding-places. Several of them have lately been discovered and thrown into prison. Greatly and unnecessarily increased was the number of vacant parishes by the arbitrary decision of some ober-presidents, that junior priests, after the death of their elders, should abstain, under pain of expulsion, from all parochial work, even from saying Mass. In vacant parishes the dead themselves fell under the application of the law, for Dr. Falk decreed that founded Masses cannot be said in such parishes, but must stand over until the vacancies are filled up with legally-appointed priests.

According to one of the May Laws, a parish which has stood vacant for one year possesses the right of electing a new priest. This law was evidently passed with a view of destroying the authority of priests as well as bishops; in fact, it was a bait thrown out to Catholics to join the state church. But Catholics at once understood the malign intention, and spurned it, to the amazement and discomfiture of the persecuting party, which had built its brightest hopes on the working of that law. Not one vacant parish in the whole kingdom of Prussia has as yet been found willing to elect a new pastor. Whenever the Landrath convened an election meeting for that purpose, the invitation was either not responded to at all, or, if for prudence’s sake the electors appeared at the meeting, it was decidedly refused with the declaration that the parishioners had no power to elect their own priests, and that they would never acknowledge a pastor who was not sent to them by their bishop. Such being the firm attitude of all Prussian parishes towards that particular law, how could the government flatter itself with the hope that its own nominees would be received and acknowledged by the faithful? And yet Dr. Falk, disregarding all previous experience, went on imposing state priests on protesting parishes wherever he found an opportunity for it, to the great injury of the faithless priests themselves, who were excommunicated, to the parishes that rejected them, and to government, which made itself only the more odious. By this time, however, the ministry must see their mistake, for, in spite of the many enticements and premiums offered to priests of doubtful character and doctrine, the government during the interval of three years has not been able to gather more than twenty-one apostates round its state-church banner. Twenty-one out of ten thousand! With the exception of one, all these misguided men belong to the provinces of Silesia and Posen. Here is a complete list of them: Mr. Mücke in Gross Strelitz; Kolany in Murzyno; Nowacki in Obornik; Lizack in Schrotz; Kubezak in Xionz; Brenk in Kosten; Kick in Kähme; Gutzmer in Grätz; Würtz in Grabia; Moercke in Podwitz Golembiowsky in Plusnitz; Sterba in Leschnitz; Pischel in Girlachsdorf; Kenty in Boronow; Grünastle in Cösel; Sabotta in Kettch; Czerwinski in Zirke; Büchs in Gross Rudno; Rymarowicz (Posen); and Glattfelder in Balg (Baden).

Besides these state priests who profess to remain faithful to Rome, the Prussian government introduced two apostates in vacant parishes, one of whom is the Old Catholic pastor, Struckberg, presented by the Protestant Baron von Dyherrn to the fat living of Oberherzogswaldau in Silesia, and the other the notorious Suszynski, the married state-priest of Mogilno, who enjoys the emoluments of his sinecure comfortably at Königsberg. In all these state parishes the faithful refuse to entertain any communication, social or religious, with the intruders, and fulfil their religious duties in other churches. As to the congregations of these state priests, they principally consist of a few bad Catholics or government officials, such as burgomasters, policemen, etc.; in some even Protestants and Jews attend, and several count no other members than the clergyman’s housekeepers.

As the sect of Old Catholics must be looked upon as forming part of Prince Bismarck’s intended state church, it may fittingly be mentioned in connection with the state parishes. None of the 26 _Kulturkampf_ laws issued in Prussia and the German Empire since 1871 has been more abused, more arbitrarily and unjustly applied by the government, than the so-called Old Catholic law, which grants to Old Catholic communities the joint use of Catholic parish churches and cemeteries, and the joint possession of the Catholic Church property, wherever a considerable number of these sectarians exist. How ober-presidents apply that law and determine the meaning of the word “considerable” may be seen by the two cases of Braunsberg and Königsberg, where in the one case about 20 and in the other about 40 Old Catholics formed, in the governor’s estimation, a sufficient number to allow the application of the law, and to rob as many as 10,000 Catholics in one instance of their churches and property. The ober-president’s partiality and self-contradicting conduct received a further illustration by the treatment of the Catholics of Hohenstein, who, although numbering 1,500, were refused permission to build a church in the town because the number 1,500 was not considered “considerable” in the meaning of the law. The thousand Catholics of Willenberg who petitioned the government for the same purpose received a similar answer. Thanks to this unjust application of the law, the Old Catholics obtained hitherto possession of 13 beautiful Catholic churches—viz., in Witten (10,000 Catholics to 76 Old Catholics); in Breslau the Corpus Christi Church (20,000 Catholics to a few hundred Old Catholics); in Neisse the Church of the Cross; in Hirschberg St. Ann’s Church (3,000 Catholics to 250 Old Catholics); in Königsberg; in Wiesbaden (15,000 Catholics to 250 Old Catholics); in Bochum (10,000 Catholics to about 200 Old Catholics); in Cologne St. Gereon’s Church (10,000 Catholics to 87 Old Catholics); in Crefeld St. Stephen’s; in Boppard the Carmelite Church (5,000 Catholics to 45 Old Catholics); in Coblentz the Jesuit Church; in Bonn the Gymnasium Church; and quite recently the parish church of Gottesberg in Silesia. In nearly all these churches the Old Catholics made their first entrance with the help of the police, the doors being forced open with hammer and crow-bar. Since they fell into Old Catholic hands most of them stand empty. On Easter Sunday about 20 to 30 worshippers attended in the robbed church in Wiesbaden; in several places grass is growing on the pavement surrounding the churches, and in others mushrooms are springing up freely at the very foot of the altars. There can be no doubt that the sect is already declining. Were it not for the aid in money and other advantages which its members receive from the Prussian government, it would probably by this time have shared the fate of _Rongeanism_. According to the report read at the fourth Old Catholic synod at Bonn, in May, 1877, there were at that time 35 Old Catholic communities in Prussia, counting in all 6,510 people with civil independence; in Baden there were 44 communities, in Bavaria 31, in Hesse 5, in Oldenburg 2, in Würtemberg 1. The total number of adherents, women and children included, amounted in Prussia to 20,524, in Baden to 17,203, in Bavaria to 10,100, in Hesse to 1,042, in Oldenburg to 240, in Würtemberg to 223—in all 49,342 out of a population of 14 millions. The number of Old Catholic priests in the whole German Empire is now 56. In the course of last year four of them and a good many laymen from Wiesbaden and Dortmund retracted their error and returned to the mother church; others became Protestants.

Although passed in May, 1875, the law ordering the dissolution of Catholic religious congregations has not yet been fully carried into execution, not out of regard for the establishments themselves, but because the state interest required a departure from the rule. The last term granted to Catholic sisters engaged in education expires on the 1st of October next. Their expulsion is causing the deepest grief among all classes of German Catholics, for the good sisters have, by their noble and self-sacrificing exertions, so endeared themselves to the hearts of the people that they are looked upon as—what they really are—the greatest benefactors of the people, without whose help the moral and religious training of the young will remain defective. More than all do the poor and unhappy feel their departure, for it was chiefly on orphanages and other charitable institutions that the expelled nuns exercised their salutary influence. Now that these establishments no longer stand under the direction of those ministering angels, who work only for the love of God and man, the respective parishes have to grant salaries to their successors, for which the poor as well as the rich are compelled to contribute. In a great many towns, however, they cannot be replaced at all, not only for want of means but also for want of the competent persons, and about 10,000 orphans of the poor are left destitute by the expulsion of the nuns. No wonder, then, if under such circumstances the parting scenes were everywhere heart-rending; not only sobbing children thronged round their foster-mothers in uncontrollable grief, but the inhabitants, burgomasters, and magistrates came to express their thanks for the eminent services they had rendered to their parishes, and their deep regret at seeing them driven out of home and country—their own beloved benefactresses. No exact statistics regarding the number of expelled nuns have as yet been published, nor is it possible to say what has become of them all. It is, however, computed that about 500 houses have been broken up, which must have included at least between two and three thousand inmates. The Ursulines of Dorsten transferred their establishment to Holland, where forty pupils followed them on the very day of their expulsion. The house of Posen went to Cracow; those of Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Duderstadt, Kitzlar, etc., emigrated partly to North America, partly to neighboring countries. The Sisters of Our Lady, whose convents had been established more than 200 years in Essen and Coesfeld, went 250 strong across the Atlantic, and the School Sisters either returned to their families or left off their religious habits and continued their calling as lay teachers. The names of the other congregations that had to leave this year are chiefly the following: The English Ladies (Fulda and Mayence), the Franciscans (Frankfort, Erfurt, Treves, Fulda, Aix-la-Chapelle, Bonn, Oberwesel, Emmerich), the Sisters of Mercy conducting orphanages (Posen, Breslau, Lauban, Myslowitz, Steinfeld, Bromberg, Peplin, Düsseldorf, Crefeld, Bonn, Dortmund, Berncastle, Malmedy, Lannerz, Berge-Borbeck, Mayen, Rheinberg, Paderborn, Schroda, Düren, Bitburg, Neuss, Neustadt, Osnabrück, Salzkotten), the Sisters of St. Charles (Boppard, Oberglogau, etc.), St. Vincent de Paul (Deutz, Nippes, Ehrenfeld), the Daughters of the Holy Cross, and the Poor Sisters of Christ. Those Sisters of Mercy who exclusively devote themselves to hospital work have been allowed to remain; their exact number was a short time ago 5,763.

Of all the laws enacted since 1871 against the Catholic Church in Prussia, none will be attended with more injurious effects than the law regulating school supervision and religious instruction in popular schools. Not content with having removed nearly all ecclesiastical district and local school inspectors, and appointed Protestants and “liberal” Catholics in their place, the government has also forbidden the priests to teach the Catholic religion anywhere except in church out of school hours. In a decree issued by Dr. Falk in March, 1876, the right of parents to bring up their children in accordance with their religious principles is virtually denied, at all events practically destroyed, for it places the whole teaching and supervision of Catholic religious instruction under the supreme control of the Protestant government, and thus arbitrarily cancels clause 24 of the Prussian constitution, which guarantees to recognized religious societies the right of conducting religious instruction either through their priests or laymen invested with the _missio canonica_. By virtue of this ministerial ordinance the government, feeling its hands strengthened and unshackled, proceeds to all kinds of arbitrary and unjustifiable changes in matters of religious teaching. It sets aside Catholic catechisms and reading-books hitherto used in schools with ecclesiastical approbation, and replaces them by works more in harmony with the spirit of the age; it commissions schoolmasters (now already about 1,000) to teach the Catholic religion only in the name and by order of the civil power, threatening them with prosecution if they ask for or accept the _missio canonica_ from church authorities; it either dissolves Catholic schools or amalgamates them with Protestant institutions under the name of simultan-schools, all of which stand under exclusively Protestant direction; it appoints Protestant and Jewish teachers to purely Catholic schools; it compels, as was recently done in Crefeld, Catholic children to attend Protestant school prayers; it limits the hearing of Mass to two days in the week, and strictly forbids Catholic teachers to exhort their pupils to a greater frequency of the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion; in one word, it uses all possible means to Protestantize Catholic children in popular schools. Priests and parents, school boards and parishes, have sought redress of this bitter grievance in innumerable petitions and protests addressed from all parts of the country to the emperor, the ministers, to both houses of Parliament, demanding in the name of liberty, of justice, of the constitution, of natural and human rights, that the teaching of their religion should again be declared free and placed under the only rightful authority, that of the church; but neither the prayers of distressed parents nor the powerful agitation got up by the leading Catholic representatives proved of any avail, Dr. Falk invariably rejecting all petitions on the ground that the grievances complained of did not exist—an assertion which the minister, if he had ventured to do so, could not have reconciled with the truth of facts. As ministers and national liberals alike expect the realization of their plans from the destructive school policy rather than from any of the other May laws, the Prussian government feels the less disposed to make concessions on this question, as it enables them to administer the poison of infidelity to the rising generation in a quiet and imperceptible but systematic and effective manner. Catholics have therefore nothing to hope from the present rulers of Prussia towards an equitable settlement of the religious question, as party interest, and not justice, is the moving principle of the May legislators. If the faith of the next generation is to be saved, it must be done by the parents themselves; if they take the religious instruction in their own hands, if by vigilance and self-devotion they detect, counteract, and destroy the evil influence of heterodox school-teaching, no power on earth will be able to interfere with their children’s faith; but if they neglect this solemn duty, which now devolves upon them with a fearful responsibility, they will have to bear the guilt of their children’s apostasy. Happily there is little or no ground for such apprehensions, now that bishops, priests, and laity have all so manfully withstood the storm and so far passed unscathed through the crucible of the persecution. Persevering in their course of loyal attachment to the church, Catholic parents of all classes of society look after their children’s faith and teach them catechism at home, in which excellent work they are effectually assisted by the advice and practical help of numerous societies instituted for that purpose all over Prussia.

Whilst Catholics heartily rejoice at the failure of their enemies’ endeavors to destroy their church in Germany, they deeply feel the enormous losses and sufferings which the application of the May Laws has so wantonly inflicted on so many thousands of their innocent co-religionists. Apart from the innumerable convictions of bishops, priests, and laymen for so-called May-law transgressions, Prince Bismarck alone instituted more than 7,000 prosecutions for alleged offences against his person. In his eagerness to silence opposition he spared neither sex nor age, neither office nor rank, proceeding with equal animosity against statesmen and artisans, distinguished writers and poor peasants, washerwomen and children. The sums paid in fines and the time spent in prison for _Kulturkampf_ offences are said to be enormous; our readers may form an idea of the magnitude of the penal results of the persecution by the perusal of the following statistics: Within the first four months of 1877 Prussian courts of justice pronounced sentences of imprisonment amounting to 55 years, 11 months, and 6 days, and fines to the amount of 27,843 marks. The victims were 241 priests, 210 laymen, and 136 editors of newspapers. Imprisonment of 12 years, 8 months, and 14 days was decreed for offences against the emperor, and 8 years, 4 months, 7 days for 68 Bismarck offences. Besides these penalties, the police made 55 arrests, 74 domiciliary visits, and 56 dissolutions of unions and assemblies. A compositor of a Mayence paper, father of eight children, was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for having used a disrespectful expression towards his majesty whilst in a state of intoxication; a doctor had to spend a whole year in a fortress for a similar offence; a rag and bone gatherer got five and a half months, and a poor servant-girl of nineteen years of age one month’s imprisonment.

A few more instances, taken at random from the masses of _Kulturkampf_ convictions, will further exemplify the nature of the offences and the penalties with which they were visited. Bishop Brinckmann received one year’s imprisonment, Vicar-General Giese two years, Father Fievez three months, Father Haversath four weeks, for alleged embezzlement of diocesan money; in reality for preventing certain church funds from falling into the hands of the government, which had no claim whatever to them. In Münster 2,500 heads of families were fined for not sending their children to school on Corpus Christi day. The successive editors of the _Kuryer Poznanski_, the _Germania_, and the Frankfort _Zeitung_ have for several years past gone to prison, some for publishing papal and episcopal documents, others for offending the emperor, Prince Bismarck, and other members of the administration. Father Isbert, of Namborn, Treves, spent 903 days in the prison of Saarbrücken for “illegally” saying Mass, hearing confessions, etc. In April, 1876, the priests of the diocese of Posen had to pay 163,463 marks for similar offences. Father Simon was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment because he removed the sacred Host from the church of the Girlachsdorf the day before state priest Pischel’s installation. Fathers Bruns of Geldern and Kroll of Adekerke were prosecuted and punished for refusing absolution to two penitents. A French priest accidentally staying in Hanover was condemned to a fine of 4,800 marks for saying Mass in a private chapel. Dean Leineweber, of Heiligenstadt, went to prison for 18 months for granting dispensations; Father Nawrocki two years for secretly administrating the parish of Goszieszy. Besides endless prosecutions, hundreds of the inhabitants of Marpingen had to pay fines for granting hospitality to pilgrims.

But the Catholic clergy had to suffer for not acknowledging the May Laws as well as for transgressing them. By the so-called Bread-basket Law, intended to starve the priests into submission, many thousands lost their income and had to bear great misery, especially in poor parishes, where church offerings usually consist of farthings. In the diocese of Fulda, for instance, the average income of a great number of parish priests fluctuated between twelve and twenty pounds a year. In other districts they fared in so far better as their parishioners indemnified them for the loss of their state emoluments and homes by voluntary contributions or gifts in kind, such as meat, bread, firewood, etc. This help, if lastingly established, might have considerably alleviated the existing distress; but unfortunately the Prussian government forbade public offerings and collections for the relief of priests in distress, on the ground that such illegal remunerations encouraged resistance to the state laws. This harsh, not to say inhuman, proceeding, however, only harmed its victims for a time; for very soon the inventive spirit of the faithful found out other means of relief, over which the most watchful officials could obtain no control. In addition to secret parish subventions the priests now receive regular assistance from the _Paulinus_ Verein, which charitable association collects contributions not only in Germany but also from foreign countries, among which England especially has distinguished itself.

Destructive as the _Kulturkampf_ has been to the outward organization of the church and the happiness and worldly interest of the people, its consequences have in many other respects proved an immense blessing to the Catholic Church in Germany. Instead of having been destroyed or weakened, as her enemies hoped, she has, on the contrary, become stronger and more powerful in her influence over the masses, more respected by her adversaries, better understood by Protestant Christians, better loved and obeyed by her own children. Lukewarm Catholics, formerly almost ashamed of professing their religion in public, now no longer shrink from manifesting their loyal attachment to the church; nay, more, they stand up in her defence, and edify others by the regular fulfilment of their religious duties. The devout crowds that fill the churches on Sundays and all festive occasions; the enormous increase of regular communicants; the frequent processions from widowed dioceses to cathedrals of other dioceses for the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation; the deep and universal grief shown by the people at the death of Pope Pius IX. and their cordial rejoicing at the election of his successor; the numerous addresses of loyalty sent on every possible occasion to the banished bishops by millions of the faithful; the touching attachment of the masses to their pastors—all these and a great many more significant manifestations afford ample proof that the Catholic Church has gained, and not lost, by the _Kulturkampf_. And it may not be exaggeration to say that never at any time did the religious sentiment among German Catholics shine forth so brightly, their piety so fervently, their spirit of self-sacrifice so strongly, their love for their church so unboundedly, as now after seven years of relentless persecution. Giving to the state what belongs to the state, but fearlessly obeying the church in all matters that regard their eternal salvation, the German Catholics, bishops, priests, and people, stand firm and unshaken in their resolution to remain true to God and his church, and to lose wealth, freedom, life itself, rather than give up one particle of their faith.

Nor are the beneficial consequences of the persecution limited to a revival in religion; they are also felt, with almost equal power, in the political and literary life of the Catholic portion of the German nation. Purified, ennobled, raised from a state of political servility to a sense of self-dignity, the persecuted German Catholics feel their love of freedom rekindled, their sunken courage revived, and a hitherto unknown power—the power of outraged honesty and truth—growing and spreading among them, and defending their inalienable rights with energy and success, in society, in parliament, in the press, and in general literature, wherever religious and political liberty and independence are wont to assert themselves. The Catholics of Prussia now constitute a political body second only in importance to the national liberals, whose influence in the country is rapidly declining. If the wishes for a return to a religious policy, as expressed by the emperor shortly after the late attempt on his life, should be carried out by his ministers, we may live to see Prince Bismarck courting the help of the Catholic Church to save that same state which resolved upon and worked for her destruction. How valuable the support of the Catholic party would be to the perplexed German government in these critical times is sufficiently shown by the number of its representatives in the various parliaments: in the Reichstag the Catholic Centre party counts 98 members; in the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies it commands the majority; in Baden, where only one Catholic sat in parliament before the year 1870, there are now 13 Catholic deputies. The best illustration of the growth of the Catholic party in Germany was furnished at the last elections, when, in spite of the arbitrary dissection of Catholic voting districts, Catholic members were returned with overwhelming majorities wherever a sufficient number of constituents made such elections possible. The same success attended the elections of municipal officers, but unfortunately to no purpose, as the Prussian government, contrary to right and justice, annulled all elections of Catholic burgomasters and appointed its own creatures to the vacant posts.

Another creation of the _Kulturkampf_ for which we cannot be too thankful is the German Catholic press, which for its tone, skill, influence, and general success stands unrivalled by any press in the world. Beyond a few more or less obscure provincial papers, Germany possessed no Catholic press organization before the year 1870; now nearly 200 of these spirited children of the persecution flourish in the German Empire. Foremost among all appears the _Germania_, of world-wide reputation, which expounds and defends the political programme of the Catholic party with such statesmanlike ability that Prince Bismarck himself, in one of his parliamentary speeches, was fain to acknowledge the superior character and excellence of the paper. Worthy associates of the Berlin central organ of Catholic publicity are the great provincial daily papers, such as the _Deutsche Reichszeitung_ in Bonn, the _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ in Cologne, the _Westphalian Merkur_, and last, not least, the smaller provincial and local papers, all of which, in the involuntary absence of the chief pastors of the church, teach and guide the people in the paths of religion as well as in those of public life. The influence of the Catholic press over the people was felt in two ways: in the first place, it succeeded in preserving and consolidating among them that spirit of union, order, and loyalty of which the bishops and priests had given such admirable examples; and in the second place it prevented, by its wise admonitions, the exasperated people from abandoning the policy of passive resistance as recommended by the bishops, so that, in the midst of incessant, almost unbearable provocations, the Catholic population of Prussia has not been found guilty of one single act of rebellion or open resistance to the state power.

The difference of the effects which the May-law legislation has had on the Catholic and the Protestant inhabitants of Prussia must strike every one. Whilst to the former the _Kulturkampf_ has been a school of improvement, of moral and religious regeneration, the latter have derived none but deplorable results from it; witness the general lawlessness, the frightful increase of crime, the sunken state of morality, and the all but complete extinction of Christianity which now prevails among the Protestant people. According to the _Nord Allgemeine Zeitung_, Prince Bismarck’s non-official organ, not a day passes in Prussia without murder and manslaughter, and the demoralization of the lower classes has reached such a depth that there is no longer any security for life and property, that the son murders his father, that the intoxicated father stabs his son, and that the servant kills his master on the slightest provocation. School-boys have become regular frequenters of public-houses; they fight duels in love affairs, commit suicide for the most trifling causes, and help to fill the overcrowded prisons. Since 1874 the number of prisoners has increased by nearly two hundred per cent. To mention a few instances only, in 1872 the town of Frankfort-on-the-Main had 1,072 convicts; in the present year it has 5,323. In the province of East Prussia more crimes were committed in 1875 than in the 20 preceding years together. Sacrileges, theft, murder, suicide, immoralities are the crimes of most frequent occurrence in Protestant Prussia. In the one small province of Schleswig-Holstein not less than 212 suicides were recorded in the year 1874; and in the city of Berlin in 1875 there were 284 (213 men and 71 women) cases, besides 38 corpses found in the Spree. In one month of the year 1876 the army counted 26 suicides—_i.e._, one-fifth of the whole mortality. Another offence, formerly little known in Prussia, but now spreading in an extraordinary manner, is the wholesale evasion of the obligatory military service. According to official returns the number of young men who evaded that duty by going abroad increased within the period of 1862 to 1872 from 1,648 to 10,069. Last year it was about twice the latter number. We may here add that Catholic priests are now also obliged to serve in the army as private soldiers. It is a remarkable fact, perhaps only a coincidence, but at all events one of the fruits of Bismarck’s anti-church policy, that socialism has grown in Prussia in proportion as crimes have multiplied. In the year 1871 the socialists had only two members in Parliament; now they have 13, representing two millions of adherents, who support 45 socialist newspapers. The party has not reached its maturity yet; but if the Prussian government, disregarding the disapproving vote of the Reichstag, should proceed against it with violent repressive police measures, it is sure to grow rapidly into a dangerous power that may one day shake the new German Empire to its very foundation.

Prince Bismarck did not intend to injure the Protestant Church by his May legislation, but, whether intended or not, it is now an undeniable fact that the two great results of that legislation are the growth of socialism and the accelerated extinction of Christianity in the German Protestant Church. When preachers of the Gospel are allowed to declare from the pulpit that to them the Bible is nothing but Jewish literature, that our Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man, that the idea of a Trinity, sacraments, miracles, etc., are human inventions, can it surprise any one if socialists go further still, and in numerously-attended meetings openly deny the existence of God and eternal life? Enabled by the May Laws to utter any blasphemies they like, the German infidels carry on their anti-Christian propaganda on a very extensive scale, and succeed in drawing hundreds of thousands of Protestants out of the established church. They alone make use of the so-called Alt-Catholic law, which gives freedom to leave a church without joining another, and which was passed for the purpose of inducing Catholics to follow the lead of the Alt-Catholic Bishop Reinkens. This ostentatious secession from the Protestant Church, however, is not its greatest loss; far more disastrous to its existence is that wholesale defection which takes place quietly, without people thinking it worth while to go out of the church. They simply abstain from frequenting places of worship, and refuse all ministrations from their clergymen for themselves and their children. During the last three months of 1874—that is to say, in the year following the promulgation of the May Laws—16,631 Protestant children remained unbaptized, and 8,346 Protestant couples refused to be married in church. In the year 1875 Berlin alone had 9,964 civil marriages without church blessing, and 15,000 children who received no baptism. In Königsberg the number of civil marriages not accompanied by any church ceremony was 36 per cent., in Dantzic 47 per cent., in Breslau 53 per cent., in Stettin 68 per cent. In Berlin 70,000 Protestants reject their church altogether. There only 18 per cent. of the whole Protestant population go to church; in Worms 6 per cent., in Mayence 5 per cent., in Giessen 5 per cent., in Darmstadt 3 per cent., in Chemnitz 3 per cent., and in some other places of Saxony only 1 per cent. In short, the Protestant Church in Germany is irretrievably lost. Thus it has come to pass, under God’s providence, that the blow which Prince Bismarck aimed at the Catholic Church glided off from the Rock of Peter, and fell with deadly effect on the Protestant Church, of which he counts himself a stanch adherent.

SONNET. THE MORAL LAW, AND THE UTILITARIAN PHILOSOPHY.

That law which cynic-sophists desecrate, Creation deft, they boast of mortal hand; Custom’s weak nurseling; or, by sea and land, A tyrant’s edict fencing doubtful state, Is older than the brazen books of Fate; A bondage unto liberty; a grand And circumscribing harmony, unplanned, But from the breasts of all things good and great Where’er the flame of thought and feeling played, Issuing divine, a universal birth, Before the first-born zephyr sang its ode, Before pines grew on mountains of the north, Before the greater light, or less, had flowed O’er the glad bosom of the new-shaped earth

“THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY.”[132]

The strangest and saddest commentary upon that dreary religious sentimentality known as positivism, or the Religion of Humanity, was the infatuation of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill with regard to two very commonplace women whom these men, one the founder and the other the ablest exponent of the religion, foolishly loved and worshipped in life, and actually deified after death. Guizot says that Comte was crazy, but Mill was confessedly a man of rare logical acumen, thoroughly-trained intellectual powers, and with no trace of mental alienation. One does not know whether to laugh at or to pity the maudlin sentimentalism of his love for his wife, the idolatrous honors he paid to her portrait and bust, and the painful conflict of his soul, halting between a frantic wish to believe in the presence and intimations of her disembodied spirit, and the necessity of rejecting, according to his theory, all hope or belief in the hereafter. There is something at once ludicrous and shocking in this, the only religious sentiment that such a mind as Mill’s would admit—the worship of a woman’s memory as the full satisfaction and highest reach of religion. The worship of woman irresistibly suggests the crowning of the Goddess of Reason by the French Revolutionists; and we trust our reflection will not be misconstrued when we say that woman holds her true and rightful position only in the Catholic Church. The tolerance of divorce in Protestantism is an injury to the sex, and when we glance at woman’s relations to most of the philosophico-moral systems that have been the outgrowth of the religious rebellion of the sixteenth century, we see how wise and tender the church has ever been in her treatment of the weaker vessel. St. Paul has laid down for all time the true idea of woman in her religious relations, and every attempt to change those conditions has resulted in failure and shame.

The Religion of Humanity is one of those vague terms which logic rejects with scorn. The phrase has a certain hazy beauty for hazy minds; but its gross spirit means the deification of man, the boundless extent of his natural powers, a worse than Pelagian confidence in his own moral strength, and the natural, social, and civil equality of woman. In our own country the system has not revealed all its deformity, nor are its principles apparently very familiar even to its advocates; but all its hideousness is laid bare in the writings of the German Feuerbach, and it is sad to think that Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot) devotes her uncommon powers to the exposition of its distinctive doctrinal phase—namely, that all religion is a diseased state of our consciousness, and its exercise through any form or in any sphere gives us neither present comfort nor future hope.

A primal instinct and yearning of the human heart tends toward an object of infinite blessedness and beauty. Descartes inferred from our knowledge and love of Infinite and Absolute Being, in which all glory, perfection, mercy, and power co-exist, that such a Being really _does_ exist; and this famous proof of the existence of God has never been shown to be false or unwarranted, though some philosophers have held that it is not strictly a demonstration. Our readers know how cogently and eloquently Dr. Brownson expatiates upon that beautiful formula, _Ens creat existentias_. GOD IS. Every affirmation and reality announces that glorious and all-sufficient Being. Nothing less than himself can satisfy our immortal longings and aspirations. The very difficulties that enshroud our ideas of the Supreme Being seem to be only “dark with excess of light.” Nor has this truth, on which man’s feet have been stayed since the creation, ever been shaken. Dr. Newman, using Lamennais’ argument from universal authority, but without falling into Lamennais’ mistake of its being the only argument, challenges the world to explain away the universal consent of mankind to the divine existence. Cicero only echoes Plato when he says that there never was a nation, no matter how barbarous, that had not some idea of the existence of God. Talleyrand used to say: “There is somebody that has more intellect than Napoleon and more wit than Voltaire, and that somebody is—mankind.” The great heart of the world leaps to its Creator, and the testimony of individual experience in all ages but repeats the saying of St. Augustine: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord! and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

If we compare this noble and sublime creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty,” with the hollow metaphysical and humanitarian beliefs of our unhappy age, we at once recognize the profound truth and beauty of many of the utterances of the ancient Fathers upon the subject of religion. Their simple and antique majesty of thought and phrase is like a statue of Michael Angelo’s alongside of a _bizarre_ specimen of fashionable ceramics. St. Clement of Alexandria holds that there is only one religion, and the great argument of St. Augustine’s _City of God_ is the essential unity of the divine _cultus_, coming from Adam, through the patriarchs, the prophets, fully revealed in Christ the Son of God, and destined to endure for ever. All theology germinates from the invocation of the three divine Persons. When we bless ourselves we worship God, with the worship of unending ages, from everlasting to everlasting. The church condemned the proposition that all the virtues of the pagan philosophers were vices. Christ, the God-Man, is the object of religion, and, as thus presented, he fulfils all the yearnings and hopes spoken of by the humanitarians, who, in making the human race at once the subject and object of worship, fail to see that Catholicity gratifies man beyond his wildest dreams of exalted manhood and infinite progress; for humanity cannot be raised higher than it has been raised by the Eternal Son of God, who, clothed with our glorified humanity, which he will never lay aside, “sitteth at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

It seems an unworthy concession to a very weak school of scepticism for Max Müller, in the May number of the _Contemporary Review_, to propound the queries, What is religion? Have we any religion? and, after giving a long and flattering notice of every fool that says in his heart there is no God, to inform us graciously that there is a term for God in every language with which he is acquainted. The logical vice of nearly all non-Catholic scientific men here and in Europe at the present day is an ignorant and unwarranted obtrusion of their crude theories upon the subjects of religion. They have no perception of the exquisite sense and appositeness of the old saying, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_. A satirical friend, after listening to Proudhon’s theories about the creation, remarked to him: “What a pity God had not the benefit of your suggestions when he made the world!” and such was the hebetude of the infidel that he rejoined: “In that event creation would have been infinitely better.” Huxley, who is pronounced a scientific charlatan even in those studies upon the _invertebrata_ to which he has devoted twenty-five years, has the blasphemous audacity to call his Creator “a pedantic drill-sergeant”; and Tyndall refers to his God as an “atom-manufacturer.” Max Müller has far greater reverence, but his latest utterances convict him hopelessly of pantheism, which is about the absurdest form of “religion” that any unfortunate man can adopt.

It is a curious exemplification of the state of religious thought in England when such a man as Müller is selected to deliver a course of lectures upon theology. His only qualification is his philological learning, of which Scaliger, the greatest of modern philologists, said its value in theology has been very much over-rated. To such an extent does Müller carry his linguistic fanaticism that he derives all reason and all truth from language. He settles a controversy by appealing to the root of a word. The most cursory study of etymology suffices to show that it is in the main a vague guess-work; and the words we employ to express the subtlest operations of the intellect are so many metaphors or images drawn from sensible objects. The word religion may be derived from three distinct roots, _relegere_, to read back, to retrace; or _religere_, to collect; or _religare_, to bind together; and an enthusiastic etymologist, warming with the subject, would run us back to Babel. Who would suppose that the word _goose_, for example, which, on the “bow-wow” theory of language, must have originated with an old farmer driving his poultry to market, is traceable directly to the Sanscrit, through the Teutonic, Gothic, Latin, and Greek, and enjoys a proud pedigree of Aryan etymology? Like all modern specialists, Müller drives his philological hobby through all theological science. He has done a very great injury to religious thought by his constant prating about the essential oneness of all creeds, and his studied purpose to represent Christianity as only a modification of the great “world-creeds,” with a very decidedly expressed preference for the Vedas over the Gospels and for Zoroaster over St. John the Evangelist.

If Protestantism continues to disintegrate as rapidly in the next decade as it has in the last two, our theological professors may skip all the tracts at present devoted to the refutation of the principles and consequences of the Reformation. The older controversial works are already antiquated, and the theological lore of thirty years ago is no longer available. Yet it is very doubtful if any solid advantage can be gained by the study of modern philosophy. The Holy Ghost, ever ruling the mind of the church, brought about the definition of Papal Infallibility at the most opportune period of the world’s history. The only salvation for the human intellect is the dogmatic authority of the church, and the clearer this is shown and enforced the better for the world. The day of tedious Christian controversy is gone for ever. Amicable discussions upon controverted points of doctrine are no longer possible. The field has been narrowed down. The contest now is conducted upon the primal bases of the primitive truths—God or Satan, heaven or hell. “Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” When the admired and acknowledged “leaders of modern thought” are come to such a pass as to ask if life is worth living? is there a hell? is not man the beginning and end of himself? was not Christ sublimely self-deceived? does not matter contain the promise and potency of all life, and is not immortality a splendid dream? it is manifestly useless labor for a Catholic theologian to pore for years over the question of Anglican Orders or the Donation of Constantine.

Our objection to the prolonged study of philosophy must be understood not of Catholic philosophy, which is the handmaid of revealed truth, but of those degrading systems that the materialistic mind of the age is constantly spawning. The facilities of the printing-press, and the habit of writing philosophical articles and systems in the common languages, have familiarized the world with a vast amount of error. One advantage of the learned tongues lay in their preventing many people from obtaining the little learning which is proverbially a dangerous thing. In our day we not only have technical treatises on science, philosophy, and theology, but popular hand-books which aim at the greatest simplicity and directness. Materialists give illustrated lectures to unscientific people, and labor strenuously to accommodate their ideas even to the unformed mind of childhood. The newspapers teem with all sorts of crude theories, and no effort is spared to disseminate the most outrageous fallacies. When Diderot and D’Alembert started the _Encyclopédie_ there were protests and remonstrances from the church and from scientific bodies; but few persons could afford to purchase the huge tomes, as compared with the multitudes that now can buy for a few cents a dangerous publication at any news-stand. The New York _Daily Graphic_, not content with printing a likeness of Müller, gave also long extracts from the article to which we have adverted; and nothing is commoner than a so-called philosophical essay even in our lightest magazines. With the help of a learned and often unintelligible phraseology the impression is left that a mighty mind, after many mental throes, has given birth to a wonderful truth or profound reflection destined to influence modern thought and lead eventually to the widest-reaching social results. The only remedy for such a delusion is to impress readers with a modest consciousness of their own ability to penetrate the sibyllic meaning, which, if they fail to do, is very likely without any meaning at all. By this manly and rational process it is surprising how quickly one sees through absurdities, and catches a glimpse of the ass’ ears under the lion’s skin. Our present study of the Religion of Humanity will illustrate this idea (not in our own case, of course). Let us take up a few of the most famous _dicta_ of humanitarianism. Note the obscurity of the language, which in many cases is intentional. In Eckermann’s _Conversations with Goethe_, who may be regarded as the first arch-priest of positivism, the sage of Weimar expressly remarks that philosophical writers contemporary with him had told him that when they were most perplexed and confused, that was the very time when they courageously wrote on! This is enough to make a man give up metaphysics for the rest of his days.

“My theory,” says Feuerbach, “may be condensed into two words—nature and man. The cause of existence is not God—a vague, mysterious, and indefinite term—but nature. The being in which nature becomes conscious of itself is man. It follows that there is no God—that is to say, no abstract being, distinct from nature and man, which disposes of the destinies of the universe and mankind at its discretion; but this negation is but the consequence of the cognition of God’s identity with the essence of nature and man.”

What does Feuerbach mean by nature? Something distinct from man, evidently, for he continually separates them. Ah! man is the being in which nature becomes conscious—of what? Then nature, God, and man are said to be identical in essence. But if God is only an abstract term, how can an abstraction enter into a conscious essence, and how does it follow that after all there is no God? Oh! you mistake. This negation (of what?) is a consequence of a cognition, etc. Now, all this stuff amounts to nothing but low, base materialism. There is not a particle of reasoning, fancy, or poetic beauty in the entire book from which this extract, which is clear by contrast with others, is taken. Yet George Eliot, who is trumpeted through the world as a glorious prophetess of humanity, deemed it worth her patient toil to translate this bathos into English. In the foregoing extract are used at random words of deep and pregnant import, the meaning of which has been fixed by the sharp and subtle but eminently truthful and honest minds of Catholic philosophy and theology. These words are vilely misused by reputed philosophers, until there is no clearness or exactitude of statement in half the philosophical treatises that one takes up to read. The church herself, in her dogmatic infallibility, has defined for all time the meanings of certain expressions which she has made touchstones of the faith—_tesseræ fidei_. The devil was the first to equivocate, and his children have always followed his example. The term “nature” has an exact philosophical meaning which Feuerbach knew, and his school know. Essence, existence, cognition, and cause are words that have to be weighed with the nicest care when used in a philosophical disquisition. If these writers are sincere they should speak their meaning plainly, and not darken counsel with vain words. The plain English of the extract is this: “There is no God in the sense of creator or judge of man. Man is his own God. We cannot know that anything exists outside of our own consciousness.” Even this is obscure, because there is darkness upon the face of these abysmal depths of unbelief, over which the Spirit of God never moved.

The Religion of Humanity, in contradiction to the very consciousness and irresistible instincts and traditions of the human race, thus assumes that there is no God but man, out-Mohammeding Mohammed, who admitted that there is one God, and contented himself with the humbler title of prophet. It stands alone in its horrible deformity. It is a leper from which all other creeds shrink. It has attempted to prove its identity with many of the old pagan beliefs, but, notwithstanding a cumbrous and learned exposition of mythology, no such identification could be proved. There are some gibing comments upon the gods in Lucian, and Juvenal at times hints slyly at the amours of Olympic Jove; but there is no student of mythology but knows the depth of the religious sentiment in the vast masses of the Greek and Roman states. The worship of the earth, sea, and skies was idealized. It may be boldly asserted that ancient history does not present any traces of the gross materialism of modern times. Æschylus repeatedly declares that there was a power superior to Jove himself, and the researches of Niebuhr have established the virtual monotheism of Greece and Rome. Despite the multitude of gods, there was the _Deus Optimus Maximus_, clearly spoken of by Tully, and not obscurely intimated in nearly every relic of ancient literature and art. The attempt to trace the Religion of Humanity back to the beginnings of the human race proved a complete failure. Man never worshipped himself as the Supreme God. There was a broad distinction made between the heroes or the emperors to whom divine honors were decreed and the gods themselves. These are but the commonplaces of the history of religion; but the attempt showed a consciousness of weakness on the part of this wretched school of unbelief. Euripides himself would have upbraided them:

Απιστ᾽ ἄπιστα, καινὰ χαινὰ δέρκομαι. Ἔτερα δ᾽ εφ ἑτερῶν Κακὰ κακῶν κυρεῖ.[133]

Every effort that has been made to find a purely natural and human cause for religion has failed. The wide study of religion which modern scepticism has unweariedly pursued always results in perplexing it the more. Volney went to Palestine to disprove the ancient prophecies, and his book shows their literal and startling fulfilment. Fichte used to open his lectures upon God with the blasphemous remark, “Gentlemen, to-day let us construct the Supreme Being,” but all attempts at such construction have only brought out more clearly the immemorial belief of his creatures in his existence. The permanency of the original traditions of the human family is so remarkable a phenomenon, in view of the perishableness of merely human records, that the most sceptical minds have been struck with fear and amazement. It is like the living proof of the Psalmist’s words: “If I go up into heaven, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and flee to the outermost ends of the earth, thou art there!” Even the pantheism of Brahminism is something entirely distinct from the confusion and chaos of the Religion of Humanity.

Strauss, in his last book, _The Old and the New Faith_, asks if the modern world is as religious as the ancient world was, and he appears to derive satisfaction from his conclusion that there is a vast falling off in religion. But as he does not deign to define what he means by religion, we are left in the dark. One loses patience with the perverse stupidity of the British and American public, that have always their ears erect for what Strauss will say, and sceptics will complacently assure you that there are arguments in Strauss that have left Christianity in a deplorable plight; whereas the fact is, Strauss’ _Life of Christ_ is familiarly cited in the schools of Germany as an illustration of the futility of an argument against well-authenticated human testimony. Whately wrote a book to prove that such a person as Napoleon Bonaparte never existed, and Strauss wrote a book to prove that Christ never existed, both with equal success.

The true _animus_ of Comte, Strauss, Renan, and the other heads of this school is demoniac hatred of Christ. Why are they for ever attacking him, if, as they claim, all religions are preparative of the advent of this Religion of Humanity? Why can they go into hysterics of admiration over Socrates, Voltaire, and Shakspere, yet foam with fury at the name of Jesus? They will not even credit our Saviour with effecting the slightest moral good in the world, but refer to his blessed religion as a darkness and blight on the human intellect. Surely no true measure for the elevation of humanity would throw aside Christianity. But it is clear that these men have no true love for man. It is only their insufferable pride that will not bend the knee before Christ, or bend it in mockery like Renan and the author of _Ecce Homo_. They cry out, “Son of David, what have we to do with you?” and their cry is that of lost souls. All the infidel literature about Christ that has appeared so abundantly in the past score of years bears traces of this humanitarian spirit. They fain would make out Christ to be a mere man, but they are in this quandary: that he had no “humanitarian” notions. He came to do the will of his Father. He said nothing about the Sublime Humanity, the greatness and glory of this world, the god-like intellect of man, the progress of vast ideas, the universal diffusion of knowledge, the infinite progressiveness of the species, the force of cosmic influences, and the gorgeous future that will dawn for woman. Therefore, worse than paganism, the Religion of Humanity will not erect a statue to him.

Comte, desirous of giving hierarchical form to positivism, invented a worship and a calendar in which were commemorated three hundred and sixty-five “eminent servitors of humanity” in place of the saints of the Catholic Church. He began with Moses and ended with himself. Among the saints were Bichat, Condillac, Gutenberg, and Frederick II. of Prussia. He also invented a public service, a hymnal, and a certain form of worshipping the Sublime Humanity, by which he probably meant himself. He himself adored the Sublime Humanity as embodied and idealized in a very commonplace lady. Guizot says of him that he made repeated attempts to commit suicide, and in his review of positivism seems to think the insanity of its founder a sufficient refutation of his strange opinions. He admits, however, that long before Comte’s death his religion had made considerable progress in France and in England, where it was enthusiastically embraced by two men who, one would suppose, would be the last to adopt a fantastic creed—J. S. Mill and Wm. Hartpole Lecky, the historian of rationalism.

Toning down the sublimities of the irrepressible Comte, and not deigning to admit his hierarchy or his saints—which, to say the truth, smacked too much of Catholicity—the positivists of England and America contented themselves with a denial of all supernatural religion, and announced with a flourish of trumpets the infinite perfectibility of the human race, the glory of humanity, the cosmic emotion which is the deepest religious feeling of humanity, and the superiority of aggregate immortality to a private or personal existence after death. Man, very much in the abstract, was exalted to the throne of the Deity. All this blatant puffing of modern progress, development, and evolution is kept up by these man-worshippers. The spirit is the spirit of pride. But it must in justice be said of Mr. Frothingham that he is not so enthusiastic in the cause of humanity as he might be. His book on the subject is quite tame when contrasted, say, with Comte’s _Woman and Priest_. He does not gush enough, and he has not the irreverent boldness of his master, Theodore Parker. Mr. Frothingham is not by any means an emotional man, and this is fatal to his humanitarian progress. Nor is he a deeply-read man even in his own theology, though, to be sure, no sane man would blame him for that defect.

The doctrine of the infinite progressiveness of man is another of those high-sounding phrases that no logic will tolerate. There can be no internal progress in religion. All the scientific discoveries that may be made to the end of time will not have the slightest influence upon one jot or one tittle of revealed truth. Nor will they have any essential or related power over the truths of natural theology, or what is generally known as such. The relations of man to God, the coming of Christ, the establishment and conservation of his church, are truths and facts that can never be changed. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of God shall not pass. This is why the church is so calm when all Protestantism is in a ferment about science. The two spheres of truth, divine and human, supernatural and natural, can never collide. Man may progress in many things, but religion, the Everlasting Yea, as Carlyle calls it, cannot from its very nature change, transform, advance, increase, or diminish. The humanitarians long for the day when there will be no sects and no religious differences. Then the best plan is for all the sects to enter the Catholic Church. They want a religion for man, and surely that religion is the best which God himself made for man.

There is a great deal of speciousness in this cry of progress, culture, and modern enlightenment, and even Catholics are deceived by the spirit of pride, for man from the beginning loved to consider himself a god knowing good from evil. Humanitarianism gains adherents in Catholic countries who would roar with laughter at the idea of turning Protestants. France never forgets those delusive words, liberty, fraternity, and equality, and this religion of humanity has blazoned them over the world. The restlessness under church government, the rational submission which the faith exacts, the lessons of mortification, and the stern portrayal of man which Christianity presents are all influences that tend to the progress of humanitarianism. No man likes to hear the dread truth regarding his slavery to the devil, the necessity of grace, the duty of confessing, and his unutterable weakness. It is these that are the unpalatable truths which spoil the teaching of the Ideal Man, as they call our Saviour. Comte would not suffer him to be enrolled among his saints, perhaps for the reason that St. Frederick the Great of Prussia used to refer to our Lord as _L’Infame_. If there is one truth most saliently brought out in the Gospel, it is that without Christ we can do nothing, and this would never suit the apostles of the infinite progressiveness of the human race.

This latter absurdity, most ridiculous when applied to religion, is not a whit more reasonable as applied to science. There must be a limit. The human mind is not infinite. No doubt we shall continue our improvements in machinery. There can be no vast progress made in literature or art. It seems from the history of the race that our powers are limited, and, though we boast of our great mechanical improvements, Washington Irving said that he would not be surprised if they yet unearthed a locomotive engine from the ruins of Persepolis. Infinite progress would seem to be only a figment of the brain of a poetic humanitarian. It is well known that Don Quixote, who certainly gave himself up to redressing the wrongs of humanity, was peculiarly eloquent upon the charms and perfections of Dulcinea; though the honest old knight, crackbrained though he was, would have crossed himself devoutly at the idea of Dulcinea being a divinity in any other sense than that familiar to true lovers.

* * * * *

The motives for moral action presented by the humanitarian theory are very noble but, alas! very impracticable. While we entirely dissent from the opinion of Bentham and Paley, that selfishness is the guiding principle of our actions—an opinion which is at once an insult and a falsehood—still the vast majority of mankind cannot be influenced by the very airy and sublime notions of our philosophers. Even natural goodness appears to be prompted by heavenly intimations and aids. _Gratia supponit naturam._ Of course a good work, to merit salvation, must be attended with grace from its origin to its consummation. But our humanitarians will not even promise us happiness hereafter, and we know how slim are the chances for happiness in this world. This great humanity for which we must labor is only an abstraction. No doubt a man may have a real and pure love for his fellow-man on merely speculative grounds or through natural kindness of heart; for have we not a Bergh for the brutes? All of us, however, feel how vague and impotent such a feeling must be or is likely to become. Christ unites love of our neighbor with love of God, its reason and cause, and there is a world of sweet philosophy in this precept on which depend the law and the prophets. It is the only motive that has been found fruitful in any age. Charity is a Christian growth. There was not one hospital in pagan Athens or Rome, though there were numerous coteries of eminent philosophers.

From whatever side we view this strange “religion,” its hollowness and absurdity become apparent. Its genesis in a morbid mind clouded at times with insanity, and its elaboration in other morally unbalanced intellects, awaken at the outset doubts of its coherency. The vagueness of its formulas wearies and confounds the critic. It has no philosophical structure, and, we are afraid, no theological results. Its literature is marked with weak sentiment and an effusive love and praise of mere naturalism—we were going to say mere animalism—which cannot hold any mind that has a perception of the true dignity and exaltation of human nature as created by God and redeemed by his only Son. So far as we are aware, it has exerted no appreciable influence upon the morality of the world, and its failure to commend itself generally to the humanity it so loudly praises would indicate that men perceive its intrinsic weakness and ineptitudes.

We know that many Protestants condemn and detest this creed as heartily as does the church, which in simple and noble language condemned it in the very first session of the Vatican Council. But we cannot help thinking that Protestantism has had much to do in bringing the monster to birth. It is the logical evolution of Protestant right of private judgment, of personal independence of the doctrinal authority of the church, and of unwise tolerance of all sorts of mischievous religious vagaries. Stripped, of all disguises and forced to speak in true tones, this deified man of the Religion of Humanity is the Antichrist, setting himself up as God and claiming to be God. It is the apotheosis of man, who renews the folly of building a tower of pride in which he may secure himself against the wrath of the Eternal. But before the face of His wrath who can abide? It will not do to speak of the Omniscient as the Unknowable or the Unknowing.

The worst feature of this _placitum_ is that it is militant and aggressive. Comte, as we have said, established a regular system of worship, and what passes under the more respectable name of Unitarianism is really formulated positivism. We should care little for it, did it openly profess its origin and purpose, but it works under a false name and has no scruples about deceiving the confiding and unwary. The Boston _Index_ would be highly indignant if asked to defend Comte’s calendar of saints and to explain the _culte_ of the Sublime Humanity; and George Eliot places in the mouth of Daniel Deronda the most exquisite praise and appreciation of the Hebrew creed. Comte says that the day advances when we shall worship no being inferior to man; and as no man is very much disposed to think another greater than himself, especially under the religious teachings which we have analyzed, each of us will act practically upon Satan’s declaration to Eve, “You shall be as God.”

There is no doubt that as the doctrinal authority of Protestantism fades away year by year, this pronounced individualism will more boldly assert itself. The gospel of vulgar and intense selfishness will triumph, and the worst phases of paganism will return. St. Paul complains of the heathens that they were without affection, and this was because of their creed. The spirit of modern infidelity hates and despises the poor, the ignorant, and, like the Spartans of old, would soon dispose of the sick, the lame, and the blind. Herbert Spencer luckily is no philosopher, though he labors hard to synthetize humanitarianism. Should this monstrous parody on religion ever take clear and scientific form, all traces of faith and charity in Protestantism will disappear. Fetichism itself would be better than this horrible worship and deification of selfishness. If a man believes in anything outside of himself as something diviner and better than he, there is hope for him; but woe to him and to his neighbor when he enthrones himself upon an altar and worships his humanity. It is to be hoped that much of the excessive laudation of ourselves in these days springs from no deeper source than an overweening opinion of our abilities. It may be only vanity. It may not be spiritual and intellectual pride. This question we leave to the reflection of our readers, with a concluding remark that all exaltation of the merely natural powers of the human intellect is attended with extreme danger to moral sanity. The man who has cast off the yoke of the church, the traditions of his race, and the honest suggestions of his conscience has already joined the ranks of the arch-deceiver who first flattered us with hopes of divinity, and now tempts us with unbounded visions of the enlightenment of the world, social progress, the political amelioration of the human race, the downfall of all tyranny in church and state, and the splendid advent of the coming man; but he only lures us to that awful destruction which hurled him from heaven because of the usurping thought, “I will become like unto the Most High.”

Footnote 132:

1. _Gottheit, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit._ Von L. A. Feuerbach. Leipzig.

2. _The Essence of Christianity._ Idem. Translated by George Eliot. London.

3. _The Religion of Humanity._ By O. B. Frothingham. New York.

Footnote 133:

_Hecuba._

SONNET. UNCONSCIOUS FACULTIES.

Say, do the mighty winds in silence sweep The crystal breadth of ocean’s quivering plane? The unmeasured forests, quickening in their sleep, Breathe they no sound, or breathe that sound in vain? Say, can our compass small of ear and brain With Nature’s boundless concords measure keep? Not so! _Her_ lyre, we know, hath tones too deep, Too high, for man to hear, or to sustain. Nor doubt that likewise in this soul of ours Functions and faculties there work alway Below the level of our conscious powers; And chords whose music—were there aught to wake Its echoes ’mid that inner world—would shake To dust our tenement of mortal clay.

PEARL

BY KATHLEEN O’MEARA, AUTHOR OF “IZA’S STORY,” “A SALON IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE,” “ARE YOU MY WIFE?” ETC.